We’re in Amsterdam

Bikes!

Stumpled upon an art agllery

Aw a man in a little boat playing the horn

A glasses museum

Begijnhof

Ann Frank house

A bit of music decoration

Red Light distrcit

How they get stuff up to the top floors…

…beaucse the stairs are too steep!

Mon 29 Jun – Fri 3 Jul 2015

After having a better sleep on the last night of the festival, we were feeling a bit more refreshed and excited to hit the road for Amsterdam! We packed up the campsite and re-packed the car. This is becoming an art that we are mastering. After sitting in festival traffic for an hour or so we found a McDonald’s for lunch and then headed off towards Holland. We found our hostel with no problems and unpacked the car for the next four nights. 

We then went in search of a park and ride just outside of the city centre. This would only cost us about 10 euros for the four days as opposed to 25 euros a day in the city centre. We were pretty exhausted from the festival so we had a quiet night – catching up on blogging, laundry, etc.

The next day we slept in and then went on a free walking tour of the city. We stopped for a frappuccino and hot dog for lunch then headed to a cheese shop and bought a small selection of Dutch cheese (taste/texture like gouda). Then we headed south to the foodhall. Natalie thought this was  market where we could get fruit & veg, etc. but it turns out it was just a a food hall (as the name implied) but we had coupons for free canvas tote bags so the 30 minute walk wasn’t a total waste.

So then we had to stop at a real supermarket to get food for our stay. We were on the third floor of the hostel and it was boiling in our room so the most we could manage was a salad and bread. That night we walked around the neighborhood where our hostel was to see the city at night.

On Wednesday we went to rent bikes. We biked back to the car because we forgot a few things like a new book for Matt, the faux pro, etc. Then we biked to hostel to change into something cooler and packed our picnic lunch that we made the night before. We biked to Vondelpark which was very near our hostel and had a Canada Day picnic complete with a Keith’s beer (saved for over a year for a special occasion!)

We went for a bike ride around the park and stopped at a bench to watch the world go by. We saw so many different kinds of bikes it was unbelievable really. Everyone had their own twist. Some with baby seats on the back or the front (or both), some with baskets, creates and wooden carts attached. People riding in their suits or summer dresses and some walking their dogs whilst riding!

We went back to the hostel for dinner (more salad and bread – too hot to cook in the little hostel kitchen!!) The we biked over to the Anne Frank museum but didn’t get a chance to visit because the line up was too long (over an hour wait and it was getting late).

We biked around the city looking for a jazz bar (got lost several times) and finally found it but there was no live jazz on as previously advertised so we went to a cafe to hear some live jazz. It was an amazing band – they were so enthusiastic!

On Thursday we went in search for an American bookstore so Natalie could get a book in English for when she finished her current book. We then went to the Begijnhof which was an area for single or widowed women who wanted to live like nuns but not take monastic vows. The city still rents the flats to only women. We then went to the flower market but it turned out that they just sold flower bulbs and not actual bunches of flowers so it was just a sea of brown bulbs and other tourist souvenirs – rather disappointing. For lunch we had fries from a little takeaway place that our guide book recommended called Vleminckx, which had been opened since 1879-ish.

After lunch we biked to the sex museum in the Red Light district because we were in Amsterdam after all. Not overly educational – more cheesy than anything. Most of the displays really needed updating and modernising. The most interesting collection was pronographic photos from the 1870s to 1960s – some early ones taken in photographer’s studios and all! Those loose Victorians – how shocking!

Then we biked back to the hostel to pack our bags to leave the next day and then headed out again for dinner at a steakhouse called Chicanos. Nice and cheap and just for tourists.

After dinner we to the Red Light district to see all of the prostitutes in their little windows. Our tour guide, on the first day, said that they have around 15 customers a day and charge around 50 euros per 15 minutes. They rent their space from city real estate agents and they have to pay income tax on their earnings.

The next day we biked over to the bike rental place to return our bikes, then we got the tram to our car. We drove to the hostel and parked it up and reloaded her then it was off to Hannover to meet our next workaway hosts.

