Weekend-trip to Holland
At some time in the Random Thread over at KWA Marina and I decided to go to Holland and visit Sabine. Plan was made and the actual trip happened last weekend.
At 9:46am on Saturday I picked up Marina at the station and we started our road trip. Everything went smoothly for the first 2 hours. I had told Sabine we would arrive between 2pm and 3pm. After our break, still on German soil, our navigation system showed the time of arrival as 2:30pm. Perfect. We crossed the border, said “Hello Holland” and continued our journey. When we had to switch the motorway “Navi” was really eager to tell us where to go right and keep left, and go right and keep left, and keep left. Too eager for me and the Dutch person who refused to let me into his lane to actually GO right. We missed the exit and everything went downhill from there. Apparently there's a lot of construction going on on Dutch motorways, without “Navi's” knowledge. Poor little thing got all confused and told us to turn and go back. Ehm, not a good idea when on the motorway. It sent us one way on the motorway and minutes later the same way back, which made us see the cows and the pretty little windmill twice. We drove through nameless towns and were sent ways which don't exist. Anyway, we finally arrived at Sabine's at 3:30pm. We had a great afternoon together. Did a lot of talking and laughing. And it really felt like we all knew each other forever.
Marina and I then drove on to our hotel. A drive without problems. Thank God. We just threw our stuff into the room and then walked to the metro station. “You just cross the road and walk straight” was the description to the metro station the receptionist gave us. We followed it until: “There're two ways straight. One up, one down. “ We eventually found the way and bought our tickets and took the metro and then took the bus (metro was under construction at some stations). We walked around the city and took some pictures of the pretty houses close to the canals. They are amazing. Then we had Pizza and made our way to Leidseplein. We watched some Firemen on stilts juggling with fire and walked on to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy our souvenirs :P
Afterwards we were too tired to do anything else and made our way back to the Centraal Station. We found it witthout problems. Now only had to find our bus..... 30 mins later we found it. Made it to the hotel by 12:30am. Dead tired.
Sunday morning we got up at 8am. Checked out, left the luggage in the car and the car in the parking lot. Walked to the metro station, took the metro, bus and arrived at the Centraal Station on even another part of it. Well not really at the station, seeing that there were huge constructions going on and the streets leading to the station were blocked.
We went onto a canal ride for an hour. Where we learned that here are 2.500 houseboats in Amsterdam, saw the Anne Frank House, the oldest protestant church in Holland and a prison, which was build into one of the bridges. We also saw the smallest house in the canal streets. Then we made our way to the palace and had some Poffertjes for breakfast. We then walked to the only swimming flower market and got some souvenirs for our families. Afterwards we had lunch at Subway and made our way back to the bus, which we again had to look for, now that it couldn't go to the station. Found it rather quickly and went back to our metro station.
Sabine gave us some tips for the trip which included eating, raw haring with onions (we both decided to skip this), poffertjes (our breakfast) and a kroket. We did find a snackbar to try a kroket so far but when we exited the metro station to walk back to the hotel we found it and tried one. We had a “Vleeskroket” and I was very proud that I figured out that Vlees is the word for meat. At least this way we knew what we were eating :P
At 4pm we drove back to Germany. Both of us hoping we would make it over the boarder with...no, we didn't smuggle pot....with not too much gas left in the tank. We refused to get gas in Holland, coz even though it's very expensive in Germany already, we were shocked by the 1.55€/liter. Seeing the border and crossing it made us very happy, since we were now driving on reserve already. But then we saw the sign and the “dum, dum, dum,” music started playing in our heads. “Next gas station in 98km”. We were not going to make this.
We decided to leave the motorway when we saw a village/town near by and got gas there, even cheaper for that matter. From there on everything went good and we made it home. I brought Marina to the station and we said our goodbyes. When I started walking away from the platform a woman was complaining about the stairs and that a ramp would be good and she was talking to me, coz I was walking right next to her. I told her, she could just have taken the elevator. Then she started talking to me about everything. Her miserable live consisting her bf, ex-husband, work, flat, illnesses. Apparently, I'm too nice to just turn around and go. She was talking without as much as a break to breathe so I couldn't really get a word into it. 30 mins later we were still standing at the now deserted station by that I new everything about that woman, except her name. I did not dare to ask. I made it home at some point though but I really have to train to say no and just walk.
