Amsterdam February 2013

In early February, we arrived into a frosty Amsterdam for a few days of sightseeing. We enjoyed wandering or biking along the canals, stopping off at a cafes or coffee shops to warm up. I always find the Dutch architecture interesting to look at, with their unique step-like facades, and incredibly skinny buildings.

This was Kylie’s first taste of the Netherlands, and taste we did, enjoying cheese, ham, bread, and stroopwafels (round thin wafer-type waffles filled with syrup, particularly delectable when rested on the top of a hot drink so that the syrup starts to become gooey). A local delicacy which we enjoyed less was pickled herring on bread.

 

At times we found it a little hard to find some tasty and authentic restaurants, as the centre of the city seemed to be dominated by tourist-trap type restaurants, including, oddly, a number of Argentinean steakhouse restaurants.

Our hotel was near to the Vondelpark, a lovely park full of people walking, jogging, and of course, biking. One day we took a picnic of ham, cheese and bread there but sitting still chilled us through and we headed straight for a coffee in the nearby café.

The Van Gogh museum was being renovated at the time, but we enjoyed visiting the Rijksmuseum with impressive works by famous Dutch artists Vermeer, Rembrandt, as well as some Van Gogh.

On our last day we trekked across town in the snow on our bicycles to a great little market, on the hunt for delicious goodies to take back to the flatmates. My toes felt like they were about to freeze and drop off however, so we didn’t hang around long!

Bath and Bristol beginning of December 2012

Sorry for the long break. Over the next few weeks we will try and bring our blog up to date; starting with our visit to Bath and Bristol to see the Bath Christmas Markets.

We took a few days off for a long weekend and took the train to Bristol. We were looking forward to escaping the bustle of London and going to our first winter xmas market.

Our first day was spent wandering around Bristol fairly aimlessly stumbling across the Bristol Cathedral, which was founded in 1140, 1140! It amazes me how far back the history here goes and how well preserved and accessible it is.

Bristol Cathedral

After that we got a bit lost trying to find the suspension bridge and ended up in Brandon Hill Park, which is home to Cabot tower that offers great views over the city.

Further on we found Clifton suspension bridge, which hovers over the river Avon.

Clifton suspension bridge

We headed back to town and popped into Brew Dog, which is a great Scotland-based brewery that offers American style beer packed with speciality malts and hops. So far my favourite UK-based brewery.

The next day we headed for Bath and the famous Christmas Markets.

Going to Bath is like stepping back in time. The Romans established the city itself sometime in 60 AD. The city sits on top of natural hot springs, hence the name.

Once we arrived we quickly learned that Bath being such a huge tourist attraction was just as busy as London. We sat down for tea and cake at ‘the Mad Hatters tea party’ café.

We entered the markets only to find that there were so many people you couldn’t stop and look at things as the current of people dragged you along. We managed to get some mulled wine and after 20 minutes or so decided it wasn’t worth it and set of to explore the rest of the city.

We came back early the next day to see the Roman bathhouse before the tour buses arrived. The facilities were amazing, main pool, spa, plunge pool, steam room and sauna.

Amazing sculptures and awe-inspiring architecture all built around 300 AD. They have done an amazing job at excavating the site and restoring it to its former glory. Earlier on in the year (2012) they found a hoard of around 30,000 silver Roman coins.

Roman spa in Bath

Bath Abbey

For the rest of the day we wandered around town and visited the circus and the royal crescent both amazing buildings built during the 1700s.

After walking around all day in the cold we were freezing so I decided to warm myself up by hiking up the hill behind the station for some dusk shots.

 

Royal Cresent

View over Bath

A jaunt across the channel to Belgium, August 2012

A little while after settling into our new flat in London, we popped across the channel to Belgium. 

The Eurostar was fantastic – so easy and relaxing, and we were in Brussels in around 2 hours. As well as visiting this great little country, I also wanted to visit my host family who I stayed with for a year in 2003. 

We spent a few days in Brussels, where I tried to act as guide and show Kylie the sights, sounds, and especially, tastes of the city.

Highlights of Brussels for us included the Tintin museum, the royal palace, la grand place (Brussels’ central square), the great architecture around the city, and the Cantillon Brewery.

This brewery was really interesting and also had the advantage of being close to the gare du nord (from where you take the eurostar). They don’t offer brewery tours as such; instead you’re given some key info, and a detailed pamphlet, and you can wander around the brewery at your leisure. This is an old family brewery which makes a selection of lambic beers. Lambic beer is produced by  spontaneous fermentation; it is exposed to wild yeasts and bacteria in the air. The attic of the brewery therefore has slats which can be opened or closed depending on the weather, temperature, and its possible effects on the beer.  Included in the price of admission (6 euros) is a welcome glass of beer. Highly recommend visiting this brewery for an unique insight into traditional brewing methods, and the beer is tasty too.

Spontaneous fermentation

It was good to use my rusty French, although a little frustrating at things I kept forgetting.

Next stop was Louvain-la-Neuve, and the lovely Kreit family. Louvain-la-Neuve, or LLN to the locals, was built relatively recently – around 40 years ago. The story goes that both French-speaking Belgians (Walloons) and Dutch-speaking Belgians (Flemish) once attended the Catholic University of Leuven/Louvain together – in the Flemish region of the country. Disagreements between the two groups led to the Walloons creating their own version of Leuven/Louvain, hence ‘Louvain-la-Neuve’ (‘the new Louvain’), and their own university as well.

During my time in LLN in 2003 it was very noticeably a student town, and it felt quite deserted in the summer months. In 2012 however a lot had changed. There is now a brand new shopping complex. More people, families especially, have been moving to the town, and there was a lot of life in the town, although the middle of summer (which had previously felt deserted as the students went home or in search of summer work elsewhere). 