Meg, Charlie & Natalie

Purple Moose enjoying the festival sunshine

Dog tent (where’s the dog)

Tipi

Damian Marley

The Prodigy

Royal Blood

Lenny Kravitz

Rock Werchter selfie

The Vaccines

Best sign at the festival (Game of Thrones refernece)

Counting Crows

Counting Crows

Kasabian

Waiting for Muse

Muse

Muse

Muse

Fireworks after the festival

Wed 24 – Sun 28 June 2015

After not seeing anything of Brussels, we hit the road for the obscure town of Werchter where we had tickets for a four day music festival. This was Natalie’s first music festival and Matt’s first one outside of the UK. At least he knew what to expect! There were mostly Belgians, Dutch and Germans at the festival of 88,000. Our campsite, the Hive, held 30,000 and had market stall, toilets, showers and a big dance hall and bar.

We arrived in the afternoon for early camping. Two very long and tiring trips from the car, we got all set up and made a plan of what bands we wanted to see on each day. Then we met up with Matt’s friend from Revs, Charlie and her friend Meg. The four of us went to the festival opening party and had a blast. It wasn’t too hard to fall asleep that night!

The days followed a similar pattern; get up as it was too hot to sleep past 9:30am, make breakfast, have a little sponge bath, make lunch, head to the festival (sometimes coming back for dinner, sometimes getting dinner from the strip – local businesses spotting an amazing business opportunity!). The campsite was half a mile from the festival so we did lots of walking in five days!

We saw lots of bands including: Eagles of Death Metal, Royal Blood (twice), Rise Against, Faith No More, The Chemical Brothers, Damian Marley, Mumford and Sons, Pharrell Williams, Hozier, Ryan Adams, Lenny Kravitz, The Prodigy, Enter Shikari, The Vaccines, Counting Crows, The Script, Kasabian and…MUSE!!!

Funny story about the last day though. We were on about 3-4 hours of sleep and wanted to get a good spot for Muse – we had scouted out a good spot that we wanted to try but we had to get there early. After an early dinner at 3pm we took our place near the front. It was only an 8 hour wait until Muse came on at 11 but we wanted to stick it out! We were about 15 rows back, centre stage and had a great view of all of the other bands that were on in the lead up. But Natalie, being as precious as she is, was tired, hot, dehydrated and not enjoying being crammed in like a tin of sardines. The Muse fans were wild and it was great to be in amongst the excitement but after about 30 minutes Natalie started having a small panic attack and had to be pulled out and taken to the First Aid tent. Luckily we only missed 1.5 songs and were able to see the rest of the concert (from the side but still an ok view). Matt was very understanding but we were both disappointed considering we went to the festival to see Muse. Oh well, lesson learned.

All in all it was an amazing experience! If a bit overwhelming and exhausting it was something Natalie would love to do again (and obviously Matt would do it all summer long if he could).

Next stop Amsterdam 🙂

Longueville-sur-Scie

Exploring the near by ruinned castle

View from our bedroom window

Backyard

Livingroom

Dinning room

Kitchen

Flower garden

Veggie garden

Making kvass (fermented fruit with raw honey)

Local lama

Local lama with some deer

Lunch break

Fran made the best salads ever!!

Making pot-au-feu

Cooking dinner

The workaway crew

Lending a helping antler

Pose on the stairs we built

Dieppe

Expensive coffee break!

At the seaside

Monet’s version of Pourville

Pourville

Sun 14 – Sat 20 June 2015

Sunday was another lazy day. Our host, Frances was away cycling so we had a nice lie in. We lazed about and had a stroll into the village, however from noon on Sunday until 8am on Tuesday everything was closed so there wasn’t much to see.

