Heusden

  Heusden, Netherlands
Saturday, May 12, 2007

What a day!

Ok, so we get up at around 9-9:30 this morning, have a cup of tea and head out for Heusden. Before that, we stopped and got new batteries and a charger, cuz Rob charger and batteries seemed to have died here in Holland...

So off to Heusden, about 20-30 minutes from Oosterhout. It's a tiny little village surrounded by fortifications, a really nice place. Fred told us that it's a very important tourist attraction, especially in the summer. He told us that in the summer, they block off the traffic and only allow locals who live there to drive in and out. Apparently, the streets are packed!

But not today, it rained once again... and it was very windy in Heusden. We walked around for a bit, I took lots of pictures. Many houses and habitations there are falling over, or crooked. I finally got to go up close and personnal with an authentic Holland wind-mill!!! They're very big. Just as we are getting around, it's starts to pour... So we head in to a restaurant called Pannekoekenbakker (or the Pancake baker?): they make sometime like over 360 different kinds of pancakes. They make savory and sweet pancakes. I enjoyed a ham, onion, cheese and oregano pancake. Rob had a bacon, onion and syrup pancake, and Fred got a pineapple pancake with ice cream. These pancakes are big compared to the ones we have back home (see picture)! Rob and I couldn't finish ours... but they were very tasty!

We paid and once outside, the rain stopped again... but only for a little while. We took the car ride all the regions around Oosterhout and stopped at the biggest marina in Europe (according to Fred). And let me tell you, mom, dad, it's nothing like the Village Quay marina! This was a very, very big and modern marina. We walked and looked around, while the rain stopped. Just as we got back to the car, it started to rain again... very hard this time. We headed back to Oosterhout for the rest of the afternoon.

We have decided to stay in Oosterhout until sunday, where we will be taking a train to Amsterdam. We'll find a place to stay for one night before we can use our pre-arranged accomodations (the FriendShip) on monday.

As we are making prepartions to leave in a few days, it may be awhile before I update this travel blog again. Please enjoy the pictures and I'll update this as soon as I can.

Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoy your Friday!!! TGIF!

Love ya,

Chris and Rob
xoxoxoxo

PS: Here's a link to an album on Facebook (General observations of Holland): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2225&l=10212&id=506731802