At 9:46am on Saturday I picked up Marina at the station and we started our road trip. Everything went smoothly for the first 2 hours. I had told Sabine we would arrive between 2pm and 3pm. After our break, still on German soil, our navigation system showed the time of arrival as 2:30pm. Perfect. We crossed the border, said “Hello Holland” and continued our journey. When we had to switch the motorway “Navi” was really eager to tell us where to go right and keep left, and go right and keep left, and keep left. Too eager for me and the Dutch person who refused to let me into his lane to actually GO right. We missed the exit and everything went downhill from there. Apparently there's a lot of construction going on on Dutch motorways, without “Navi's” knowledge. Poor little thing got all confused and told us to turn and go back. Ehm, not a good idea when on the motorway. It sent us one way on the motorway and minutes later the same way back, which made us see the cows and the pretty little windmill twice. We drove through nameless towns and were sent ways which don't exist. Anyway, we finally arrived at Sabine's at 3:30pm. We had a great afternoon together. Did a lot of talking and laughing. And it really felt like we all knew each other forever.
Marina and I then drove on to our hotel. A drive without problems. Thank God. We just threw our stuff into the room and then walked to the metro station. “You just cross the road and walk straight” was the description to the metro station the receptionist gave us. We followed it until: “There're two ways straight. One up, one down. “ We eventually found the way and bought our tickets and took the metro and then took the bus (metro was under construction at some stations). We walked around the city and took some pictures of the pretty houses close to the canals. They are amazing. Then we had Pizza and made our way to Leidseplein. We watched some Firemen on stilts juggling with fire and walked on to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy our souvenirs :P
Afterwards we were too tired to do anything else and made our way back to the Centraal Station. We found it witthout problems. Now only had to find our bus..... 30 mins later we found it. Made it to the hotel by 12:30am. Dead tired.
Sunday morning we got up at 8am. Checked out, left the luggage in the car and the car in the parking lot. Walked to the metro station, took the metro, bus and arrived at the Centraal Station on even another part of it. Well not really at the station, seeing that there were huge constructions going on and the streets leading to the station were blocked.
We went onto a canal ride for an hour. Where we learned that here are 2.500 houseboats in Amsterdam, saw the Anne Frank House, the oldest protestant church in Holland and a prison, which was build into one of the bridges. We also saw the smallest house in the canal streets. Then we made our way to the palace and had some Poffertjes for breakfast. We then walked to the only swimming flower market and got some souvenirs for our families. Afterwards we had lunch at Subway and made our way back to the bus, which we again had to look for, now that it couldn't go to the station. Found it rather quickly and went back to our metro station.
Sabine gave us some tips for the trip which included eating, raw haring with onions (we both decided to skip this), poffertjes (our breakfast) and a kroket. We did find a snackbar to try a kroket so far but when we exited the metro station to walk back to the hotel we found it and tried one. We had a “Vleeskroket” and I was very proud that I figured out that Vlees is the word for meat. At least this way we knew what we were eating :P
At 4pm we drove back to Germany. Both of us hoping we would make it over the boarder with...no, we didn't smuggle pot....with not too much gas left in the tank. We refused to get gas in Holland, coz even though it's very expensive in Germany already, we were shocked by the 1.55€/liter. Seeing the border and crossing it made us very happy, since we were now driving on reserve already. But then we saw the sign and the “dum, dum, dum,” music started playing in our heads. “Next gas station in 98km”. We were not going to make this.
We decided to leave the motorway when we saw a village/town near by and got gas there, even cheaper for that matter. From there on everything went good and we made it home. I brought Marina to the station and we said our goodbyes. When I started walking away from the platform a woman was complaining about the stairs and that a ramp would be good and she was talking to me, coz I was walking right next to her. I told her, she could just have taken the elevator. Then she started talking to me about everything. Her miserable live consisting her bf, ex-husband, work, flat, illnesses. Apparently, I'm too nice to just turn around and go. She was talking without as much as a break to breathe so I couldn't really get a word into it. 30 mins later we were still standing at the now deserted station by that I new everything about that woman, except her name. I did not dare to ask. I made it home at some point though but I really have to train to say no and just walk.