Being a tourist in your own country… who would have thought it could be so much fun!? And so interesting! Showing and driving around Sally in Holland made me realise Holland is quite the pretty little country! Ok, you shouldn’t mind the weather and the traffic jams, but besides that… Quite amazing! A small recap (in random order) of the places we have visited and things we have done.

The keukenhof  
The worlds largest annual open-air flower exhibition, the keukenhof, is just 4km from my home town, but for the nearly 30 years I have been living on this planet, I never visited the place. Quite a mistake as I found out yesterday… There is so many flower fields in the area I live, it never really appealed to me to go to see even more flowers and pay money for that. But I can’t be more happy I finally went, because it’s a truly beautiful park! Amazing to see such different and beautiful colours everywhere, and the lovely smell of the flowers… oi… Just amazing!

Madurodam  
Madurodam is an amusement park with a miniature version of Holland. Scale models of famous buildings, constructions and sights. I had joyful memories of the place from when I was a kid, but it became quickly clear that the world looks different through kids eyes then through grownup eyes… The park was quite a disappointment… Expensive, small (or at least much smaller then in my memories) and not very well taken care off. Maybe fun for kids, but it doesn’t excite me anymore.

Queen’s Day  
A classic day in Holland on the 30th of April: Queen’s Day. The whole country colours orange and there is a massive amount of people on the streets of Amsterdam that day. Good fun! And quite an experience to see the most awkward orange outfits!

Zeeland/Deltaworks  
A visit to Zeeland, in the south-west of Holland, was a bit of a gamble. I had never visited that part of Holland, and what could we expect out of the mussel-season? Well, I got pleasantly surprised. Ok, it might be a bit boring… Country side, country side and more country side. But it’s pretty country side. And home of hundreds of pheasants! The Deltaworks are very impressive, but in the end you are still looking at dams and bridges. Guess you have to like that, or like to be surprised like me! ;-)

The Zaanse Schans  
Windmills! Very Dutch. Never knew there are so many in my country. I know Holland is famous for it, but when you don’t really look for them, you accept them as being normal in the landscape. But when paying attention you will see them everywhere! From country side to the centre of big cities! The most famous stretch of windmills must be The Zaanse Schans. Just a short ride from Amsterdam and a very popular spot for many, many tourists!

Traditional Dutch food  
You can’t leave the country without having tried some of the Dutch traditional sweets, snacks or other types of food. Only the die hards will probably try and like the raw herring (remember: always by the tail and don’t forget the onions!), but there is plenty of things to try for the sweet tooth’s, like soesjes, stroopwafels, gevulde koeken and not really Dutch, but we claim them anyway: Balisto’s! :-) At dinner try “the Triple“, an Indonesian rice table (what we call “Chinese” in Holland) and of course a chicken Saté with fried potatoes.

Don’t leave Holland without doing/trying this!    Very interesting!    Good fun    Worth doing    If you are desperate    Don’t do it!

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The triple. We never thought it was possible… We tried. We failed. We tried again. We failed again. But since Saturday evening we know it can be done!! Sally came all the way from Down Under, to dust of Julius Caesar’ famous “Veni, vidi, vici”; She came, saw and conquered like only Julius was able to do in his good days. Hope I am allowed to say Julius… even though I didn’t shoot marbles with him! ;-)

The triple is for us the ultimate meal at the Resident, and contains the following:

Bastiaan and I tried to follow in Sally’s determined lead (I even finished the Spare Ribs in record time!!) but yet again stranded halfway through the Soes… I guess we just miss that Australian determination to make it to the end… And making it even more impressive was the fact that Sally ate more then half of her salad along the way! Where we got the evil eye from the waitress for only eating one slice of cucumber and not touching the rest of the salad! :-)

For all of you sportfans out there who now feel comfortable, and think about giving it a try, be careful!! Although it has been proven it can be done, that doesn’t mean it’s easy! Even Sally was struggling through the last bites of the soes and didn’t feel her best after dinner… But again, nothing but respect for this Ozzie Ace! After that performance I even guess she had the right to call me a pathetic wuss for not finishing my soes! ;-)

A proud Ozzie chick!

