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I am home…..and my amazing European Adventure is over.

We caught there train to Charles De Gaulle airport at 10:00 on Friday morning and got to the airport a few minutes after 11:00. Sheryl and Paul got off at Terminal 3 as they had a direct Transat to Vancouver.

My ticket was for my Air France flight to Toronto and then connecting to Vancouver said Terminal 2 so I got off at that terminal. I got into the building and the signs say 2A, 2B, 2C……up to 2G…..hmmmm ….so I looked for Air France….and stood in a line at 2D for about 10 minutes…..wrong line….anyway an hour and 15 minutes later after walking about a kilometer to Terminal 2F, standing in another wrong line, having to get the boarding pass on from a machine that didn’t cooperate, very few people to ask for help and no signage that had any destination information on it….I dropped my bag off and went through security, in search of some food before I had to board the plane. In Terminal 2F, there is no place to get anymore than a chocolate bar…there are no restaurants and only 2 stores behind security of terminal 2. I really hoped that they served dinner soon after take off.  I think my blood pressure was a little high by this time.

Terminal 2F....

The plane left a half hour late….I have to catch a connecting flight from Toronto to Vancouver in about an hour and a half layover time….not looking good.

We landed on time BUT our plane couldn’t get to it’s parking place because another plane was in our place! After we sat on the tarmac for about 15 minutes the flight attendant came up to me and took me to the first class seats (probably the only time I will ever be in first class!)so that when we got our parking place I would be the first off…..Yeah!

Someone was waiting for me to lead me to the customs, then I had to collect my luggage (of course it is was another 15 minute wait for the luggage to get down and my luggage to be seen) then get the luggage rechecked in and then find the gate I needed to be at……amazingly when I arrived at my destination at 5:20 they were still boarding…..I made it.

That trip from Toronto to Vancouver seemed to take forever….not just because I wanted to get home but because there were a few very loud rambunctious kids on the plane….so bad that 5 minutes after I sat down the flight attendant asked if I wanted to move to the back of the plane….it helped a little.

We arrived on time, 7:50pm Friday night, Cam, Cassidy and Gus, picked me up. I will be staying with them until Wednesday when my guests leave.
I can’t believe that my Adventure is over….7 weeks just flew by. I look at my pictures and think… wow I really was there and saw all those places. Nine countries, numerous cities and towns and 84 caches found!

The Home Exchange experience was wonderful….it was so nice to come “home” after touring all day to a home not a hotel (the hotels were great for my little side trips)…..but I felt you could relax and sit on a patio and relax, have your own fridge and stove to make dinners and snacks, a washer and dryer to do your laundry and not have to go in search of one and then sit around a laundry mat waiting. And of course it was great to have a car to do the little nearby trips. I think I really have to learn to drive a manual car as that is what they seem to like to drive in Europe.
I would definitely like to go back to Europe again….see more of the southern part of the continent. I bought a Eurail Pass before I left….15 day over 2 months…..I used 12 days of travel and really think I got my moneys worth….the train system in Europe is amazing….from city to city and the metro lines in each city. Once you figured out the maps and the system everything was pretty easy.

Monday we are seeing the Reiser family again before they go home to Paris at a barbeque at Sheryl and Paul’s and to hear about all their adventures in Canada.

And I will be busy getting my pictures sorted and organized so that I can bore people with them ( I’ll try to get them down from approximately 3000 to 300). And planning my next adventures….Seattle/Oregon geocaching in August, Salt Lake City area geocaching in September, Hawaii next March break to celebrate 6 peoples milestone birthdays and then Australia again to see Curt and tour the centre of the country, sometime in June to September, another home exchange is being planned now.

Home with Gus

Last day in Paris…

The temperature today went up to 36 degrees…..I am soooooo glad we are not touring around today.

We spent the day getting all our baggage together, cleaning the house and the car, doing laundry, making beds, Paul mowed the lawn, Sheryl watered the garden, while I caught up on all the blogs….and the we spent the afternoon relaxing.

Tomorrow we will have to get down to the station by 9:30 (Paul is going to drive our luggage and us down and then bring the car back) …..I leave at 2:00pm on Air France with a very quick (I don’t know if I’m going to make the plane) transfer to Westjet in Toronto ….to be home tomorrow night by 7:40 pm(that’s if I make my connection. Sheryl and Paul are leaving at 2:30pm and have a straight through to Vancouver flight getting them there at about 4:00pm…..I don’t know where my head was when I was making my arrangements in January……anyway the next and last blog entry will be from an airport (because I missed my plane) or Cam and Cassidy's place, where I will stay until my guests leave next Wednesday.

And back to Paris…

We didn’t have to leave Amsterdam until 3:15 in the afternoon, so today we went to the Van Gogh Museum which is only a few blocks from our hotel. It opened at 10 so we took our time a little to get going for the day, storing our luggage in the hotel luggage room because check out time it 11:00.

Couldn't take any pictures here either

The museum is very well done….lots of Van Gogh pieces (all except Starry Night which I know see, has been at the Museum of Modern Art in NY city since 1941). Other painters who influenced and were friends with Van Gogh were exhibited also….Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, Manet and others. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but near the end I was getting really tired and overwhelmed…..I think I am ready to have a couple of days off!!!

