Traveling at the moment is driven almost entirely by the wish to see people rather than visiting places. I could take a week off before Easter so we made plans to visit my old student city Enschede in the Netherlands and catch up with my former housemate in Amsterdam. We were totally excited so it was kind of a downer when our car told us one day before we wanted to leave that something doens't feel right. A lot of calls, hours of waiting and several hundreds of euros later it seemed that we can finally pursue our plan and the next day we were in the car and on our way to the great country of cheese and tulips. After 400 km though our car began to heat up, temperature of the engine rose and some seconds later we found ourselves in the nearest rest area along the highway not knowing what to do. Unfortunately, we had two passengers with us who were equally devestated. After some calls, some talking to the other car drivers at the rest area and some waiting in a very cold car, our passengers found a woman that agreed to take them to the next trainstation and our insurance called us back to confirm that help is on the way. And some twenty minutes later help showed up in form of a big yellow truck from the German Automobile Club. He found out quite quickly that he couldn´t do anything for us right here so he took us for a little ride through the nice surrounding area, up and down the hills until we arrived at a garage.
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| The yellow angel coming to save us. |
Beeing a local he knew all the garages and the owners so with a quick call he called them from the car to tell them that we are about to come which was very smart as it was getting dark and the garage was about to close. They fixed it within twenty minutes because as it turned out the garage that fixed our car in Ulm forgot to close on crucial valve. Pretty stupid and really not worth the trouble!! But at least it meant that we could continue driving and reached Enschede only with a three hour delay.
It was great to see my dear friends there again! We had such a wonderful time strolling through the city, seeing everything that had changed and everything that is still the same. We went to the Paradijs which is a very special place. You could almost describe it as a very arty greenhouse. There are huge plants growing from the ground to the very high ceiling of the former ware house. There is a pond with tortoises and fishes and there are staird made out of old bathroom sinks filled with cement leading up the the ceiling.
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| Paradijs. |
The next day all four of us went to Amsterdam to visit Moa. Moa and I lived together for almost four years and havn´t seen each other for more than two years. It was freezing when we arrived but we managed to see most of the sights just by wandering along the canals. It was so nice to see Moa again after all those years! Too much to catch up on, we lacked three more weeks in order to exchange everything that has been going on.
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| Having fun on the "I AMSTERDAM" in front of the Rijksmuseum. |
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| We heart. |
For the next day we wanted to visit the country side and Moa told us about a great second-hand store in a place called Broek in Waterland, not too far out the city and close to the Ijsselmeer. The Netherlands are great for second-hand shopping! They have those great shops called "kringloopwinkel" and you can get furnitures, clothes, plates, pots, pans, type writers, sleighs and skis there. I found a seed box made out of dark brown wood where I can put all my crafting material in that usually fly around on my desk, in my drawers and everywhere else. Then we went to Marken which is a little village on an island in the Ijsselmeer. Its just wonderful and very picturesque, I believe is the right word here. Little houses painted a rich dark green and white, huddeled together as if to keep warm in the icy wind.
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| We called them ice mushrooms. |
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| The ferry taking Moa away again. |
Back in Enschede we continued our tour to all the local Kringloopwinkel and got some very cute things. I also bought tons of presents for my family who miss all the advantages of me living there: the market, the plants and flowers, the cute shops, the cheese, the sirup waffles and the great licorice.
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| Cute little drawer, still too big to fit into our car. |
After some great days there, we went to Frankfurt to see my family for Easter. On Saturday we wanted to go to the fleamarket but after two hours walking along the Main not catching a glimpse of it anywhere we gave up. Turned out that the fleamarket does not take place during Easter weekend. On Sunday we were a little luck with the weater and went to play miniature golf! My brother-in-law got into a fierce competition only to find out in the end that my mum beat us both!
After this, we went back home, hearts filled with old and new memories of friendly faces. <3