Frances’ brother Sean and another workawayer, Tam went fishing so it was just Nat, Matt, Louise and Fran for dinner. Fran made pork and veg  for dinner and updated us on the plans for the week. Sean and Tam were going to be working on the roof. Matt would work on replacing the garden steps and Nat and Louise would work in the garden. Fran is an artist so she would be working in her studio. We helped ourselves to breakfast, coffee break at 10:45 and Fran would make lunch at 1pm and dinner in the evenings would be around 7 or 8pm.

We were up and ready to go Monday morning by 9am. Nat made some porridge for herself and Matt then headed out for instructions. Matt started by ripping up the old stairs and Nat did some whipper snipping (or weed whacking). Fran made the most glorious salad for lunch with veg from the garden and fruit and lot and lots of olive oil. There was a load and bread and cheese as well. After lunch Nat helped Matt with the stairs as it was very laborious. Dinner on Monday was a wonderful frittata with the most delicious black olives.

The rest of the week followed a similar pattern. Tuesday was more work on the stairs as was Wednesday. We finally finished that project. Not being builders or having any tools to produce stairs, they were questionable but hopefully satisfactory.

Tuesday’s dinner was liver and onions but the most fresh and well cooked liver and the onions were slow cooked in a mustard and cream sauce. Mmmm. Wednesday’s dinner was was a chicken and olive bake with veg. Thursday’s dinner was pot-au-feu – a traditional French beef stew done over the open fire. Friday’s dinner was mackerel with roared veg and mushrooms all done on an open fire.

Work wise, it was drizzling a bit on Thursday morning so Nat, Matt and Louise cleaned the living room and bedroom. After coffee break we headed out into the clearing drizzle  and did some weeding and clearing of weeds. On Friday Louise helped Sean with insulation on the roof as it was Tam’s last morning. Nat and Matt spent the day burning lots of cuttings on a bonfire and clearing more weeds.

Saturday was our last day. We took Fran and her brother to the ferry in Dieppe as they were on their way back to Brighton for a few days. We (+ Louise) strolled through the market at Dieppe and got some food for lunch and dinner. We had the most amazing (and really rich) crepe stack. Slices of crepes layered with different fillings like smoked salmon, prawn mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs. We also had a croissant sandwich filled with ham and cheese. We bought bread, cheese, olives and cured meats for dinner. We stopped for a really fancy and expensive coffee at a coffee house that was established in the mid-1700s!

We drove to a little seaside village, Pourville and strolled along the promenade and had our lunch. We headed back to Fran’s to do some more planning. We nipped down to the village music festival around 9pm but didn’t stay too long. We were all really tried from a long week so we watched Under the Tuscan Sun and went to bed.

All in all, our first workaway was the most wonderful experience. Hard work yet rewarding. We learned lots of new things about land management, building and food! We can hardly wait to start our next workaway adventure but that will be in a few weeks to come. In the meantime, more trucking through Europe.

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Just some gargoyles

The Great Clock

Little urban garden

Some houses

Papa Paul’s house?

The Donjon, Joan of Arc Tower where she was imprissoned

Joan of Arc Memorial

Joan of Arc memorial – marking where she was burned

Just some pretty flowers

Saint Queen Abbey Church

A statue with a mustachesh

Saint-Maclou Church

Son et lumière!!! on the Notre-Dame Cathedral

Sat 13 June 2015

As we had Saturday off, and Rouen being the nearest city and attraction to our workaway, we decided to visit. Matt had been there before on a uni trip to play at a music festival and thus had a few places he wanted to show us (myself and another workawayer, Louise).

We stopped into the tourist information centre for a map. It had two self-guided walking tours that would take us by all of the major attractions – some of which were Joan of Arc memorials. Rouen is where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and eventually burned at the stake.

The sun was shining so we wandered about for about four hours. Then we picked a little local restaurant to have dinner. As our French is minimal, Natalie recognised gratins on a menu. She knew that meant a potato casserole so figured that was a safe bet. Matt and Natalie had dishes with ham and bacon and Louise chose a spinach and haddock dish that Matt luckily got to finish off!

