Europe Adventure 2011

It's finally happening! We checked into the airport at 6am where our friends in Auckland kindly got up early to say goodbye. Then we said 'see ya later' to everyone including mama and papa who didn't even get emotional! (secretly happy i think!) we boarded the plane and began our long 11 hour flight ahead to Seoul, Korea. I managed to watch 4 movies and not sleep at all, whereas Naomi fell asleep and only watched one movie, (i think her plan was better than mine in the long run!). The plane food was pretty average but the service was excellent and we were treated very well. After many movies later, we finally arrived in Seoul International Airport. We didn´t really know where we were going, but all the other korean people seemed to know where they weregoing so we just followed them, which isn´t always the best plan! but in our case it worked just fine.

Our next flight to Madrid was in the morning so we already had a hotel booked for the night which helped with the jetlag. I have to say, i was a bit sceptical about the Korean food we would be getting, but it was well above my standards. We got to choose from a whole buffet of food and the service here was also excellent. If you had finished your plate, literally 4 seconds later a person would come and clear it away...and then you could start again because it didn´t look like you had eaten anything haha.

The next morning we both woke up at 3.30am and found ourselves giving back massages to each other and doing yoga...preparing ourselves for the next 12 hour flight to Madrid! After bit of a stressful start (not being able to find where we needed to check in) we found where we needed to go luckily! and were on the plane again...more movies...more average plane food...more waiting.Leah xx

Well the flight from Madrid to Amsterdam went incredibly fast. Only 2 1/2 hours compared to our last 12 hour flight. When we were landing we both had mixed emotions. Excited to see everyone, nervous that we were finally here, and disbelief that only two days ago we were on the other side of the world. After collecting our luggage we made our way through arrivals were we knew everyone would be waiting. We walked through the doors and were greeted with a loud cheer and clapping from our family that was waiting for us. They were also holding up a sign saying ''Welcome Leah and Naomi" with balloons which was really cool. After being welcomed and giving everyone a hug and three kisses, we drove an hour back to Poortugaal to Jan and Mariette's house where the rest of our family would also come to say hello. We were both pretty tired by now! (20 hours no sleep) but it was really cool to see all of our family again and finally talk to them in person.

Tuesday was the day! We bought our own bikes for getting around to places and sightseeing because every dutch person must have a bike! After looking around we finally found two second hand bikes at Kees van Dijk in Spijkenisse. After the test run they seemed pretty good but got their first real test runs on the way back home. The meant-to-be 20 minute bike was not so successful. After two hours of listening to my squeaky bike and the bell that rings every time I go over a crack (cobble stones are the worst) we were finally home, but not any less enthusiastic about biking. Next time we will just be better prepared with a map!

On Wednesday we made our first venture into the city with our bikes. We cycled to Rotterdam to see the Euromast, the highest structure in Rotterdam which is kind of like the Auckland Skytower. Because cycling back from the bike shop the day before didn't end up so good, we thought we better get a map of Rotterdam before we go. On the way we stopped off in Rhoon, a small village about 5 minutes away. After having memorised the question "hebben jullie een plattegrond van Rotterdam dat wij kan kopen?" I eventually asked the the lady in the post shop because Leah is not too confident with her dutch yet, but they didn't sell any. She told us to go to the Shell service station in that direction (very helpful instructions) but do you think we could've found it? After first going the wrong way we finally found the Shell station, but the second problem came...how do we get there? A fence decided to seperate us from our much needed map, so we just kept on cycling, hoping to find another one that we can get to this time. Trusty BP came to the rescue and we finally got our map. We were then on the way to R.dam. Anyway...back to the Euromast, the weather could not have been better and the view at the top of the Euromast was amazing, topped off by a Cappaccino each in the sky cafe! Definately worth seeing.

