Cabane Maastricht

... I put warm cherries on top!"
"Excellent, I thought I might have missed out,it's getting late."
"Ah, I know you coming!" he said cheerily
I got two scoops of Cherries (as it was the end of the night) and a plastic fork that was wholly unfit for the task so after several muinutes the citzens of Maastricht got to witness me consuming a cherry laden waffle by hand - messily, fortunately my friend the waffle man had also given me a napkin ...

... a massive downpour which I barely got out of. This actually made me hopeful as I thought it might be blowing itself out - and so it proved.
Thus it was about 10.15am under clearing skies and some bright sunshine that I headed out of Valkenswaard, armed with a map... I still had some trouble finding the right road but I managed to get on to it with the help of a woman and her snarling dogs. :-) I was at the Belgian border in short order and had my first ...

... I've experienced (like something out of a comedy sketch show, where one character is only capable of saying 'no' - remind me to act it out for you when I get back to Australia), I discovered that, without residency in a European country, it is basically impossible to get a Chinese visa there. I have since spent hours trying to find a loophole, with little success, except the occasional 'If you bring us all your documents, and leave them with us for a week, then maybe we will ...

... 8221; Stew of Death, cough), I only ate a little bit of the meat, thankfully with no digestive repercussions. I also couldn’t help but get a slushie at one of the few market stands still open at 6 and let’s just say I got some pretty interesting looks while partaking in my first brain freeze in a long while. Every now and then, a taste of home is a good thing.

Leben lang und erfolgreich,

Whitney

... it is in an abandoned Dominican Church! Another one has a water mill built into it- a bakery really! After the mill we went for a tour went for a walk on the old city walls to an area near where there were ...

... called a "belgium waffle" which is something that looks like a waffle, has melted sugar at the inside and outside and covered in powdered sugar! It was really good, can't wait to have another one! Beer is interesting in Maastrict, I finally settled on Heinkein as my beer of choice. I tried a Belgium beer called "La Choute" very interesting. Had a fruity taste to it, most likely not going to drink it again ...

... windy laneways with breathtaking views (not just due to the 13 million piggeries scattered through this area) and it kept us away from the Spanish truck drivers' fervent attempts at squashing motorhomes - speaking of pigs! By the way - a quick revision of some of my top twenty drives: coast road Croatia; North York Moors; Pyrenees - Spanish side; Italian Dolomites -anywhere; Derby -sans contact lenses - driving Ivan to bus; to Watson's Bay hotel with ...

Yesterday as planned we arrived to Maastricht, was a quite long hitch, about 520 kms and took us (me and Falk) about 9 hours and 3 rides. So Netherlands...well what to say...I love it here! Well Maastricht as a city is really nice, not expensive at all, you can just walk or cycle everywhere, bad sides: not allowed to drink in the streets ...

... Belgium’s two greatest commodities. After we picked our lunch items from the one-third of the supermarket aisles dedicated to groceries, Amber got side-tracked admiring the second third of the aisles, all dedicated to chocolate, while I went AWOL in the last third of the supermarket, eyeing off all the shelves stocked with beer.

We cycled back the way we came to return once again to The Netherlands ...

... natuurlijk een jaar lang niet zien. Ik vraag me nu al af hoe het gaat zijn als ik terugkom. Vooral naar studiekeuzes van vrienden, hoe mijn broers en zussen er gaan uitzien over een jaar, ...

Ik ben er dus volledig klaar voor. Koffer is gepakt (en ik hoop dat ik ook alles bij heb) en zit niet over de maximum limiet van het gewicht. Moet je ook kunnen: een jaar weggaan en maar 20 kg meenemen. Al zou ik het liefst met al mijn hebben en houden ...