Hotel Vue des Montagnes Terblijt

... Inside there was a Coffee shop bar that sold the usual range of drinks as well as papers,lighters etc. The 'exotic wares' were dispensed through cashier style windows at the back of the shop, screens above the windows showed what types of weed/hash are available and giving their price per gram, I picked up a gram of 'Pollen Gold' hash (Pollen has always been my favourite) and then got a coffee and mineral water and headed through to the ...

... to reach the train in around 8 days as the weather forecasts the first snow (other than showers) around the 18th (almost universally at this longitude it seems). On the way I will make a day trip to Luxembourg although not spend the night there as it is apparently very expensive - what else do you expect from the only Grand Duchy in the world?
Everything looked solid, until as I was arranging my stuff it started raining, this was not unexpected as today was ...

... to play Oware, the African game I brought with me from Ghana. After a delicious stroganoff stew lunch, I went for a wander to the apartment complex pool, had a bit of a swim (the day was 22 degrees celcius or so), then lay in the sun writing my journal.

On Monday of this week, I left early to catch my flight to Belgium. Before I left Australia, I was informed by the Chinese embassy that it was too early to get a visa for China, since they are only valid for 2 months, and I ...

... for some hay. On the way home we dropped by a bakery and picked up some traditional dutch pies (apple, custard and berry) which looked exactly like the pies grandma makes! I had multiple pieces of each.
The next day was a Saturday so we headed into Valkenburg for lunch and We all had a go on the Rodelbahn (think go carts mixed with bobsledding) and went on a tour of an old coal mine - one of the last to be closed in the area and now only open for tours. My ...

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.

Once in Elsloo, we stopped to find postcards (having completely missed the observations again), only to find that the only card shop was closed that afternoon.

Up the road a bit, and Kieran was dropping a card into the door of a Landy enthusiast they had met on the recce. The guy turned up at that moment, and so we were invited in for a refreshing cold drink. The Landyprikkers overtook us at that point, and went on their way. We then ...

... Cup is being held in Germany !!! soo needless to say that there were no accomodations left in the city.... well we searched and we searched and we finally found a cheap hotel room in Aachen.. its a smaller town about an hour train ride from the city... So here is what we did... WE took a flight from Gdansk Poland to Cologne Germany... took a train to the main station and then a train to Aachen... well ...

... amazement we saw that the sign on the black iron fence above the enclosure confirmed it was indeed a ‘Tasmaanse Buidelwolf’.

Perhaps in a bid to prevent the Dutch caging us up like our presumed-extinct local friend, we decided to flee from the Netherlands entirely, though just for the rest of the day. After hiring bicycles we had barely pedalled our way out of the western edge of the town before ...

... je moest het maar iets nodig hebben en het thuis hebben laten liggen.

Maar zo, ik vertrek! Ik ga genieten van mijn jaar in het buitenland, aan het strand, tussen de palmbomen, de blauwe zee. Zoals ik het opnoem lijkt het wel een droomvakantie. Maar vergeet niet: de nieuwe taal, nieuwe mensen, nieuwe gewoonten, nieuwe omgeving, ... Hier lijkt het een avontuur dat ik absoluut niet wil vergeten.

Later meer.

Groetjes Stefanie