Week 96 & 97: Dutch vacation: Drink, Eat, Drink

January 24, 2017

"Did the past 22 months really happen?" we both say as we have morning coffee. There is a time disconnect being back in Ossendrecht where we started the trip April 1, 2015. We've recovered from the long flight and now settle in for the family visit. Only a few bike tasks are needed to be done, like new fenders for Patrick's bike, then the bike is quickly back in the box. Rachel's bike isn't unpacked at all.

Visits in Holland centers around eating and drinking. The schedule goes something like this: tea in the morning, coffee at 10, tea and lunch around noon, coffee and pastries mid-day, dinner around 6 and then in the evening at 7pm coffee and pastries.

We notice a difference in the traffic when driving around. "There is only one car between the lines. In Asia there would be at least 3 cars across the two lanes." Patrick says. "Cars are actually being driven between white lines." Frans' birthday is celebrated, we take a day trip with Marco and Linda, Patrick's sister, to Delft. Patrick reconnects with two school buddies; Hennie, and Lucien who shuttled the new bike gear to Bangkok. In retrospect, since we returned to Ossendrecht, that turned out not to be necessary because we changed our plans from cycling Australia to cycling home from South America. Yet it freed us up to any plan. In 1999-2000 we ended our trip in Lima Peru. So we connect a dot by picking up the trip from and cycling home to Boise.

We go almost everyday to have coffee with Patrick's grandmother. After a walk in the woods around Ravenhoff, a mansion, we have a drink and croquettes in the restaurant. "What do you remember of the war?" Rachel asks Oma. She says "Stepping over the bodies of German soldiers, when we had to evacuate. And hearing the bombs." She was 15 and the family had to leave Arnhem for 10 months while the battle of "a bridge too far" raged. As present day Americans, we have no understanding of what it is like to live in a war zone. We've not had war on our soil since the Civil War.

Holland is a cyclists dream country with a separate bike lane network. Even in the cold drizzly weather, there are plenty of cyclists on the bike paths. One day a reporter dropped by for an interview and there was a nice article in the newspaper the next day. Another day, we took a drive with Patrick's grandmother, Corrie and her friend Willem and had lunch in Willemburg.

The last day on Sunday, we met a fellow traveller, Chantel from Ossendrecht originally and back after living in Amsterdam and Australia for 10 years. She is just back from a 15month motorbike trip from Australia to Holland. Her blog is http://chickonthechookchaser.com/

We rode Frans and Petra's bikes to the restaurant to meet Chantel. So the way home we stopped for a final photo of Ossendrecht. We are packed, the car loaded ready for an early morning drive to the Schipol airport for our flight to Lima Peru.

A trip with Frans to Bergen Op Zoom leads to a good Trappist Bier and Croquettes

A walk in the woods with Oma and to Pancake house for "Pannekoek" and "bier".

A day trip to Delft with Marco and Linda, Patrick's sister

Walking around Delft, of course lunch and beir with Marco and Linda

And can never have too much good Dutch Cheese

Meeting up with school buddies Hennie and Lucien

Monument to fourteen Dutch resistance fighters executed here by the Germans at the end of WWII

Willemstad harbor. In summertime this place is full with tourists, this cold and windy day not so much.

Celebrating Petra's birthday with drink and food.

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