We stopped at a couple of souvenir stores looking for some extra bags that zip to take on the plane….I know I brought too many clothes and have been really good about not buying to much stuff to take back….but I need a little more room for “stuff.”

We went back to the hotel to get our luggage and to rearrange everything, then went to the train station….we had plenty of time and Sheryl and Paul walked around and took some more pictures and I sat an people watched.

We had a really nice train coming home….back to the first class with a bit of food and free beverages and a bonus….wifi. I used the time to catch up on the blogs so that they were ready to put on the page and add links and pictures. Sheryl used her Ipad to take a video of the scenery of the Netherlands and Belgium as we sped through it and also a video of her big sister blogging as she commentated….she wants me to put it on the blog, but I thank god I don’t know how to do that!!! (if you know don't tell me!)

We think there is a lot of greenhouses in Ladner....there are miles of them in the Netherlands

The train was one of the fast ones but it was a little late so by the time we got back to the house with a few things for supper, it was after 8:00...tomorrow a relax day....last day before we go home.

Windmills and Wooden Shoes

Ok, Ok, a typical title for a blog about the Netherlands….but these also were 2 things that were on Sheryl’s list, to go into a windmill and to sit in a giant wooden shoe!

Zaanes Schans…..a Dutch Barkerville! It is about a 20 minute train ride northwest from Amsterdam Central Station and about a 15 minute walk. It is a little town set up as museum site with about 6 working windmills plus buildings that demonstrate cheese making, a pewter foundry, a cooperage (barrel making), a bakery (yum) and a wooden shoe workshop to name a few. It is free to get into the little town but you have to pay to get into each of the Windmills separately….we went into one that made paint (artist kind of paint)

Then wandered through to town to the wooden shoe workshop where we found…you guessed it….the giant wooden shoes to sit in!  The fellow who was doing the demonstration had a shoe made in about five minutes....very impressive.

they were on the ceiling too!

Just as we were entering this building, about 40 children and their teachers arrived….all under the age of 10 by the look of it….from Chengdu China….where I was just a few months ago. Brave teachers.

It was a hot day so we left by about 3 to head back into town for our next “experience”

The tour was crowded with people (mainly young)…you are shown how they brew the beer…..you see the big copper vats, the horses that pulled the carts of beers (I thought only the An Hauser Busch brewery did that but I guess not) then we became the beer and we felt what it was like to be brewed and bottled! And of course a little tasting and a lesson on how to appreciate beer….you could become a d.j., get your name on a bottle of beer, design your own t-shirt….send an epost card (Sheryl and I did that but I don’t think it will link I will try but it’s only there for 2 months).

I headed back to the hotel the short route (I needed to put my feet up for a while)and Sheryl and Paul took the longer way back. One of the staff at the hotel recommended a really good restaurant with Dutch food…..very very yummy. We chatted to a young couple from Sydney Australia on a three month tour…New York and now several places in Europe. Then when they left a couple of girls sat down and  asked where we were from…they were from Calgary, nurses now working in Saudi Arabia for the last few years, on a few days holiday….of which they seem to have quite a few, making it possible to see so much of Europe and the Middle East.

We left the restaurant in search of ice cream…down the narrow streets by so many restaurants…Dutch, Greek, Argentinian, Brazilian, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Thai…..I’m sure I missed some. We found a Ben and Jerry’s about a block away.

Have they gone on holidays.....

or do they just forget where they put their bikes!!

Hamburgers in a vending machine!

Then slowly made our way back to the hotel for our nightly wine.

Canals and Flowers

Anne Frank House was the first on the list for today. Because we didn’t get any advanced tickets, we needed to be there before it opened…..so up by 7, ate breakfast at 7:30, out the door by 8 and outside in a very short line by 8:20.…and they let us in by 8:45 even though it wasn’t supposed to open until 9:00.

This shows the building they were in...the back peaked part was just above the hiding place

The museum is attached to the actual building that the Frank family hid in for 2 years during the war. If you don’t know the story of Anne Frank, she was a Jewish girl who’s father owned a spice business in Amsterdam when he felt the situation for the Jews worsen from the Nazi invasions he secretly had a set of rooms furnished and set up for living in the upper stories of his building. (no pictures allowed to be taken here) Only four people who were his loyal employees knew that they were there. Along with the Frank family there was another family and a single male friend who lived with them in the four prepared rooms. The entrance was hidden by a bookcase. They had to be very quiet during the day so the other employees couldn’t hear them and then at night they had blackout curtains so no lights could be seen. About 10 months before the end of the war they were betrayed and the family was separated and ended up in separate concentration camps…Mrs. Frank died soon after and Anne and her sister died of typhus about a month before the war ended.

Anne kept a diary through the time they were in hiding and had decided that she wanted it published after the war. It was discovered and returned to her father, the only person to survive of the group. He made it his mission to have it published. Now translated in many languages and read by people all over the world.

