Webber.net.nz

Travelling from Brussels to Waterloo was pretty uneventful. Although Susan was getting a little worried about connections from Waterloo to Paddington for our train onward to Bristol, didn’t seem like 1 hour was enough time for her. Consequently we were threw on our packs grabbed our 2kgs of chocolates and were running towards the eurorail exit.
Things were going great we were passing lots of people and making great time. We had just come through passport control and I could sense the underground entrance was moments away when we waltzed straight into customs control.

In fact somehow we were some of the first people to meet a line-up of lovely custom officers.
The dialogue went something like this

“Passport Please”

I gave them my British one that always puts me onto a winner

“Who are you with?”

By this time the female customs officer has realised Susan and I are married so she is being sent over to join me.

“Where have you come from?”

Brussels, I wonder why they are checking us

“Anywhere before that?”

Oh dearrrrrrrr that is why
Yes Netherlands

“Right come with me both of you”

By now Susan is starting to get her embarrassed “Why are you checking me I have nothing to hide but am suddenly worried that something may have been planted in my bag… oh no I’m looking guilty” look on, which I guess all custom officers must be pretty used to.

Anyway we go off to one side with all the backpacking dreadlocked travelers and the custom officer reminds us that we cannot bring cocaine, marijuana or many other hard drugs into the country. At this point Susan starts to get a little defensive. “We don’t do drugs” she says. Which of course is very admirable for her to point out, however at this stage I’m thinking if I don’t get this guy too irritated he will be kinder with the body cavity search.

Fortunately for us we hadn’t been to any “coffee shops” in the Netherlands (although one friendly local in Maastricht was quite keen to help us find one). This meant that none of our clothes smelt and they could use a special smell detector to go through our packs and send us on our way in time for our train.

However our train ride wasn’t without a little complaining from Susan about why they would pick such an upstanding citizen as herself. Especially since she was wearing her glasses for her intelligent look. I on the other hand am a little more nonchalant out customs stopping a young couple who have just come from a country where marijuana is free.

Last night we arrived in Brussels. First stop chocolate shops!
What we soon realised is every shop owner is awfully kind and dishes out chocolates as you enter to convince you to purchase their coco covered goodies.
Not that I was complaining by the way. We just took it in our stride and munched away…
It wasn’t long before Susan was feeling a little unwell and we were making tracks back to our hotel for Susan to recover.

This morning we checked out the Grand Place (a wide-open cobbled medieval square) by day. It was also prudent to check out the funny Manneken Pis, which is basically a statue of a little boy taking a leak. The unusual thing is that people of Brussels love this statute so much they dress him up in funny outfits like, Elvis, President Bush, pretty much anything.

Anyway after a spot of lunch it was time to buy stack loads of chocolates for our families and head home.

Waking up in Burges we high tailed (or at least waddled along with our packs) to the train station. We narrowly caught the train to Antwerp but ended up there well before lunch. After wondering around the town squares and checking out what must be Belgium’s largest church. We decided to leg it was also relatively easy to avoid the flashy designer stores at 4pm on a Sunday. Anyway we felt we had seen all Antwerp had to offer and keen to begin the dutch leg of our journey.

We made good time into Zeeland. (The area of the Netherlands from which New Zealand inherits it’s name). Going via Roosendaal to Middleburg a sleepy city in the heart of Zeeland. We stayed the night in a B&B attached to a Jazz bar. Regrettably Miles Davis was not blurting out any tunes leaving us with very few restaurants in the centre of town:
a) open and
b) serving vegetarian.
We found a place called Cheerz but were a little surprised to find the going rate for a side plate for bread is €2.50 and Mayo is €1.50. Seems that the letting Poland join the European Economy has hit the Dutch hard.

On Friday night we finally gave up scouring the streets of Burges in search of veggie options. We ended up eating in the main square (called Markt). I figured since I’m in Belgium might as well have a beer.
My thinking and conversation with the waitress went like this:

What would you like to drink?
Might as well have a beer

What beers do you have?

Leffe blond and draught and……
Hmm I have no idea about the other beers she mentioned but Leffe I have drunk. Lager will do me.

Can I have a Leffe blonde?

Small, Medium or Large?
Well small is probably a half pint I go with a large as I’m a bit thirsty.

Large please.

Moments later the largest handle I have seen turns up. It’s 2 pints worth of Belgium beer goodness which is a little more than I had bargained for. In fact it was too heavy for Susan to lift. Oh well saved me buying two drinks

Yesterday we spent the day walking around Burges taking in the sights. It’s a lovely city with plenty of quiet spots away from tourists if you look for them. We took a canal cruise and sampled some waffles then walked them off by visiting the windmills just out of town.

Work Quiz
Wednesday we went to a work pub quiz. Our team was basically the bank of desks we work in. Susan showed great restrain when our team insisted that Johnny Smiths was the brewer that invented the widget. After our trip to Dublin she knew the correct answer was Guinness. I managed to let our team down with incorrectly selecting the wrong country that has owns most land mass in Antarctica.
Overall we done very well and ended up 5th out of 16 teams picking up a can of baked beans each.

Eurorail
Today we travelled to London Paddington. At the station Susan was all excited by the opportunity to pick up so Krispy Kreme donuts. I think her initial plan was to buy one or two, but after some cunning sales tactics from the Krispy Kreme man we left with a dozen donuts.

Our London underground experience wasn’t so successful. We hopped on a few different trains changed routes and spent sometime waiting in the dark. Fortunately we had some donuts for anti claustrophobia comfort.

We were also unsuccessful plaming any donuts on Debbie at Waterloo during her break.

We have spent the afternoon on trains. While on the Eurorail we had the joy of traveling with a bunch of Cricket hooligans, going to Brussels oddly enough. Amazingly between 8 of them the managed to consume 3 bottles of Champagne and around a dozen pints. Still having them around was useful for oftloading excess donuts on to along with the rest of the train carriage.

Burges
Burges is really nice we are staying in a great appartment. However Susan is having issues finding anyone who serves veggie options.