Well it has been ages and ages since my last blog from abroad so an update is once again well overdue, nearly 3 months!
The remainder of June continued fairly well the same as it had been, living in Wisbech and working in Dereham. It was a great start to working in the UK and we did manage to see a good piece of Norfolk. One weekend we trooped up to Holt, a quaint little English village in the north of Norfolk, before heading down to have a night in Norwich and then a day on 'the broads'. Not to be interpreted as some kind of pimping weekend, the Norfolk Broads are a series of manmade waterways built for leisure and transport around the district. Tish compared it to the Noosa canals for any of you who have been there - so it was a system of canals about 20-40m across where people sailed, rowed and boated about. The hilarity of our vehicular adventures continued - two inexperienced boaters made for plenty of inexperienced advice from the passenger seat and driving from the steering wheel!
I finished up in Dereham in early July, before our first European trip.
We arranged a loop of Holland with a stop into Brugge, Belgium for the week. Our first stop in Holland was Amsterdam which was, unsurprisingly, good fun. We caught up with Tish's mates Vick and Matt and spent a few days exploring the Amsterdam sights. I was surprised to see how much the 'coffee shops' dominated the city centre. Some reviews of the current leniency toward pot are apparently due, but having seen the tourist culture there, tightening of the laws would have to put a massive dent on the city so it will be interesting to see what they do. We had a wander through the red light district for a bit of window shopping which was an eye opener - judging from the number of window-girls on the phone they may well have been operating some 1900 numbers as well... Impressive efficiency!
The Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House and Van Gogh museum provided some culture for the trip, as well as a trip to Voorschoten, where Matt lived a couple of his teenage years, mixing up the experience a little.
We trained down to Rotterdam for a night which was good fun - in stark contrast to Amsterdam, Rotterdam was a very modern city with very new age architecture. We had a great meal out where the ordering was all done from a touch menu which was projected onto the table from an overhead projector. While we waited we got to play battleships and change the table setting theme with our touch pads. Lots of fun!
From Rotterdam we spent a day out at Kinderdijk, which is the site of the postcard Watermills that Holland is famous for. Despite being a pretty tedious trip out there, it was a great experience and the history of water management along with the grandure of the old mills was fantastic. I was amazed that if it weren't for the water mills and management systems, up to 40% of the country would be underwater.
We scooted on to Brugge after our day at the Watermills. It was about then that we realized my planning had been a little ambitious, with the trains taking longer and distances further than I had really accounted for. We decided to cut our trip at Brugge and spend all of our last 3 days/nights there. It turned out to be a great move, with Brugge having plenty to offer. Booking accommodation over the Internet has proved a bit of a lottery this year but we did very well in Brugge with a B&B owned by a lady named Tine. We had a great room, close to the city and with bikes to use and she lacked us a hamper each day to spread between breakfast and lunch.
Brugge was beautiful. I have heard people talk about cities that are nice 'just to walk around' and never really understood what that meant or how that was possible. Brugge was exactly that though. We had one day of seeing the sights, climbing the Belfry, visiting museums and the inner city nunnery, but otherwise spent our time poking along the streets and enjoying the atmosphere. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of rain but we still managed to find some great food and things to enjoy - a harp concert being amongst them!
We headed straight back to Eindhoven, Holland from Brugge to fly back to England and some more work.
I've only covered up until halfway through July but I think that is ample reading for this blog so I will leave it there and start fresh for my first trip into the north of England.
