Vantastic Voyage

Ok first off, I apologize sincerely that it’s taken us so long to post something. We’ve been so busy packing, planning, running around on planes, trains, bikes, buses and automobiles and have finally arrived in the Netherlands. The jet lag struggle is real folks. We are finding ourselves sleeping and awake at odd hours of the night and day. Hopefully that will soon go away. We are on day 7 and it still lingers.

We departed from PDX with 2 huge cardboard boxes and 1 huge rolling suit case, all weighing over 50lbs. We also each had heavy carry-ons containing our laptops and other electronics. Frantically trying to move things around so we didn’t have to pay the extra $100 per bag that was over the limit, we finally just had to pay for one. This was quite a difficult task as both the cardboard boxes were taped and tied shut. The best news we could’ve gotten that day was that we received first class on our non-stop flight to Amsterdam. We thought the 10 hour flight was way too short.

 William laying fully extended on our flight to Amsterdam. 

We arrived Wednesday November 18th at about 8ish in the morning. We didn’t get to our friend Ingrid’s place until after noon. In between that time was a blur, to me at least. I think there was some repacking, buying train tickets, waiting on the wrong train flat, and taking the wrong train that still got us there eventually but took us 45 minutes longer. There was also waiting for the bus and getting on the bus which was a sweaty anxiety fest. We walked around to about 3 different apartment complexes, mind you with all our huge boxes, trying to find Ingrid. Thankfully we had a foldable dolly (best purchase from Amazon) to roll our cargo around. Four hours later we were finally greeted with a warm welcome from Ingrid.

 Ingrid, Will and I in the St. Martin Cathedral garden. 

Ingrid was a serious lifesaver and just an amazing host. I don’t know what we could’ve done if we didn’t have her. She let us crash on her floor for 4 nights in her tiny room. She let us ride her bikes wherever we needed to go and showed us all the cheap places to buy stuff for our van – Action and Big Bazaar. For the first couple days we only went to 2 places. Donna Turner from dutchcampervans.com was the main event as she was the one that sold us our van. She was about a 10 minute bike ride from Ingrids but of course the first time I think it took us about 30 minutes to find Donna. The other place we went to at least once a day was the grocery store called Lidl. I freaking love this place. I have never seen food and wine this cheap.

 Cheese selection at Lidl.

We cooked dinner every night and went back and forth to Donna’s. The first day we got there it wasn’t so bad but than the weather changed on us drastically. It got bitter cold. We did spend some time touring downtown Utrecht. Ingrid took us to her favorite coffee shop De Ontdekking. Will tried the flat white (sort of like a latte but with less milk, a shot with the milk foam) while Ingrid and I had cappuccinos. We walked around St. Martin Cathedral and enjoyed walking along the canal. It is such a stunning place.

 Downtown Utrecht

Later in the evening for dinner we tried a goat cheese kroket as well as some “chips” fries dipped in curry sauce at a place called Frietwinkel. Ingrid got the beef kroket as well as the fries dipped in mayonnaise. The Dutch really love their fries dipped in mayannaise which is actually quite delicious. The mayo tastes like they put some sort of horse radish or spicy mustard in it so it’s not your typical mayo in the states.

 Frietwinkel – where we had fries and krokets.

Right this very moment we are waiting to receive our van from the mechanic that took it overnight to get it all ready for our trip. Updates to come on that.