What's a shnitzel without orange?

Our time in 'The Dam' has been spent mainly just walking around and sitting in cafes [not that type!] which has been really nice.
Not sure if the Dutch are as relaxed as the Belgians but they seem jollier! And our made up stereotypes are probably right...
After blogging yesterday we went for another wander and did find the red light district! To our disapointment only the larger clubs and shows looked open, whereas today it was much livelier, even in mid-afternoon; very surreal! We did try to take a few photos to show just how surreal the women walking around looked, but a helpful shopowner warned us that if we weren't careful one of the ladies would throw bottles of water at us from the windows; we quickly put the camera away.
We brought some fun cacti from the floating flower market, ate weiner shnitzel and found many h&m's and a Lidl.
To avoid paying for wi-fi we're sat in one of the biggest squares in the city with a pint at the moment, we're being very european with drinking!
Tomorrow we're off to the island...




The joys of the red light district!



Bloemenmarkt


Our cacti!


Stealth cafe photography

Oooohh, that's what he meant...

Due to an awful internet connection at the last hotel, today's blog is extra long!
Annoyingly the 'driver' we installed to try to get the photos off the camera turned out to cost money and the free one didn't work, so still no photos :[

So, yesterday!
The hotel was in the least interesting part of the city but luckily Brussels is rather small, everything was well within walking distance. We saw weeing boy, tall collumn thing, many pretty swirly facade-d buildings and a mexican bar!
We spent the day walking around and getting a feel for the city, with numerous cafe/bar stops.
Randerson's famous sense of direction only let us down once, Angus only got the hiccups once; good times!
Belgians really do seem as chilled out as we decided, the whole city seems very relaxed, except from in the most tourest-y parts.
We tried cherry beer [very good!] and had our first langauge mis-understanding! Our chips with cheese turned out to be a crazy mixed platter thing of salami, olives, cheese and gherkins...
In true Russ style we took photos of our extra healthy and colourful lunch and our plate of not chips; look forward to seeing them!

The journey to Amsterdam was pretty simple, if you ignore the hour we spent going up and then down again the same [short] stretch of motorway. Sat nav lady, who we have named Oodga, would not accapt the fact that the exit to Antwerp and a very large stretch of the E19 was defiantly closed, we are not just fools!
The rest of the journey went smoothly, including getting to our hotel.
We drove past windmills, fields of flowers and many cyclists within the first half hour of driving in the Netherlands, we can confirm that the stereotypes are correct!
Driving on the right is beginning to seem more normal now which is handy.
So far Amsterdam seems lovely, very canal-y and full of trams and bikes, not remotely like the smokey cafes and adult entertainment one expects. This may partly be due to the fact we got slightly lost on route to the red light district but we've managed to find a nice pub garden, sampled some local beer and are currently sat in a vegetarian hippy restraunt, full of good food and shamelessly using the free wi-fi; how cultured/healthy!

Untill next time :]

PHOTO UPDATE!

AMSTERDAM day 1


Amsterdam through a bike!


They really like bikes!


George was dragged into a vintage clothes shop


Lovely!

BRUSSELS day 2


Some jolly buskers!


George's relaxed Belgian pose




Relaxed Belgian drinking


Mort Subite- very nice!


Really not chips and beer!






Loads of fun street art all over the city


So much food and fruit tea! Healthy :]


The very small thing in the alcove bit is 'Mannequin pis'- small weeing boy statue that appeared to be Brussel's most famous tourist attraction... Those crazy Belgians!


So relaxed!



Good times in strange animals/tree pyramids!


How to not look like a tourist?

So, what language do they speak?

After leaving 12 hours ago, we're sat in a painfully hot and very small hotel room with a small cupboard bathroom eating Belgian waffels. Starting as we mean to go on!
Ferry/car registrion was not an issue! And neither was the lack of car registration documents and high vis. vest, or at least so far.

Unfortunately it wasn't the 1 hour ferry journey we had planned for.
Or 2 hours...
Or even 3 hours...
4 and 1/4 hours later we saw the cloudy forms of Oostend appear out of nowhere!

It turns out driving on the right isn't a problem, Abi not knowing left from right may help.
Navigation through Brussels proved to be more tricky then expected though! Sat nav lady refuses to acknowledge any roads smaller than the main routes through the city and however zoomed in our maps, they didn't show one way systems!

So far the Belgians seem very relaxed and laid back, and thankfully their good driving made up for our road confusion.

Sadly we have discoved Abi's lovely camera won't work with George's new (and free) travel laptop, so no photos till we return. Or find an internet cafe and motivation!

Untill tomorrow......


(it's French, Dutch, German and English by the way)

UPDATE!!!
The handy little memory card in the side of the laptop is actually quite handy...

LEAVING ENGLAND!


Ready to go :]



Driving teamwork


The proper side of the road!


Prepared for anything


Ramsgate was so beautiful


The most exciting bit of the ferry journey...


...Which was followed by four hours of this.

Michael Jackson, 29/08/58 – 25/06/09

George is ready and prepared having packed all two socks and wisely Angus has packed enough clothes for the two of us, although we fear we are possibly slightly different sizes.

We leave first thing, crack of dawn etc [9am] heading straight to Ramsgate. Which should probably have an apostrophe somewhere- gate belonging to the ram, ram's gate...
The maps and AA print-outs are packed with the bag of shoes, we are ready for anything! Unless anything involves angry ferry men who have an issue with the fact we may have slightly accidentally typed in the wrong car registration when we booked the ferry. In which case we may have to arrange some kind of wedge heels for ferry trip deal?

A week to go!

We are eating, not packing.
However, we re-planned out route, including a visit to the island of Terschelling!


[Click the map for one big enough to actually see!]


We also now own a library of books on various European countries and everything you could possibly need to drive anywhere. Turns out the continent is slightly more safety conscious than the UK... Good Samaritan rule?! First aid kit?! Madness. We also discovered the UK has one of the highest blood alcohol legal driving percentage things in Europe :] Maybe our adventure won't include stopping for beer and burgers on route?