In LLN we stayed with my host parents Véronique and Jean-François, and managed to see host sisters Marguerite and Evelyne, as well as recent addition to family, Evelyne’s daughter Lily. It was great to catch up with them all – although my host parents visited NZ a few years ago, I hadn’t seen the others for 9 years!

la famille Kreit

From LLN we headed back to Brussels, where we met up with Monique, a friend from NZ who was living in Brussels at the time. Monique kindly let us stay in her studio in Brussels, took us to the reputedly best ‘friterie’ (fries shop) in the city (Antoine’s), and gave us some local tips.

Royal Palace

We took some day trips to Leuven and Ghent in the Flemish region, enjoying the great architecture, and local tastes.

London, first impressions, July

We arrived into London on 13 July. Since it was summer, we expected mild, or perhaps even warm, temperatures. However, having been swanning around in temperatures upwards of 35 degrees Celsius, the 15 degrees we stepped out into was a definite shock to the system. We spent the first few weeks staying with my brother and his wife, who both thought we were ridiculous for bundling up in our winter coats, jeans, and gloves. In all fairness though, when I skyped family back in NZ (where it was mid-winter), it was actually 15 degrees over there too.

The tube ride in from the airport was fascinating for us newbies. With our big backpacks during rush hour, we must’ve annoyed a few commuters. It was so strange seeing so many people in suits, and all staying completely silent throughout the journey. In our SE Asia backpacking clothes, we definitely stuck out like sore thumbs, especially alongside people in what seemed like incredibly trendy clothing. Trying not to stare, we also looked out the windows, and all the brick houses we passed looked so pretty and quaint.

At the time, my brother and his wife were living in Finsbury Park/Hackney in North London. As the last leg of our journey was spent in bustling Bangkok, the streets in their neighbourhood seemed so quiet.

I remember wondering what an ‘off-license’ was – I just thought there were all these liquor shops everywhere. For those not in the know, it’s actually like a corner store/dairy/four square; the place where you pick up your milk, bread, etc.

Another surprise was just how multicultural London is. Just jump on a bus and you’re bound to hear a multitude of different languages and see a multitude of different ethnicities. At times, coming from New Zealand just seems so downright boring in comparison. Although NZ is quite multicultural, the mix is quite different.

 Aside from being cold and discovering new wondrous things like oversized notes that won’t fit in a standard wallet, we spent the first few weeks in London flat hunting, attempting to get bank accounts, national insurance numbers, and in my case, job hunting.

Kylie had enjoyed unemployment so much that he didn’t fancy going back to work straight away, and so he took a much more relaxed approach.

Looking for a flat is not an easy task in London, particularly when you’re new to the city, and have no idea what different parts of the city are like, and how much to expect to pay.

I heard recently of someone who advertised a room to rent and within the first 24 hours, they had received 150 emails. The demand is simply so high that getting a room is extremely competitive.

It didn’t take us too long to sort out a place however. We are now living in Brockley, in South East London. We share a terraced house with four others; an Australian and an Italian girl, and another couple, he a Londoner, and she Indian.

Home sweet home

Chapel in Brockley Cemetry, near to our flat

Many had told me that although it’s cold in the UK, the houses are actually insulated and aren’t damp – something we’d lived with in many flats back in Wellington. Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be the case for our humble abode. I’m told that after the war and the damage it caused, there was a need to erect housing quickly and cheaply, and so terraced houses came to be. Corners were cut and small matters like insulation were clearly not high on the priority list. Our lovely landlady also seems to be a fan of ‘repairing’ things in an interesting fashion, but that’s another story for another time.

Koh Tao, sometime in July

We arrived into Koh Tao somewhat worse for wear after a long night bus and ferry ride from Bangkok. The package we booked in Bangkok included several nights’ accommodation and the PADI Open Water diving course at Coral Grand Divers, one of many dive operators on the island.

Later that same day, we started our Open Water course. I think we were pretty close to dozing off as we watched a video covering some of the theory.  We were then given our own course books, and dive tables, and prescribed a few chapters to read that evening.

The whole course was four days long, involving much more theory than I had anticipated. On the practical side, we started off with two practice dives in the swimming pool, before moving to the Ocean, and completing four dives at various dive locations off the island. To complete the course, we needed to pass both a theory test and have completed all the necessary skills during our dives. Naturally, we passed with flying colours J, although were quite tired after all that – the course is quite compacted, a lot of information to cover in such a short space of time.

Kylie seemed to take like a fish to water with the practical skills, while I took a little longer to get the hang of things. Removing my mask and holding it, before replacing I found quite tough, as my natural instinct was to breath in through my nose, meaning I would then take on water; but I got there in the end.

Our instructor, Coco, was really fantastic. She was very thorough, super friendly, patient, and you could tell she was really passionate about diving and conservation of the marine environment.

After completing the course, we also did a few fun dives. It was so great to be able to just chill out and really enjoy the dive, checking out all the amazing sea life, rather than concentrating on the various skills to complete. Some of the most memorable things we saw were; giant grouper, puffer fish, trigger fish, and a stingray.

In between the course and the fun dives, we had taken a few days off from diving and explored the rest of the island on motorbike. As a warning, some of the roads, particularly down to different beaches, were quite rough, but it was definitely worth it.

As with most of the islands, Koh Tao really seems like a place apart from Thailand itself. Towards the end of our stay the island really started to fill up as revelers from the infamous Full Moon Party on nearby Koh Pha Ngan drifted in. The bars and restaurants are therefore set up to cater to this crowd, with predominately western or westernized food being served. That said, we did manage to find a couple of places serving delicious, authentic Thai food.