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The lovely weekends go by quickly in Barcelona and without an Internet-connection it’s sometimes a bit hard to keep up with the events. But have found a new and improved Internet connection last Sunday, so it should be at least a bit easier now to keep up.

From the 16th of January until the 19th, Mette was visiting and it was a really fun and great weekend! :-) As mentioned already we went and see the football, took the tourist bus around town for 2 days to see most interesting attractions and sights, ate tapas, drank cappo’s at Starbucks, did the tourist walk through Camp Nou and the FC Barcelona museum, and… showed Snoop around! :-)

Mette had brought our “foster child” and travelling friend Bunnysuit Snoopy to Barcelona as well. Well, how could she not… Ever since we found him, abandoned in the bushes close to St. Kilda in Melbourne, Australia, we took him on our travelling journeys and made pictures with him. Unfortunately his website is down at the moment, but if I get to it, I will try to get it up again. Especially now we have some new fun pictures of him:

At Montjuic		At Starbucks		At Sagrada Familia		Being naughty

At Parc Guell		Snoop Dog		At Camp Nou		Watching football

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Oh my! How fast two weeks can pass by. Just amazing. I got back last week from a wonderful holiday in Denmark and Sweden! Ok, it wasn’t that kind of holiday where you get totally relaxed from sitting at the waterside with a good book, working on a tan and where the hardest labor is zipping a fruity cocktail, but that wasn’t to be expected seeing the busy schedule.

It all started with a long but fast drive to København. With a two stop strategy, just about 1000km in 8 hours, was surprisingly fast to me as well. Could have been a bit faster if I wouldn’t have run out of gas just before the 2nd pit stop… There were some scary moments when the tank was almost empty and the promised petrol-station along the highway didn’t show up… I had no choise other then to take an exit into Germany to search for a gas-station in a tiny village. It got close, but luckily I made it! :-) Shouldn’t have been much further, seeing I put in over 39.5 liters where the gas tank of the car only holds 40… Pffff… :-)

København was as lovely as ever. It was great to see my roommate Kevin Arnold again, even though he has a habit of waking me up for some candy every day around 05.00 in the morning… But he is so sweet you forgive him very easily for that! :-)
Besides that the stay was quite relaxing. Cappo’s in the afternoon and a barbie in the park, drinking wine and beer and playing crocket in the evening. That must be what life is all about! ;-)

As I brought my bike, I also took it for a ride along the Danish coastline from København to Helsingør. A truely great fun ride! Beautiful scenery and with the road being rather flat with every now and then a short climb made it a bit challenging as well. Wasn’t to sure what to think about Danish cyclists when two people were drafting in my wheel for quite some time and not taking the lead… A bit frustrating and annoying, until the woman who we picked up last took the lead for a bit as well! Lovely! So instead of bad feelings towards Danish cyclists, an instant love for female Danish cyclists was born! Does anyone know if Rasmussen has a cute sister? ;-)

After København the trip took me to the beautiful little island of Hven (or Ven, but I go with the preferred old school spelling) just between Denmark and Sweden. Here I had to pick up the key to Jonas’ apartment I would be staying at in Stockholm and would combine that with the good fun of seeing Jonas again. We cycled a bit on the island, enjoyed the views of the pretty island and Denmark on the horizon, had a lovely dinner before I felt really old at some pre-party with only 18 year olds and more at place later, drinking at one of the few pubs on the island. I was a bit hang over and definitely not ready for the things that were about to happen the next morning… The short version would sound like: dehydration, fainting, busted eyebrow, boogie on the floor, island nurse and being stitched on the porch. Luckily I was only the frontrow slightly traumatized spectator in all that! :-) Either way all that excitement caused me not to take my planned picture taking trip along the island, so I will definitely have to visit the island again!

