After a mighty long flight back to The Netherlands (via Sydney, Taipei and Bangkok - it was cheap) we pretty much headed straight off to Belgium after singing the Dutch version of "happy birthday" for Neva. We headed to The Ardennes, which is a mountain range running through France/Belgium. We headed to the French speaking region of Belgium, right near the border. I have never been one for French and at school elected to study Indonesian. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake as there has been more of a need to know French than Indonesian in Europe.
I can now say in French, "Do you speak Dutch?" I forgot that I could also have learned "Do you speak English?" Our camp site was in a tiny village along a river with a view out to the mountain/hills and a little bridge going over the river. We took the bikes and planned on doing a bit of riding as well as a bit of nothing in general... maybe reading a book or something in the sun. The weather turned out to be not too fantastic so you could often find us in the tent drinking away and eating cheese. Now, about the cheese! I thought Nederland was the land of cheese, but Belgium has just as much, and when we went to a supermarket in France there were AISLES of cheese.
So when it wasn't raining, we went riding. We were on this great little path, and then all of a sudden the path became a track and a massive tree had fallen on the path. And did I mention that it was extremely steep. It's always at this point you wonder if you have somehow got off the main path and question if you should go back or just go a bit further and hope that it comes good. Our bike track then became something of a goat's track. Check out the film to see how much riding we couldn't do.
Another of the lux things about riding is all the bread, vegemite and cheese you get to carry around with you all day for lunch. The positive to this means that you can have lunch where ever you wish.
One day that we didn't do any riding we went to a city in France.. just to have a look around. Martijn and I never being organised at anything in our lives, turned up at 12 noon just as everything closed for the lunch break between 12-2pm. Nothing was open except 2 cafes (and a few bakeries). I had thought that it was a stereotype, the French and their baguette. But I swear, we saw so many people walking around with a fresh bagguette for lunch. I decided that I too had to be a bit French and bought Martijn and I a bagguette and walked around the city.
On second thoughts, maybe it wasn't really French people with bread on their way for lunch, maybe we only saw other tourists trying to be French.
I can now say in French, "Do you speak Dutch?" I forgot that I could also have learned "Do you speak English?" Our camp site was in a tiny village along a river with a view out to the mountain/hills and a little bridge going over the river. We took the bikes and planned on doing a bit of riding as well as a bit of nothing in general... maybe reading a book or something in the sun. The weather turned out to be not too fantastic so you could often find us in the tent drinking away and eating cheese. Now, about the cheese! I thought Nederland was the land of cheese, but Belgium has just as much, and when we went to a supermarket in France there were AISLES of cheese.
So when it wasn't raining, we went riding. We were on this great little path, and then all of a sudden the path became a track and a massive tree had fallen on the path. And did I mention that it was extremely steep. It's always at this point you wonder if you have somehow got off the main path and question if you should go back or just go a bit further and hope that it comes good. Our bike track then became something of a goat's track. Check out the film to see how much riding we couldn't do.
Another of the lux things about riding is all the bread, vegemite and cheese you get to carry around with you all day for lunch. The positive to this means that you can have lunch where ever you wish.
One day that we didn't do any riding we went to a city in France.. just to have a look around. Martijn and I never being organised at anything in our lives, turned up at 12 noon just as everything closed for the lunch break between 12-2pm. Nothing was open except 2 cafes (and a few bakeries). I had thought that it was a stereotype, the French and their baguette. But I swear, we saw so many people walking around with a fresh bagguette for lunch. I decided that I too had to be a bit French and bought Martijn and I a bagguette and walked around the city.On second thoughts, maybe it wasn't really French people with bread on their way for lunch, maybe we only saw other tourists trying to be French.
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