After Utrecht we headed up to Amersfoort to meet up with school? friends of Maaike’s. Two friends (Danny and Charlotte) were getting engaged – and this was a surprise party.

Simone and Sander who I had met before in NZ organised an excellent outing. We hired a small motor boat and went for a slow putter about on the canals.

Unfortunately it completely bucketed with rain…

and was really quite cold. Fortunately, the blanket I’d bought the day before came in very useful – so I tucked myself up nicely ;)

Played lots of games, had delicious food and wine evening – and had a generally lovely weekend.

Queens day (Koninginnedag) is a crazy day in The Netherlands and Maaike and I spent it in The Hague.

Mostly the country turns into one massive car-boot sale. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, but I did manage to pick up some bargains!

I bought Rummikub for $2 (she tried to charge me 1, but I bargained her up), and a fleece blanket for $2, but I bargained up to $3.50 or something. There’s nothing quite like reverse bargaining for messing with Dutch minds ;)

Dutch Oddity #3 – Raw Herring

I also tried raw herring – which is a very Dutch thing to do… They even eat it with cream. Which is definitely odd.

Not tooooo bad actually.

Went for a wander around town with Catherine, Floor and Jip (college friends of Maaike’s) – and along the beach called Scheveningen.

Interestingly, after WW2 one way of catching Germans who were pretending to be Dutch was to get them to try to pronounce Scheveningen. Basically it’s impossible unless you’re properly Dutch.

Here’s a picture of the beach at scheveningen! (lots of kite surfing happening)

So off on the bikes to Utrecht where Maaike went to University and studied.

It would be fair to say that for the first day of cycling I was petrified. Well, at least more than a bit scared. Cycling on the right was different of course and obviously everyone expects you to know what you’re doing (which wasn’t remotely correct in my case).

Here’s a picture of Maaike’s secondary school. Interestingly, spent most of her time mitching and playing cards – and now ends up implementing literacy and numeracy programmes. Oh the irony ;)

So, as I said in an earlier post, this country is completely setup for bikes. Priority wise bike lanes are *a part of the road* – even though they’re physically separated. This means that drivers have to give way to you when crossing them. Also, there’s a law here (apparently – still seems bizarre) that if a car hits a bike *at all*… then the car is at fault.

Does this really mean that, say, I’m cycling the wrong way down a one way street and hit into a car – that it’s the cars fault?!?! Seems utterly utterly bizarre. If any Dutch care to enlighten that would be most appreciated!

Updated – Maaike’s dad rang the police to find out! Basically insurance wise the car is always at fault, but legally this may not be the case!

So, at the train station you can see lots and lots of bikes parked and also, below, you can see the clever little grooves they make to allow you to easily wheel your bike up & down accessing the platforms. Very clever.

First stop in Utrecht was IngeJudith – a flatemate of Maaike’s (with her baby Sjoerd – very well behaved!). Went for a lovely bike ride through Utrecht and De Bilt. Unfortunately my bottom was quite saddle-sore, so didn’t take too many pictures.

Maaike’s friend Annick was kind enough to put us up while in Utrecht (thanks! see you in NZ soonish :)

So the time in Utrecht was split nicely between touring about and meeting up with work, college and football friends of Maaike’s. Lovely bunch, but I think I’ll have to get substantially better at Dutch before venturing this way again.

Some pictures…

There were lots of these water towers dotted about the place. Not sure if they were defensive in nature too, but certainly impressive!

Had a delicious dinner with former work-mates of Maaike – can’t get tapas like these in ChCh. Or, if you can, I’ve not found them yet! Hopefully will see some of them NZ way.

Spent a few days at Maaike’s parents place.. eating yum food and going for some walks in the area.

Both of Maaike’s parents are excellent chefs – and have been good enough to prepare some of the local specialities. Pictured below is white asparagus. Maaike has been bleeting on about this for years – and while it was delicious – I didn’t find it *hugely* different from regular green asparagus. Yum though. Also pictured is, I kid you not, Maaike’s mum’s wooden spoon. Heh.

One day we went for a walk around the local environs. Their house is very close to the German (and Belgian) borders. We crossed and re-crossed the German border all day.. and I pretty much prooved the ‘you’ll never know when we cross the border’ proclamation false.

Pictured here is one of the border markers, with Maaike and Gerrit (brother in law)

We went to a pub and had a fine Belgian beer, and some bitterballen (deep fried left over meaty things). Heart attack on a stick, but very very delicious.

Maaike and Sjoerd also tried some gymnastic moves in the garden, and Sjoerd and I had a decent battle over a game of Tantrix (draw!)

Finally.. a video of the mountain near the house..

After the wedding we all headed South to Posterholt which is where Maaike’s parents live – close by the border with Germany and Belgium.

On the way we visited a really interesting music museum. Unfortunately my camera had run out of batteries and have misplaced the cable to get pictures off Maaike’s camera.

But, the music museum was really excellent. Basically a physics prof had collected instruments over about 60 years – donated them all to a museum and now runs it with his wife. There were some amazing artefacts there – and really interesting to see the development of various instruments. I will put up pictures and video’s later. But here’s a pic of the building.

Also worth pointing out is that houses in The Netherlands make extremely efficient use of space. In fact, I suspect that some of the best interior designers are probably Dutch in origin. Here’s a picture of Maaike going down stairs in the B&B we stayed in.

This is typical of houses here.. I can only imagine how many foreign necks are broken on a drunken night out in this country. Seriously – very very steep!

Another interesting thing you see all over the place is bike paths, and signage.

These ‘paddestoel’ or mushrooms are dotted about the place. They give you a marker number (on the top) and then distances with arrows to localish towns and villages. The number on top is also on maps & guides so you can tour about using these points.

These mushrooms are being replaced by more modern maps and signposts – but the basic idea stays the same. Very clever.

Finally.. it’s time for:

Oddity #2 : Toilets.

Here is a picture of a (clean) Dutch toilet.

Note the ledge. This has two major effects that I can think of:

• No Splash
• Smell

(sorry to be explicit mum).

Personally, I think the latter outweighs the former, but I’m open to eloquent, reasoned debate on the matter.