A 6 hour drive later I was back in Stockholm again. And being back in Stockholm felt like it always feels after having been there such a long time over the last couple of years. I felt like being home. And meeting up with all the special people just makes it such great fun to be there, and sad at the same time for not being there more often… If weeks can fly by, this one surely did! Lunch meetings, dinner meetings, picknick in the Archipelago, more lovely dinners… So much to do, and so little time…

Went cycling twice in and around Stockholm. One trip to Ösmo, on a to hot day, with a beautiful but to challenging ride back and the most horrible moment to run out of water… I have never in my life drank a can of coke quicker then when I finally found a place with some refreshments… But all in all it was a great ride! And the second ride was a mountainbike ride with Kim in and around Sollentuna which was just all fun!

On the way back the difference between driving alone and driving with someone next to you came chokingly clear… I could give Johanna a ride to her sister and sambo in Linköping and that was by far the fastest driving of the whole trip. Not measured by the number of km’s in time, but purely by how long the drive felt… The two hour drive almost felt like just 15 minutes… Amazing… what lovely company in the car can do! ;-)

After a very nice coffee break at Johanna’s sisters strawberry farm, where the coffee was served with strawberry cake and strawberry muffins, what else could I have expected?, the journey continued to Martin in Helsingborg down in the south of Sweden. Again to be surprised by the kindness of the people I was visiting. Martin’s parents were just the kindest and sweetest people you can imagine. Waiting for me with dinner when I arrived, eating early when I had to leave early and offering me a comfy bed to sleep in during the night… Just wonderful…

Got to see a bit of Helsingborg and had a nice walk with Martin and his family to the Ramlösa water spring, very close to his parents home. Walked through a lovely park, tasted some of the water (bit earthy taste) straight from the spring and met some very arrogant ducks. After a nice little cycling ride through the area it was time to continue the journey to København again. The boat from Helsingborg to Helsingør got me to København in just over 45 minutes. Impossible according to Martin’s dad, but I guess me just needing to go a little past Lyngby, instead of down town København saved me quite some time.

The stay in København was short this time, but therefore not less fun. Just one great disappointment this time… they don’t sell big “welcome home” balloons at Copenhagen airport… A big shame! Or a business opportunity? Well both, but it left me empty handed when welcoming Mette and her sister back from a R.E.M. concert in London.

After an always sad goodbye from København, the long drive home awaitened. Luckily it went without any problems and I was home 8 hours later. Home again. Praising myself to be very lucky to know so many fine and sweet people. I almost got to meet everyone I wanted to see. Some were occupied elsewhere and some I will definitely see soon!

Thank you all for a great time! :-)

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A week in the south of France. What a life. Briljant weather, never forcing the issue, opening the first rose every day at 1600, a daily barbeque, French bread with great herb butter, fresh croissants and pain du chocolate’s, cycling in beautiful surroundings… how could you not enjoy it?

So enjoying we did. First day started with a lunch in St. Tropez, followed by our first little ride in the area. When we booked the holiday house we had no clue about how the area would suite cycling… we got lucky! Very lucky! When we arrived we drove through the thick fog over, what we believed was, quite a big hill. That proved to be right. The whole area inland from Cogolin was full of small mountains. Very quite roads and the climbs were not to steep, so briljant for cycling!
Already on day one it became clear that I was the better climber and Bastiaan was better on the flat. Or in other words… I annoyed him greatly when cycling uphill and making little movies and pictures of him at the same time… But I also struggled on the flat to keep his wheel… when he was powering through full headwind with 35 to 40 km/h!!! He kept wondering why I never took over the lead while I was just giving everything to stay in his wheel!! :-)

This was Bastiaan’s first reaction on top of the first climb of the 2nd day, the Col du Perier (350m). This was our first real climb and good for at least 6 km of climbing!

