De la Ruine Valkenburg

... in the room' hitherto but not this time so if you are offended by stories of legal drug taking then you might want to tune back in next paragraph: This was definitely the swankiest coffee shop I had ever been in. In the foyer there were glass electric barriers one in one out and the guy on the door scanned my passport before letting me through. Not at all like Amsterdam where they just have a laminated menu on the bar, but I kinda liked it ...

... at 23 euros (I can't keep this up forever) but it was for a good cause. I stowed my bike and headed up to the room. My new roommate was a girl who was doing an Intership in Eindhoven but here for an exam tomorrow. We chatted briefly but I was making a beeline for the shower and she left while I was in there.
I got ready and was out of the door by 530 armed with an intent to remodel my luggage solutions and perhaps grab some food (I still hadn't tried anything Dutch).

... decided that my appendix, gall bladder, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, lungs and heart were all OK, the doctors decided that I should stay the night for observation. I should say that my pain had continued to worsen throughout the day to the point where, whenever I had to lie flat for a CT or for them to poke at me, I would scream in pain (sorry mum!). I had also eaten nothing all day, and drunk almost nothing but the contrast liquid, and had no pain killers. So to say that ...

... old house, and a few other local sights. We stopped by the stables and said hello to Maud's horse as well as riding past the kids' schools. It was quite sunny so we stopped for lunch at a cafe and ate outdoors looking at the river. I let Hugo choose what I should eat and so I experienced 'Frikandel' - a kind of deep fried sausage. I asked what was in it but they refused to tell me until after I ate it. Suffice to say I felt as if I could get home at a brisk ...

During our stay in Spa we had the most scary, horrible, unpleasant experience ever in a restaurant.

The restaurant to avoid is "Le Bouchon Gourmand", the owner does not hesitate to insult customers, lock them into the restaurant if there is a dispute on the bill, and claim more money than is due.

See more on www.bouchon-gourmand.blogspot.com

... They told us we were at the highest point in Belgium, which was somewhere in the Nature Park.

We decided to call it a day for the roadbook, and make a detour to just get into Luxembourg for fuel, and to make sure we 'did' all the countries.

Looking back that detour cost us some time, but did mean we visited Luxembourg, even if it was too dark to see it.

... the country to old estates. Returning back to the center where I shopped to cook Marjan and Roy Thai for dinner. And Thai I cooked them when we returned home! Afterwards we watched 'Collateral' that Marjan had recorded a year earlier from TV. After an hour and a half the film was stopped for a scheduled news broadcast were the recorded stopped. And after that we never saw the end. How frustrating having a film cut short right at the action scene!

... funky and hip. Apart from a leisurely sunset stroll down the riverbank back into town for some limited retail therapy and then the long walk back to the uni campus after our meal, that pretty much sumks up the day. Tomorrow we have an early start to get on to Brussels by train with a change at Liege, so we are hoping that we will be able to get up with both of our alarms set...it is a long walk across town with heavy bags so there is no room for error! Jai x x x x

... 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 ...