I read the book many years ago and now I could see the actual small size of the rooms that they lived in. I was surprised at the running water and the flush toilet that was there. The pictures and postcards that Anne put on the walls were still there….none of the furniture was there.

This was the main thing that I had wanted to see while I was in Amsterdam. I’m glad we got there early because when we left a couple of hours later the line up was about 2 hours long.

　
　
Sheryl wanted to go to the flower market on the canal, so we hopped on a tram and then wandered by all the beautiful flower and bulb stalls, wishing we could take back lots of it in our suitcases. We picked up a few souvenirs along the way and then found a nice restaurant for lunch on Rembrandt Square.

A starter kit amongst the beautiful flowers

There just happened to be a couple of caches a short distance away so we headed over towards the city hall area where they were located…one being an earth cache showing the mark that the people of the Netherlands use to show the exact sea level and the rising and falling of the tide. Since this is a diked country below sea level it is important to know.

We then headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and have a little rest before we went on a canal cruise in the early evening. The cruise took us up and down the many canal, the audio script pointing out important buildings and architectural features.

One of the things that Paul noticed this morning was that there was hook on the top of the gable of each house or building and using that and a pulley system to hoist things up to the upper floors. The multitude of house boats too are interesting …..some are well kept and up dated, some are neglected but have people living on them, some are big barge like homes, some are smaller more like a boat. There were half sunk boats in the some of the canals and obviously forgotten…

After the cruise we found a spot for dinner.  Sheryl and I continued walking....we went to the nearby Vondel Park.  Being the first really nice summerday they have had in Amsterdam there were hundreds and hundreds of people....picnicing, playing, jogging, riding bikes. 

They all seem to use charcoals for their barbaques

Then went back to the hotel to meet Paul for a glass of wine before we all went to bed.

Bruge to Amsterdam
　
After our complimentary breakfast from the hotel, we spent Sunday morning going about Bruge getting souvenirs and gifts from Belgium. Then headed to the train station about 12 to catch our 1:00 train to Antwerp, a very beautiful train station. Maybe you recognize it from U-Tube. Then on to Amsterdam.

And just outside  is at least 30 diamond/jewelry shops within steps of the train station!

Since there was some technical trouble on the line we had to change trains and arrived about an hour later at Amsterdam Central Station, about 5:00.

Now this is where I started 6 weeks ago when I arrived in Europe and left the airport to find a couple of caches near the train station in case I didn’t get back here. I see the same things I saw then the canals, the millions of bikes and lots of people. It seems so long ago that I was here but the I can’t believe that I am in the last week of my seven week adventure.

I had kept a booklet of the Metro system of the city and so we have been studying it and figuring out where our hotel is and how to get there. We are in the area that is close to Vondel Park and very near the Van Gogh Museum which is one thing on our list of things to see and do.

We are at the Leidse Square Hotel a Best Western. We are at on the 3^rd floor, S&P, 355 and I was given 307.…I couldn’t get my door open and just as I was going to go downstairs and have some one help me, I got the door open…..and much to my surprise, there was someone in there! Staff had already given this room to someone else and not recorded it. So I got 308, a nice room on the back side of the hotel…quiet and cool.

We found dinner at a nearby pub. Sheryl has a list of things she wanted to see in Amsterdam….so she thought the famous Red Light district would be a good place to start, so off we went, map in hand to catch a tram, then walking the narrow crowded streets past doors and rooms and small “coffee shops“….very strange, you read about it and now here it is….very strange.

We eventually got the Chinatown (found a cache) and then walk back to the tram to get to our hotel. One of the nice things about this hotel is that it has a little bar that serves wine and beer…so we stopped to have a drink before we headed up to bed.

Bruge…a really cute town

When I said to Sheryl and Paul that I wanted to go to Bruges on the way to Amsterdam…..Paul said where? And Sheryl said that she saw a movie about Bruge….a black comedy, where in the end someone jumps off the town’s bell tower….I haven’t seen it but maybe I will now. Cam and Cassidy went to Bruge after they left me, on a friend’s recommendation…..and it’s in Rick Steves Best Cities in Europe book…..and as far as my geocaching map looked, well, Belgium looked like it need to be filled in.

So that is why we ended up in Bruges…..and as Cam said “what’s not to like it’s a cute little town”
We left Paris at about 10:30 and arrived at the hotel, the Hotel Het Gheestelic Hof at about 2:00. We are all sharing one room because there wasn’t much left when I went through Booking.com that was in our price range. So we got the Marilyn Monroe room. See the picture….that is the head board of the king-sized bed in the room which lights up with a single hide-a-bed at the end of the bed.

A wonderful little town….the historic town is oval in shape and is surrounded by a canal. It is another UNESCO Herititage site. The main square and in fact the whole town is bustling with tourists and there was a stage set up in the centre. Here you not only have to look out for cars (only a few) and bikes but also the horse drawn carriages that are coming one after the other through the town. Belgium is famous for it’s chocolate, it’s waffles, it’s French fries and it’s beer…..so we had to try all of them. Then strolled through the streets taking pictures, we didn't climb the bell tower....too many steps! and of course finding a cache to make my map look good.

I really like Bruge and our hotel was great.