Travel Journal-- EXPOSED!

I spent a few hours yesterday scanning my travel journal. I picked up a little yellow Rhodia notbook in Orleans for a buck-60 (hey, B calls 'em bucks and I am too lazy to find the euro symbol on the keyboard) and wrote and drew in it sporadically while we were travelling.


I already wrote about Amsterdam here and here. The little street diagram shows the two streets called "Vondelstraat" and "Annie Vondelstraat" a distinction Google maps didn't make (or we didn't make).



My mother wanted an "authentic" German recipe so I asked our hostess S for her delicious crepe recipe. S had one of those wooden "t" things that scrape the batter a uniform thickness. I have no idea where you'd buy one. Sadly, I doubt my mom will make these since she is a strict teetotaller. (Bist nicht means "be not").



I drew this while in the tent on the Loire while it was raining. I had always heard from travellers about how great the European railway system is, how easy, how cheap, blah blah blah. I won't complain, since it got us where we wanted to go, but I certainly learned a lot about train survival. (the usual travel tips really take on new wisdom when you are dragging your belongings up and down stairs and ramps and fighting clocks a figuring out foreign schedules)



This trip was a wedding gift from D and B. D met us at the platfrom in Munster. We were so glad to see him after days of being surrounded by strangers. We listened to Bob Dylan in the car as we sped down the autobahns.



We spent one night in Haus Dulmen, near Munster, and then the next day we road tripped to France. We went through Belgium. Once we got in France, we learned to dread the "Peage" signs which meant "caugh up your euros, stupid freeway drivers." The landscape was beautiful, hours and hours of rolling fields of wheat. We ended up in a village on the Loire called "Bourgagny" according to my notes, that I can't find on any map. Maybe I looked at the wrong sign. We camped there with B's parents, S and J. That evening we watched the Bastille Day fireworks and ate Haribo and crepes (not all at the same time).



The next day we drove to Amboise.

The Super U (SOUP-ehr OO) is the French version of Wal-Mart. The clothes were much more attractive than the clothes at Wal-mart so I bought some. Buying fruit wasn't so straight forward. While at the checkout stand the cashier got worked up because I forgot to weigh and label the fruit. B rescued us from what was turning into an uncomfortable international situation by running back to the produce aisle to weigh it for us. Whoops.



Besides having hot croissants at the bakery, the campground at Amboise also had a swimming pool. Dutch was the only male in our party who brought his speedos. We spent nearly a week at Amboise, taking day trips, watching the rain and eating croissants.



We spent our last night on the Loire at a little village called Charite Sur Loire. I wrote about the Circus we missed here.




We drove back to Germany, this time via Luxembourg. We spent one more night in Haus Dulmen before returning to Paderborn, D + B's hometown.



There are a few more pages left, and you can check them out here.