Living the High life in Holland
A moment lived in Holland by Georgina Mckimm, a traveller from United Kingdom
So like normal, I like to leave everything to the last minute, half an hour before we set off to drive to the ferry I was just getting around to sorting out my travel insurance, and my travel money card! I don’t think I will ever learn.
Then we hit the road. I say we, let me introduce Lauren who will be joining me on the road for 4 months! I have known her for about 5 years, she worked for me for a year or so before she headed off the University. We kept in touch when she left going on the occasional bike ride and meeting up for a few drinks and deep and meaningful about life, believe me, we can talk about this until the sun comes up! 4 months of pretty much 24/7 together in a VW Caddy could go either way! I’m only joking we are very similar in the way we think and look at life and she is always up for an adventure!
Having no idea what to expected from Holland other than windmills and clogs. Well, it was that and so much more, the beauty of having no destination is that if you see something you like you can literally pull up and chill there for a few days! The first epic find was the sand dunes! Who knew they had sand dunes in Holland, not me! So I did what any other normal person would do, cracked the sand board out the van and like a big kid went and played on the Dunes. It felt like I could be in a desert in the middle of nowhere it was so peaceful, the sun was beaming down, the dunes were high and steep, it was awesome going down and a bloody workout getting back up to the top! Today was definitely a leg day!
I notice that other than the dunes, there were NO HILLS IN HOLLAND! Which made it the perfect place for cycling, so when in Holland you do the right thing and explore it on 2 wheels rather than 4, the coast line goes on for miles you can literally cycle from the hook of holland all the way to the other end! The only difficulty i found with cycling in holland was putting the bikes back on the roof.
So what you learn really quickly when travelling is that there are so many beautiful people in this world, that want nothing more than your time! From day one in Holland meeting this old guy that was just on his way back to England, he was asking me about where I’m going and my plans etc and when I told him that I’m not sure, all I really know is I would like to go to Norway and Croatia. He was excited for me and began to give me all this information on Norway (where he had just come from) from the roads that were closed to the cost of the food. He even ended up giving me his map of Norway and a travel book, the hour conversation all started with one simple smile!
A few days in we had our first issue (our 10 litre water jerrycan falling off the bed as I turned a corner and hitting the side door handle snapping of the wire the open and shuts the door) So after spending a good hour or so determined to fix it myself, we set off to find a garage. The guy in the garage had a good laugh at us, and did his best to fix it so we were able to open and close it. Think he must have been there for a good 45 minutes sorting it out and didn’t charge us a penny, did it out of the kindness of his heart and I think he found it funny that we were literally a few days in and we had managed to break the door!
After exploring some pretty cool places along the coast we headed inland a bit and found ourselves in the town of Weesp, if you want to see a really cute dutch town then this is it, canals, stone cobbled pathways, street markets, windmills, countryside and lily pads. It had it all, it was so quaint and pretty.
We ended up chilling here for a few days making are selfs at home with our own little carpark all to ourselves.
One of the days we caught the train into Amsterdam. That day the rain poured and poured, so we had no other option but to sit in a coffee shop for the whole day (Yes Nan one of those coffee shops) When i say the whole day we must have been in there for a good 12 hours! I had the most incredible day filled with green teas, brownies and people watching.
If you want to see culture, diversity and the true beauty of this world. Sit in a coffee shop in Amsterdam for a day! The love and happiness that oozed out of this shop were overwhelming! It was really interesting just watching the world go by, the people that past through that day from all different ages, cultures, walks of life. From the suited and booted businessman on a 10 minutes break, to a group of Jamaicans and there backgammon board chilling for the afternoon. A few good old typical English Chav passing through to an old Columbian guy and a young hippy girl, some graduates from the USA discussing the life and ambitions with the germans that we sat on their table, Business owners sat chilling with the unemployed. It was beautiful to witness!
This traveller has a blog : Wake up to the World
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