First reaction! (8.0 MB)

The tone was set for that day. Two more climbs would follow. In the downhill after the second climb (Col de Taillude, 411m) I got a little bit carried away… Well a little… maybe I should say “a lot”… It was a long downhill with speeds constantly about 50 km/h and not long after we started the decent, we caught up with a car that was also going downhill. Because of many years of watching cycling on TV, I knew someone on a bike goes quicker downhill then a car, so I only thought one thing: “I have to pass it!”. And I did. On a little less bendy piece I didn’t hesitated and passed the car! Totally crazy move if I think back of it… I could hardly see if someone was coming up the hill, plus speeds were close to 60… Strange maybe, as I didn’t think about that at all at that moment. Just that I was faster and had to pass it.

The last, Col de Babaou (414m), was a lovely climb. Very steady grade so after finding a good climbing rhythm it was a nice ride to the top. Even Bastiaan looked really good on this one! On this one… it did cost him a lot of energy and the downhill after the climb and 22 km flat roads back towards Cogolin took his toll… When trying to be funny and making pictures behind my back, I got a well deserved finger! :-)

A deserved finger! :-)		Cogolin

Besides the cycling, time was mainly killed by relaxing. Just relaxing. Reading books, lying in the sun. Here some lovely views:

Reading a book		Newspaper and rose

Taking different routes in the area, took us over different hills as well. And sometimes the grade on a climb could change rather drastically, like in this turn:

Steep turn (4.0 MB)

Or, as we saw in Bastiaan’s last ride (his “jour sans”, when his left knee stopped working!) sometimes hills would pop up which even couldn’t be found on any map, but turned out to be very, very steep!!! And when cycling with one leg, they are very though:

Not a col! (8.6 MB)		The only day with some clouds

What didn’t help was the fact that his “jour sans” was on the worst day in Cogolin. The day started out as beautiful as all the others, but in the early afternoon we could already see the clouds in the distance… I pushed to go cycling either way and it turned out to be a mistake… Luckily the ride we choose (to the Col de Collebasse, 131m) wasn’t that long, although going downhill with 50+ km/h on super small tires on wet roads with unknown corners wasn’t the most pleasant feeling… but a long warm shower makes up for a lot! :-) Not to mention the barbeque and rose in the evening! :-)

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The last day in Cogolin was the day of the queens ride! A stage that would take us to the “roof” of the holiday, the Notre Dame des Anges at 780 meters. Or us… the day before the stage was planned, Bastiaan had a “jour sans” and decided not to cycle but ride the first following car. A wise decision as the queens ride would take us over 5 climbs.
The weather was briljant when leaving Cogolin. Morale was good and the first climb started out really well! The average speed was about 22 or 23 km/h. Until about 1 km from the top… There the climb got a bit more steep and stupidly I tried to reach to top at the pace I set earlier in the climb… a mistake… and I paid dearly for that mistake the last couple of hundred meters… Ouch… Knowing I only just begun and had 4 more climbs to do, morale took a big hit… Not helped by a Dutch couple that was also cycling in the area and at the top told me it was not a good day to cycle up the Notre Dame des Anges. Way to hot. But of course I was welcome to try.
After a short downhill, I rode up the next climb together with the Dutch woman. She rode a very relax tempo and at that pace I could ride all day! Before I knew it we reach the top of the second col. Another fast downhill. I left the Dutch couple behind when turning right towards the next climb. From this point it was only climbing for the next 15 km. There was not turning back now, the only way was up. I choose a lighter gear with a much faster peddling pace. A smart decision, as from there on the ride to the top became much easier. Pace went up and down but was always around 20 km/h and support was always there from the following car! On the first climb I got annoyed by my helmet, put up my hand and could throw it into the car. On the start of this climb I wanted to get rid of my helmet again, put up my hand but couldn’t be bothered to wait for Bastiaan to catch up in the car and just threw the helmet in the grass at the side of the road! :-)

Raining sunbeams! (3.6 MB)

When reaching the top of the 3rd climb (Col des Fourches at 535 meter) morale was at an all-time-high! Ok, I could definitely feel the effort in my legs, but I wouldn’t quite this close to the top! After a very short decent, the climb up to the Notre Dame des Anges started! Easy at first, but quite quickly the climb got really steep! Now it was serious climbing:

