May 10, 2013 - in denial

The Dutch have found great success by being in denial, ignoring the many bad hands they have been dealt. They’ve created a prosperous country by dint of hard work, imagination, ingenuity and never accepting the status quo. Most of the country is river delta providing drainage to the European rivers that flow to the North Sea. In the 16th century as the population grew and there was never enough land for homes and agriculture, they began to build dikes and used windmills to drain the reclaimed land. Today 65% of the country is under sea...

Apr 1, 2013 - Rotterdam & Kinderdijk, Netherlands

Met some fun couples last night! One couple from New Jersey, the other from Manchester, England. Almost half of the people on the cruise this time are from England! Took a 30-minute ride tour this morning to the windmill site in Kinderdijk. Very interesting! We got to go into one of the operating windmills and climb the stairs to the top. They are beautiful! Some of them have canvas covers on the windmills to create more of a "windsail" effect. The weather was sooo cold and windy, but worth it. We got back to the ship and took a little nap,...

Jul 12, 2012 - Rotterdam.

Another stop in the Netherlands! Rotterdam is a very interesting place. The buildings and the town itself are very new because of the war, so there wasnt much culture happening Rotterdam has one of the largest ports in Europe. There arent very many attractions in Rotterdam. We walked a long way to see an old windmill which wasn't much.... The old cool thing was the bridge. They have this very odd looking bridge, looks like something out of sci fi films. The hostel however was very cool! Great social area, and very clean. We met some cool...

Jan 4, 2012 - Netherlands - Visit with Nadia Family

Ons het vandag net gerus. Weer lekker laat geslaap. Op ons tyd ontbyt geeet en rustig klaar gemaak. So rond middag ete tyd het ons bietjie op die eiland gaan rondry waar Marina hulle bly. Die hawetjie gesien en so bietjie langs die een kanaal gestap. Nie baie lank nie...want die wind was ysig. Verder nie veel nie gedoen. Ons is maar baie moeg. More oggend vroeg gaan ons ons tasse moet oorpak en hoop hulle is onder gewig...en dan is dit die lang pad terug huis toe!

Jan 3, 2012 - Netherlands - Visit with Nadia Family

Very lazy day today. Slept late and sat in the house. The weather is miserable. It is pouring with rain and the wind is blowing the rain at 45 degrees. Left the house at 2pm and then went to visit Nadia's family. Long forgotten aunts and other family. Had a nice afternoon concentrating hard on understanding Dutch, but fun! Then went to the favourite family restaurant. Pieter had unlimited ribs....he said he needed some semblance of meat!! Nadia had croquettes...which to the dutch is more a snack and they had to make a special plate. Froze...

Jan 2, 2012 - Netherlands - Visit with Nadia Family

Phew...Wat 'n dag. Ons is vandag darem nie te vroeg op nie...maar is toe Efteling toe. Dit is soos 'n theme park hier in Holland (Gold Reef City style...maar baie beter). Ons het alles gedoen, van deur die sprokies bos gestap, toe karretjies gery deur droom wereld en feetjies gekyk en slakke karretjies in die lug gery en rollercoasters en alles wat hollands ruik tussenin geeet. Krokette uit vending masjiene! Vars gemaakte warm stroopwafels, poffertjies en rookwors! Mmmmm. Ons voete afgeloop....maar verkyk aan alles. En oral is bon fires...

Jan 1, 2012 - Paris to Rotterdam

Last night was awesome! We stood next to the Eiffel Tower and watched both the SA new year and the Paris new year happen! Beautiful. A bit wet...but nothing to complain about. Happy New Year everyone! Today we got up at 8 had breakfast and repacked our suitcases - trying to get them smaller...not much luck. Then walked to the metro with our luggage...did a bit of train hopping and had a bit of time to spare before the Thalys train departed. Another two and half hour journey...and greeted at Rotterdam by Marina (our cousin in Holland). How...

Oct 19, 2011 - We're home!

The last couple of days have gone by quickly. Sunday we were supposed to go to a soccer game but Jaime woke up sick.... stuffed up nose, sore throat and sore joints so we didnt' do much of anything. I went out for 2 walks that day as the weather was beautiful with the temperature being 12 degrees and sunny with blue sky. I did a circuit around our area that I had never done before and went over the two major bridges by the apartment. Monday we went for a 20 minute walk and checked out the "kermis" or fair. It was quite small, I expected a...

Oct 16, 2011 - Getting ready to come home

It's kind of surreal to think in 2 sleeps we'll be back home in our own beds. The last few days we've had beautiful weather... sunny, no clouds and no rain and the temperature getting up to about 13 degrees during the day. The trees are starting to lose their leaves... it must look pretty bleak here in the winter because there's hardly any evergreen trees, mostly deciduous, so the trees would all look pretty bare although maybe the grass is green all year??? Friday was a fun day where Dave was changing from night shift to day shift and...

Oct 13, 2011 - The Adventure is almost over

If you haven't seen Jaime's facebook page then you probably haven't heard yet, but we're coming home early! After looking into the cost of changing our tickets and what Dave's work schedule looks like for the next while, we've decided that we would come home this Tueday, October 18th. Dave will be working until November 7th and then return to Canada until November 17th and work in Rotterdam until the middle of December and hopefully be home for Christmas:) These dates are all flexible and one of the reasons we decided to come home. We had...

Oct 9, 2011 - Life in Rotterdam

We're having some very quiet time here in Rotterdam which has been really nice but we'll see for how long. Thursday was a hard day. We all took Sean to the airport and said goodbye. We miss him a lot but know he'll be fine. He was very much looking forward to seeing family and friends and of course getting back to curling. We talked to him yesterday and he said it took a while for Abby to recognize who he was! Jaime, Lucas and I have been laying low and doing little things everyday. Lucas needed a new pair of shoes, for some reason he had...

Oct 3, 2011 - Back in Rotterdam

We've made it back safely to Rotterdam but not without more excitement than I would have liked!!! The boys and I left Saturday morning to drive the van back from Paris and unfortunately the GPS doesn't like Paris and kept sending us in circles and telling me to turn when there wasn't a place to turn and basically glitching. So, we're lost in Paris without a map detailed enough to figure out where we are or what number of road to even look for to get out. I was a little stressed to put it mildly and stopped to reprogram the GPS to something...