The title of this blog post is a quote from Matt which he uttered soon after our arrival in Amsterdam, and what prompted it will soon become clear. But first to recap chronologically. We had one social event last week: dinner round Nadine & Jean-Claude’s in the village. Also in attendance were Philippe and Francoise. This was originally proposed for Friday but seeing as we were going to be away, it took place on Tuesday. The first time we ate there, I forgot to mention my dietary fussiness which resulted in me eating rather a lot of ham whilst everyone else enjoyed a largely fish-based meal.
This time, Nadine had remembered without prompting and made a lovely meal of pumpkin soup to start, followed by cheese ravioli for the main. We had a few apéritifs before and a fair amount of wine during the meal too. We stayed till midnight and then put on a few episodes of the West Wing when we returned, so didn’t get to bed until after 2am.
Matt had a bit of a lull workwise last week so took advantage of this to make a lot of progress on some enhancements to my Dad’s site, which he’s been patiently waiting for since December. For me, I started and have now nearly finished a very simple gite rental site for a lady in Chianti.
I don’t think there’s much else to add, so on to our pilgrimage to the HolyLand! We left at just after 7 on Friday morning, to the great dismay of the cats. They at least got to enjoy several days of central heating while we were away. It’s still been very mild out here so it wasn’t totally necessary to turn it on for them, but it was nice for us to enjoy it for the night before we left and also upon our return.
We had a largely painless journey the whole way, except for the car. Lola’s had a sporadic issue for months now where she occasionally refuses to accelerate properly, particularly when driving at speed. She’d shown no symptoms since her last big trip (to Normandy with Chuck last September) but we were worried how she’d fare. Within an hour of being on the motorway, she began to cut out and judder and soon after the warning engine light came on. Having little choice, we opted to press on. Despite her protestations, she was a trooper the whole way. We stopped a couple times en route but had no traffic issues anywhere, even crossing Paris with ease.
We hit Amsterdam close to 5pm, making straight for the same Park & Ride we used last time. We pulled up there almost exactly 10 hours to the minute after setting off – and that should have been the end of our trip but a sign at the entrance ruined the moment. It informed us that that particular car park’s P&R service closed on 10 February. The air at this point turned blue as Matt suffered a bit of a sense of humour failure and uttered a long string of unhappy words.
Luckily for us, the next P&R park was only a few minutes down the road and with a little GPS help, we scooted over there. We parked and looked around for an attendant to pay and get our tram tickets. He directed us to the machine and explained how the system works. We hit a small snag in that you have to pay by card, but debit card only, and the machine didn’t like any of ours. (The air at this point grew bluer still). Luckily, we accosted some very friendly Dutch people who paid on their card for us and we gave them the money. This was an unfortunate slip up in a country that is otherwise the epitome of efficiency, but overall the P&R experience was a very positive one. You pay 2.50€ each for a tram ticket, then when you return to pick up the car, once you’ve swiped the tram tickets to prove you did go into town, you pay just 2€ per day. So, we had free travel to and from the centre for 2 people and parking for the weekend, and all for a mere 7€. Pas mal!
By the time we’d done with checking in at the hotel, it was 7pm and Amsterdam lay out before us. We immediately zeroed in on the nearest coffee shop and began what turned into a major weekend-long shopping spree. It was at this moment as we headed towards coffee shop #2 that the quote from Matt was uttered, in case you hadn’t guessed. We followed this with another coffee shop, then a drink or 2 at a bar, then a comprehensive junk food binge intermingled with a few more bar stops.
It was somewhat late when we got back to the hotel, but Matt is like the proverbial kid in the candy store when it comes to Holland, so by 9am he was wide awake and keen to get out and get the day started. One thing about this trip that amused us greatly was the number of French people about on the streets. Normally, our February trips to Amsterdam are at the end of the month to coincide with my birthday, so we’d never realised just how popular the place is with the French. This time, we were there during the half-term break and they were everywhere. At one of the more touristy coffeeshops, literally every group at a table was French. If Paris had legal weed, we know what it would feel like.