We then headed to an Irish pub – of all places – for a pint. Then we walked a bit further on to a local bar called Le Saxo in search of some live music (hopefully Jazz). Alas there was no live music on this particular Saturday Night. However, the world music playing was fab. Another pint in and we decided we better head home. As we were walking back to the car we stumbled across the most amazing Son et Lumiere show being projected onto the main Cathedral. We had seen a few in the UK and USA but this was by far the most spectacular show yet! There were several 10 minute installments telling different stories about the history of Normandy.

It was easy to say that the first official day in France was a success. What adventures would await us during our week of volunteering?

The White Cliffs of Dover

Horses on the cliffs having their dinner

Dreaming of tomorrow

So long England

Étaples Military Cemetery

Thurs 11 – Fri 12 June 2015

Yes, there is a day missing – what happened on Wednesday? After cramming Bath and the Harry Potter Studio Tour into one day, we decided we were trying to do too much! Natalie was panicking that we had not booked our accommodation for Belgium or Amsterdam or confirmed our next ‘workaway’ host (concept to be explained later), so we decided against visiting Oxford and spent the day planning. Matt came up with the ingenuous idea to use the free wifi and free parking at motorway services/rest areas. This was great! We had a Starbucks and some lunch but the parking was only for two hours – I mean who really spends more then that at the services? So we went a few miles down the motorway to the next services for another two hours.

We stayed at our first Airbnb that night outside of London. We cooked our own meal, which was a nice change. The hosts were friendly and offered a bit of advice as they went traveling for a year as well. They went out to a friend’s birthday party so Matt took this opportunity to ask them if they watch Game of Thrones (missing episode 9 that Monday we were desperate!). Turns out that they had recorded it so we watched it on their lovely big screen in HD. Thanks Daniel & Kristy 🙂

That brings us to Thursday. We drove from London to Dover to visit the White Cliffs. We arrived at about 3:30 – a bit late but we had a picnic lunch on the cliffs and had a nice stroll. We stayed in a rather dodgy hotel in Folkestone. Actually the hotel was decent but the neighborhood was a little rough. Fish & chips was the only food on offer for our last meal in the UK which was rather fitting!

The next day was lovely and sunny with little wind – perfect conditions for sailing from Dover to Calais. We had a little trouble with the Garmin – she wasn’t used to being on the continent but we eventually cracked her.

We had a quick stop at the Etaples Military Cemetery – a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery that holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II. Quite moving yet a lovely peaceful place to be laid to rest.

We then headed to our workaway host located in Longueville-sur-Scie (20 minutes south of Dieppe). We are supplementing our travels by participating as volunteers in a work exchange. We do approx 25 hours a week of work in exchange for room and board. More on our experience of our first destination to follow.

The Great Hall

Drinks at the Yule Ball

Gryffindor common room

The Mirror of Erised

Dumbledore’s Office

Dumbledore’s Office

Casting some spells

Deatheater masks

The Ministry of Magic

No. 4 Privet Drive

A bit of Butterbeer in the Weasley’s car

Taking a spin on Hagrid’s motorcycle

Dobby

Mermiad

Goblin masks

Buckbeak the Hippogriff

Hogwarts Express

Platform 9 & 3/4

stack of cauldrons, Diagon Alley

Ollivanders, Diagon Alley

Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment, Diagon Alley

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, Diagon Alley

Architect of Hogwarts

Hogwarts Castle

Hogwarts Castle

Tues 9 June 2015

What can we say about the Harry Potter Studio tour? It was amazing, captivating and very much well worth the visit!! We spent 4 hours there, exploring and reading everything. The experience told the story of the making of the films so any Harry Potter fans out there beware, you may never look at the films the same way. We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Magic!

A Georgian building

The River Avon

Assembly Rooms

Assembly Rooms

Fashion Museum

Victorian getup

Mineral water fountain

Taking the waters!

