Meeting Roger and Olga
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
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260
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Trip End
Sep 02, 2009
Zoetermeer, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Saturday, July 4, 2009
We head into Zoetemeer to find Roger's place. We park in an underground parking as he says he lives on a pedestrian street. We find the street and just had to look for the apartment number.
Roger looks as handsome as ever and I think just as thrilled to see us as we him. We met his beautiful bride Olga. We sat on the balcony and chatted until Olga had to go for her driving lesson. We had an enjoyable morning chatting about our trip, Roger and Olga’s meeting, Rogers work and Olga’s MBA in Holland. We didn’t even get around to hearing about their wedding, but I am sure we will with pictures.
We then went down to a sidewalk café for lunch and Olga joined us when her lesson was done
Band on the Pedestrian Street
. It was an enjoyable morning and we will keep in touch with them.Our plan is to go into Amsterdam, find a campground and begin our tour from there. We follow the GPS into Amsterdam city. It is not a car friendly city. It has very few parking spots and the ones there are, are expensive to use. Most certainly a bike friendly city, lots of them coming, going and parked! It is incredibly busy with tourists too! We stopped at a hotel to ask if they knew where the campground was, she checked the information on the internet and yes it is correct. There were a lot of young Asian backpackers here, so I asked if she was a hostel and she said not, hotel. I asked what the rate for a night for two would be and she said 120 Euros! WOW! Now that is expensive and it is an older hotel, might have 1 or 2 stars at the most.
It was a challenge getting close to the area of the Central Station, which we never made, and never found a tourist information office at all. The tunnel to the campground in the city was closed and it seemed impossible for the GPS to find us an alternate route. We were getting hot and frustrated by it all.
I found an 'information’ mark on the map out by the Van Gogh museum, so we went there
Having Lunch
. Len stayed with the car (to avoid paying for parking) and I went looking for it. What it really is, is, a big red capital I and the word Amsterdam after it in white. A great photo op in a nice park, but not what I was looking for. I went into a small temp. trailer and asked if they were information, they weren’t, but the 2 women were very eager and willing to help me find the campground out of town. She even telephoned to make sure they had a spot for us. Away we went following her directions. It got us to the little town of Amstelveen, now to find the campground. We went around and around, stopped and asked and eventually found the signs to the campground. We stopped at a Chinese Restaurant for directions, oops, we turned left too soon, should have turned right and he came running after us to make sure we went the correct way. Not too hard to find us as we had hit a dead end street and had to go back the other way.
It took us 4 hours in total from the time we entered Amsterdam until we found the campground. It was nice, cheap, new washrooms and we were happy to be here.
So we are at Camping Amsterdamse Bos in Amstelveen. A bit out of the city, but we can take a bus and the metro into town. We were more than happy with our time there. They have a lot of backpackers come to their mobile dorms. There is a well supplied kitchen, no fridge, to use and it is kept clean and well stocked with cloths, soap, scrubbers, etc. The washrooms are new, have seats, take your own toilette paper, and each "sanitary" as they are called have a washer and dryer in them.