Anyway, our day started with a wonder through the streets, visiting coffee shops we know from experience to be good value. This was also interspersed with a bit of clothes shopping (my shoes were falling apart so I was keen to replace them). Having both come so many times, we’ve seen most of the main tourist attractions, but we had some time to kill before lunch. We consulted with the internet and ended up paying a visit to the Cat Museum, or KattenKabinet, as it is charmingly called in Dutch. Some of our friends have taken to warning us that we’re in danger of becoming “crazy gay cat people”, so this news probably won’t help with our reputation. The museum is actually dedicated to pieces of art that feature cats rather than to cats themselves, and is set in the home of a wealthy (and cat-obsessed) Dutchman. It was small and quirky, but worth a visit, especially when extremely high.
Another thing for which we consulted with the internet was dining suggestions, although this turned out to be completely unnecessary. We’ve never had a bad meal there and according to Trip Advisor, neither has anyone else: pages upon pages of reviews, all glowing. For lunch that day, we picked a café called Lush that served us mind-blowingly good club sandwiches, and were lucky enough to bag the 2 last seats in the house.
Afterwards, the shopping spree continued. It rained for much of the morning, but was very mild compared with what we’re used to for that time of year. It even cleared up by the afternoon so it was very pleasant to be outside. We’d set a target of how much we wanted to buy and, pleasurable though the shopping experience is, it involves a huge amount of walking to get it all done in a short space of time. By the end of the day, our target was achieved and our feet were sore.
We had a brief chill at the hotel to drop off all our purchases and then went out in search of margaritas and burritos. A bar crawl followed, with a few cheeky smoke stops thrown in and the obligatory late night junk food to cap it all off. By rights, we should have been quite hung over both Saturday and Sunday mornings, but I think the sheer volume of food we tend to consume when there soaks it all up. We hit the road soon after breakfast, our destination being the town of Leuven in Belgium.
We’d hoped that giving the car a few days rest would sort her out but sadly this wasn’t the case. We’d no sooner hit the autoroute when the engine light came back on and the juddering restarted, this time seeming worse than before. Luckily, our destination – Laetitia’s house – was only 2.5 hours away. She is the daughter of a lady in Matt’s conversation class and is a tour manager for various local bands in Belgium. We’d met a few times when she was over visiting her family and we’d hit it off every time. She speaks fluent French (of course), Flemish, English, Spanish and I think also Italian, which is pretty damned impressive.
She had a very tasty lunch of quiche and salad waiting for us on our arrival. Afterwards, we piled into her car and drove the 7km to the town of Leuven itself. We had a quick guided tour of the centre, which is picturesque and has a lovely and ornate city hall building. It was a mild and sunny day too, a very rare treat in February, according to Laeti. We then met up with a friend of hers and went to one of their favourite local bars for aperitifs. Leuven, as I discovered to my great interest, is the home of Stella Artois, the most gorgeous and deadly lager known to man. We felt compelled to order one at the bar, but were disappointed to learn they didn’t stock it. Instead, we had another local beer that was very tasty. We chatted for a while to the owner and a few other locals, all of whom were very lovely, and then headed back to Laeti’s for dinner.
She made us a fantastic meal of stuffed peppers using a ground chicken stuffing mix. Afterwards she exposed us to some local music, focusing mainly on the bands for whom she tour manages. One of these is a crazy solo artist called Daan who is also unfortunately an alcoholic. She describes dealing with the bands, and him especially, as being like a parent with a stroppy child. Apparently Daan ended up drunk on her doorstep at 1 am on the night before our arrival and had to be put to bed and packed off in a taxi the following morning – and this kind of behaviour is fairly standard.
In addition to being the home of Stella Artois, Leuven is also home to an impressive number of talented and diverse bands, facts I’m choosing to believe are related. We spent a long evening chatting and listening to music, including showing her the clips of our recent ‘concert’, then retired for the night. We had a light breakfast and were on the road by 11 am. Lola complained straight away and throughout all of Belgium refused to go much faster than 110km. We were worried that she seemed to be getting much worse and foresaw us getting home very late – or worse, not at all. Luckily, after a couple hours on the road, she staged a miraculous recovery, the engine light went out and we cruised past Paris and down France with ease. We were home by 7pm, which just happens to be the official cocktail hour at Port 80. We chilled out over a pastis and some of Amsterdam’s finest and, as is necessary after every trip away, spent all evening and night with 2 very needy cats.