Mon 8 – Tues 9 June 2015

After another long drive we made it to the South! Bath was a fine example of Georgian architecture…everything Natalie had expected and hoped it would be. After checking into the YMCA (yes, it was fun to stay there – even in the 12 bed mixed dorm!), around 1:30pm, we raced off to the Fashion Museum located in the basement of the Assembly Rooms.

We brought our bathing suits with us hoping to have a quick plunge in the medicating waters at the Roman Baths – come to find out that you couldn’t actually swim in them. Coming from ‘Hadrian’s Wall country’ and the fact that we will be visiting Italy later on in our trip, we decided to give them a miss. Natalie really wanted to try the new baths, which pumped the famous hot springs, but it was a little out of our price range (£32 per person for 2 hours – yikes! perhaps next time?).

After touring about the Assembly Rooms and half of the Fashion Museum, Natalie realized that the memory card for the camera was still in the computer which was back in the car that was parked a few miles away. Whilst dashing off back the car, Natalie lost her lovely white hat that she scoured Sarasota for – it was never found. Then we hurried back to the Fashion Museum, as it closed at 5pm, and started again – taking lots and lots of pictures!!

We then headed off to discover more of Bath and sat in front of the Roman Baths listening to a street performer. We used our student discount and treated ourselves to a Pizza Express. Then went in search for a pub quiz. The advertised pub quiz wasn’t on as the students have left – poor excuse! So we found another one. We came in last of three teams but it was a good time – we did pretty well in the history, Roman mythology and Star Wars vs Game of Thrones categories – we never really stumble across a quiz that plays to our strengths! We then snuggled down – if you could call it that – into our 3 high bunk beds. No thanks to the Americans who packed and left at 3am and the 2-3 other men soaring it was a decent sleep.

The following morning was a little jam packed. After not fitting his full size acoustic guitar in the car, Matt decided he better buy something a little more suited for travel – a guitalele (another instrument for the collection!). At the same time, Natalie went in search for a replacement hat. We met up at the Bath Abby for a 2 hour free city walking tour. We discovered and learned a lot about the city. Then a quick bit of lunch and we were off for our next leg of the UK journey…

Nrunch at the Butterfly Cabinet with Clara and Tom

Bye bye Newcastle

Which one is Chewie?

Lincoln Cathedral

Inside Lincoln Cathedral

Ross &b Matt enjoying the sun!

Fri 5 – Sun 7 June 2015

After moving out of Newcastle, the city we had fondly called home for the best part of 5 years, we spent 3 weeks with family in Carlisle and the Lake District. The question remained, which lovely place should be the first stop on our grand European adventure? Newcastle of course!

As we didn’t get to have a proper goodbye to Newcastle (packing the flat was a little more than hectic!), we decided we needed to go back. We invited ourselves round to our friends’ Clara and Tom’s place to spend one last night in the city we’d grown to love – on the airbed we had given them before we left. After some celebratory birthday drinks with Clara and friends and an interesting sleep – one that had a feeling one was on a sinking ship – we awoke and had a delicious brunch at the Butterfly Cabinet in Heaton, a Newcastle neighborhood. A quick ‘so long’ and hugs and we crawled into our overly packed silver, 2005 Hyundai Accent and hit the open road, over the Tyne Bridge and down to Lincoln to visit Matt’s high school friend, Ross.

We arrived in Lincoln in the late afternoon and had a quick poke around the high street (saw Chewie) and the Cathedral, which was not quite as good as Durham we felt, but we are a bit bias! Ross was promoting a music event that night so we caught up with him at the Scene. The gig was great and we had a brilliant night of catching up that lasted til the wee hours of the morning.

After sleeping much of the next day away, we enjoyed our first taste of warm sunshine in what felt like a very long time. Who knew that only a 3 hour drive south of Newcastle we would find the beginnings of summer – it was only early June after all! We spent the afternoon chatting with Ross and his lovely parents, Paul and Carol, who then fed us an amazing bbq for dinner. We finished off the visit in the traditional English way…a quick pint (or two) at Ruskington’s local pub, the Shoulder of Mutton – charming name.