Serious climbing! (4.9 MB)

The pace dropped quite a lot the last couple of kilometers, but the feeling of being able to reach the top made even the pain in my legs disappear for a while. The last kilometer I rode with a big smile on my face! I was gonne reach the top for sure! :-) And I did, this is how my last meters looked:

Reaching the top! (15.8 MB)		A wide view

After a look around at the top of the Notre Dame des Anges and enjoying the far and beautiful view, it was time to go on again. The decent back to the top of the Col des Fourches went quite smoothly, but the next 9 kilometer downhill were just horrible… all downhill’s up to that moment were just great fun! 50+ km/h, fast corners, slow corners, good roads, good fun! But these 9 kilometers downhill were over a very bad road… unbelievable bumpy… After just a couple of kilometers my hands, arms, back… everything started hurting… This sucked big time… Downhill should be fun, not painful! :-|
When the 9 km were finally over, a long straight followed. 13 km with the wind in the back! That was very welcome. I could definitely feel the effort of the 4 climbs in my legs already.

The last climb was a struggle. A busy road, so the need to be very concentrated all the time. Some parts turned and were full against the wind, making the struggle even harder… Luckily I had a good moment halfway through the climb and was able to accelerate a little bit and keep the new pace until the top. Out of water at the start of the climb I tossed my water bottle to Bastiaan half way on the climb with the message for him to fill it up! He tried, but with his parking problems in the little village and the time it took to find a supermarket and buy a couple of bottles of water, I had passed him and was already in the 10 km full speed downhill (55+ km/h!!) and he could never catch up with me again. The last bit was pure joy! 81.82 km in 3 hours and 12 minutes and in lovely hot weather! I made it!!! :-)

The queens ride route

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Hero’s are not found all over the place, but I have found one worth mentioning! :-) A hero of the road. Mad Max style.
Last week was the worst snow in Holland for probably the last 15 years. So all people who don’t have a garage spend the first 10 minutes in the morning removing snow and ice from the car windows. Well… not all. Some hero’s drive away with any form of snow or ice removal at all! My good friend Bastiaan is a hero like that. He refuses any form of ice scratching, as it could damage the cars windows. His usual procedure is to let the car run stationary for about 15 minutes, use the window wiper once and drive away. Yesterday before we played squash he took his girlfriend, Judith, to her job at the airport, and while she was finishing her breakfast inside, he went ahead to warm up the car, and send me these two, already classic, pictures (click to enlarge):

And, the pictures were accompanied by the legendary text:

“The car was covered in snow again this morning! :-D At the intersection I had to step out to see if there was someone coming from the right :-)))”

*hahahahaha* The pictures were taken after when the car was parked in front of the house, not at it’s original parking place! So he already drove it around the block with the car looking like that! Truly amazing, or totally insane like Judith likes to refer to it, that someone has the courage to drive a car this way.
I found myself in a similar situation twice last week, but I don’t have enough patience to just sit in the car, let it run stationary and wait 15 minutes for everything to de-ice… so I do get out, remove the ice and snow from the front and left side-window, the bare essential from the left front so I can see the right side mirror and that makes me ready to go. Rear window I leave for the rear window heating. Why else would we have rear window heating? ;-)
Visibility is not optimal, but it’s doable. And other then Bastiaan I can actually look right and left and see something! I know, not much heroic driving in that. Bastiaan is a talented driver, so I can only pay my respect and silently hope he is wearing his seatbelt! ;-)

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To give me some new inspiration because I am feeling tired these days, sweet Kasia send me some beautiful pictures by email today!! No clue where she found them, but they are absolutely gorgeous! I just surfed to the World Press Photo website, as I thought she found them there and I wanted to link them so other people could see them too, but noop… they are not from there… or at least I can’t find them there… But well, I am sure she will tell me some day where she found them! Either way, it did cheer me up big time! So yet again: thank you, thank you, thank you!! :-)

My 3 favorites:

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