The close family and guests gathered at a hotel before the wedding couple arrived. It was fun to meet some of the cousins and uncles & aunts that Maaike had talked about. Here she is pictured with her cousin Sietske.

Interestingly – the Dutch don’t have a word to distinguish between cousin and niece/nephew. Strange, but true.

After a little while (and a few pictures) Femke and Gerrit – the Bride and Groom arrived. Looking beautiful and dashing in equal measure. Actually, on the whole Dashing and Beautiful thing – it would be fair to say that, on the whole, The Dutch are a pretty attractive race of people.

Anyways – yes, the couple arrived and off we went to an ancient church for the ceremony.

The church was properly old, with that delicious old smell that comes with buildings that have been around for a really long time. The entire service was in Dutch – so I didn’t really understand too much of it – though I did join in the hymns with great gusto!

After the service it was off to the reception.

More pictures were taken :)

Then time for a yum buffet (sit where you like – quite a difference from Irish Weddings there), before dancing the night away.

The DJ was excellent – even throwing in The Netherlands’ main musical claim to fame – yes – 2 Unlimited ;)

Upon arrival under sea level (Schipol International Hairyport) Maaike’s parents picked us up. Luckily they’d remembered to check their mobiles for a text before driving to Cherbourg! Phew!.

Then we drove to Gorinchem where Femke (Maaike’s sister – pictured below) about to be married lives. There we were treated to a yum dinner (made by Gerrit – Femke’s Fianceé) and fine Belgian beers! Perfecto.

The next day we headed up to Groningen which is in the North of the country to get ready for the wedding. Femke had been making oblique references to ‘haircut’ .. and ‘shaggy wooly Irishmen’ * and and and and stuff… so did end up getting a haircut (had actually meant to in Ireland – but ran out of time with the flights etc).

Also, up in Groningen we met up with Sjoerd – Maaike’s brother. Funny bugger and all round troublemaker it would be fair to say. At last, the terrible three reunited.

It was a really pretty town to walk around – the country really is completely set up for

• Cyclists
• Getting Lost

But more on that to come.

They also have some definite oddities, and I’ll try to pepper these posts with some of them. Starting with

Oddity #1 : The hole-in-the-wall-hot-food-dispensing-machines.

These are in most major towns – and probably lots of smaller ones too. I’ve been too scared to actually eat out of them – but one images sickness & decay wouldn’t be tooooo far behind.

Finally – one thing the Dutch do love (and justifiably so) is their cheese. This is just a regular cheese department in a regular supermarket. I think one of the first trips after returning to ChCh will be straight down to the (only?!) cheesemongers in town.

* (may not be true)

Had a great last-few-days in Ireland. Maaike had always wanted to get to the Powerscourt Gardens in Wicklow (just outside of Dublin). The actual ‘house’ (castle really) has been gutted by fire and partially restored – but the Italian style gardens surrounding are worth a walk around. This we did with my friend Emma Towey, who had a nice chat with Maaike about all things Dutch.

So – while this is late being posted – all of the above was going on in the shadow of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. The main purpose of this trip to Europe was to be in The Netherlands for Maaike’s sisters’ wedding (Femke). No bleedin’ volcano was going to get in the way of that.

On the Sunday evening we booked a ferry from Ireland to Cherbourg, and there we were to be picked up and driven to the wedding. This would have meant a 20 hour road trip just before the wedding. Hardly ideal.

I had rebooked the tickets for Wednesday morning (11:45) and the boat was just incase at 21:00. All the flights up until 13:00 were cancelled, and basically we’d given up. Fortunately my wonderful brother Matthew had been checking up on Aer Lingus – while calling me to say goodbye. He said that flights were going in the afternoon and that we should try to book on.

So went online, checked – and somehow there were seats available. Bonus!!… booked on, didn’t really believe it was going to happen until the tickets were printed out and bags checked through. And then, I still didn’t really believe it was going to take off.

But take off we did, and flew all the way to Schipol in The Netherlands. This pic was taken on the approach in. You actually land at about -10m or something.. not that you can see that. I was expecting it all to be quite flat – but I’d not quite realised just how flat the reclaimed land would be. Still, more to come on that – and all wonderful and unique things Dutch.. ;)