Brussels, Amsterdam, Volendam & Edam

Brussels

We spent the first couple of hours in Brussels feeding pringles to a seagull. It's the simple things. All around us were dragonflies mating. What is it with Europe and public shagging?

The next day we ventured into Brussels. It was wet. Really wet. I'd gone out in flip flops. I nearly broke my neck about 30 times. I was fuming. I bet it was quite funny to watch. Rach finally got her Belgian waffle that she'd been banging on about and we saw a statue of a baby pissing into a large sink, which Brussels is OBSESSED with. It's absolutely everywhere. Apparently it symbolizes the Belgian sense of humour. I made sure not to speak to any of them after I found that out.

Later that night there was lots of angry thunder. I knew it was thunder and not Rach because it didn't smell.

Overall I was really impressed with Belgium. It's very clean and classy. Uncluttered. And in all seriousness, the people seem pretty sound, and quite stylish. They love round-rimmed glasses and extremely combed hair. Linguistically it's quite confusing. It sounded like they were speaking Dutch in Ypres from what I could make out, but in Brussels, which is further east towards Holland, they spoke French.

Holland

Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, truck, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry...

That is the driving experience from Brussels to Holland (not the colours, that was just a fun challenge if you happen to be reading out loud). It's mental. And often lorries will go to overtake the one in front of them but only move about half a mile an hour faster, so it takes them an hour to actually pass them, thereby blocking up the middle lane. Gits.

We arrived in Amsterdam and booked into the campsite we'd found on pitchup.com - a great website for campsites in Europe. The site was really spacious and picturesque, next to Amsterdam forest. A river ran through the site, and a gang of geese noisily made their presence known - especially when Rach got the last of the bread - MY PRECIOUS BREAD - out. Rabbits seemed to have free reign too, they were everywhere.

We found out that three postcards that we've sent still haven't been delivered - we sent them in the first week! To you! Nice to see that the fucking speeding fine arrived safely though.

We spent day 58 in the centre of Amsterdam. We had a few drinks in the Ice Bar, where it was  effing freezing. Minus 9. They give you gloves and coats as you go in - I honestly don't know why they don't just turn the central heating on. The temperature in the main bar was fine.

Gloves make it virtually impossible to operate a modern phone. I was taking pictures on mine with my nose. Ingenious. The rest of the people in there were all young whippersnappers, but there was one old guy, about 60, in there on his tod. Rach thought it was really cute but quite sad that he was in there on his own. I saw it differently. Perhaps his wife had told him to arrange to meet her after work in a 'nice bar' but he wasn't listening properly and headed straight for the Ice Bar. It could happen.

We left the Ice Bar but ramped up the party even more by buying some little plants for the van from the floating flower market. This was all getting a bit much, so we decided to buy a space cake to chill us out. It did fuck all for me but Rach said she felt it as she was lying in bed about to go to sleep, which is certainly a different way to enjoy it.

Volendam & Edam

Well, what a pair. Volendam and Edam are a couple of little towns situated just half an hour from Amsterdam, and they're both amazing. Rach actually declared Volendam to be her favourite place yet, until we arrived in Edam, which she said she liked even more. She was a particular fan of the front doors. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a legal requirement in these towns to paint and gloss your front door once a week. They were all like mirrors.

Volendam sits right on the water, with a big harbour and loads of little bars and restaurants. Edam is more of a village than a town. It has a canal running through it, with little cobbled streets running up and down, carrying oddly shaped houses. There was a big loud fair and a rock concert on at a local pub on the day we visited, which seemed totally at odds with the general vibe of the place. We took a wrong turn on the way in and had to drive through one of the narrow cobbled streets in the van, trying not to clip people sat on the sides eating their cheese. I don't actually know if they were eating cheese but if they weren't, what are they doing in Edam, frankly.

Rach left in a bit of a huff. She was annoyed that she didn't live there. I think that's a thumbs up.