Schaepkens Van St. Fyt Hotel Valkenburg

... viral infection or enteritis that was acting very atypically (ie. no vomitting or diahorrea, just heaps of pain), and they kept me in the hospital to recover and to keep an eye on me. They only let me out this afternoon (Friday). Other than the complete hell of having to convince the insurance compâny that what I had was not pre-existing when I left Australia, and that they needed to give a guarantee to pay before I left the hospital, because I would not otherwise be able to find ...

(Steve)

Before heading off on our trip, I contacted some of our relatives in Holland and they invited us to spend a few nights with them. So whilst in the Netherlands we stayed with two families and were treated very well, enjoying home cooked meals, fantastic dutch beer and good company. We first travelled to Boukoul to stay with Peter, Ingeborg (Dad's cousin) and their family Maud(14), Hugo(12) and Twan(10).
Arriving in Roermond late in the ...

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

... of course), and a pillow for 107 Euro. About as good a deal as I could get!

I was thinking about trying to get the mattress on the bus, because I couldn't get ahold of Nil on her cell phone, but then luckily I reached her at home. She immediately came to the mattress store and helped me load the purchases in the car. I thanked her up and down, needless to say. She then had to go to a meeting so I took the bus home. I sat next to this ...

... 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.

... on.

We stopped at one point, because the roadbook wasn't very clear, at which point Gaz and Charlotte came up behind us. They had been left behind by the V8s, as they were in a Series vehicle, so we said we'd stick with them.
At this point, Kieran noticed a strange noise from our engine, which was duly investigated by James. It was diagnosed as the fan belt tensioning pulley. But we didn't do anything about it at the time.

... to commemorate a series of holy events; according to sacred Hindu text, Deepavali is the day when goddess Sakhti became the left half of Lord Shiva and appeared as Ardhanarishvara. Here in Malaysia, Deepavali is welcomed with joy and, of course, an array of delicious Indian food. Von Vision KL. Da bin ich ja mal gespannt... Bis zum nächsten Mal aus KL!

... expensive shopping bags. The main square, has an underground bike park beside the underground car park, and Craig tells me that one of the disused churches has been converted to a bike park as well. I enjoyed the bicycling, and seeing the city and I am looking happily to heading out with the Howells for a stroll on Saturday when I get back from Bretigny. Then I am sending Craig and Cheryl out for dinner, while I mind the girls and finish off updating my report.

... edge of the town centre there were a number of different animal statues set around the bottom of an old concrete enclosure. After coming across a dog-like creature with a striped back, we jokingly pronounced it to be a Tasmanian Tiger, looking up at us in recognition of spotting two of his own. Despite the uncanny resemblance we dismissed it as something more European, like a fox or a wolf or something, until with ...

Dit is de start van een nieuw leven! Een jaar lang weg uit de omgeving die voor mij gedurende 18 jaar zo bekend is geworden. Die bekende omgeving ga ik nu verlaten en ga nieuwe horizonten opzoeken. Spannend? Eng? Ik denk een beetje van beiden. Maar dat wil niet zeggen dat ik het niet meer zie zitten.

De laatste dagen zijn hier wel wat vreemd geweest, de dag komt ook zo dichtbij. Afscheidsfeestje is geweest voor vrienden en familie. Want ik ga ...