The Euromast was followed by a Splashtour of Rotterdam, where you are taken on an amphi-bus around the city then into the Maas River. It was good, but could'have been better. If the crazy lady's in the bus would've been a bit more quiet then maybe we could have heard what was being said, but were also quite tired. Overall was a really good day

Naomi xx

Today we awoke to another beautiful day in The Netherlands! To use this unusually good weather to our advantage, we decided to go and visit Kinderdijk. 'Kinder' meaning 'child' and 'dijk' meaning 'dyke'..... We cycled to Rotterdam (which we had also done yesterday) so we thought that we would not get lost...but once again we had to get our trusty map out to guide is the right way. Once we finally made it to Rotterdam, we boarded a 'water taxi' with our bikes which would take us to Alblasderdam.
After a nice 25 minute boat ride we were off on our bikes again, cycling 20 minutes to Kinderdijk. I don't think we could have picked a better day to go! There was not a cloud in the sky which made everything much more beautiful. It also wasn't peak season meaning that there were not that many people around so we were able to leisurely ride our bikes around while enjoying the views of the Windmills. We saw that there were people actually still living in the Windmills! They were sitting outside with the sun on their faces, feet up and a coffee in hand...what a life! haha After biking around Kinderdijk for two hours, we had seen enough windmills and taken enough photos as well. On the cycle back to where the water taxi would pick us up, we saw a man outside his house just casually playing the accordian. Me and Naomi thought it was so cool so I went back and took a video of him haha i don't think he minded though.
We didn't think that we could get lost for a fourth time cycling from Rotterdam to our house in Poortugaal...but we were wrong. I think we got our map out 9 times to see where we were and we had to go back and fourth a couple of times because we went the wrong way. Hopefully fifth time lucky!
So we have been away from home exactly a week now! Not missing mama and papa just yet haha but we are both really enjoying ourselves and are also enjoying the good weather. Hopefully it stays like this! but for some reason i don´t think that this good spell is going to last much longer.

Leah x

We both have not been feeling to well the last couple of days so have been resting, therefore having nothing to blog about! but we are both feeling better now and can share our experiences once again!

Yesterday we caught the metro to Rotterdam Centraal. We wanted to buy a museum card because with this you could visit all the musems in the whole of Holland for free! and we thought it would be a good investment as we were planning on visiting quite a few museums while we are here. We had looked on the website before we went and it said that they were €19.95 if you were 18 years or younger. So being 18 we expected him to say '€19.95 thanks' but instead he said '€45 thanks'. Me and Naomi both looked at each other. Thats not what we expected! We told him that on the website it said that they were only €19 if you were 18 or younger so asked him why it was so much more. He said that they had recently changed it so that now you are considered an adult if you are 18 or older so have to pay the full price. We reluctantly started to full in the forms that were required to get a museum card. We had been speaking to him in english so he did not know that we could read dutch! Being a bit suspicious we read the form and right at the bottom it said '€19.95 if you are 18 or younger'! (in dutch of course). So I went up to him and showed him what it said. He then (being a bit shocked that we could read dutch!) said, 'oh i have never read that before...they told us that they had changed it...uhmm sorry about that'. haha we caught him out! He probably thought hey here are some young travellers that can´t read dutch...lets rip them off! So that was our first experience of someone attempting to rip us off...but we had done our research and it paid off in the end (excuse the pun)!

We were planning on going to Leiden today, but go a bit confused and it took us abou an hour to try to figure out which train to take! and by then half the day had already gone. So we decided to go to Leiden tomorrow and look at some museums in Rotterdam today. We went tothe Rotterdam Museum and it was a bit weird! There was a place where it told you how to set a table, make sushi out of fabric material and then once you had done that you could have a picture taken! haha was very random. My favourite part of the museum was where you could write a letter to you boyfriend/girlfriend, mum/dad, oma/opa, friend or anyone you wanted, wrap it in some red ribbon, put it in the wall and then in autumn next year they would release all the letters. I thought that was very cool! In one part of the museum we were given this walkie talkie things and there were all these different stations where you could hold it up to then put it to your ear and learn all about that certain part. That was pretty cool because you could go at your own pace and just listen to the things you wanted...but i thought it was pretty boring to be honest! We ended up spending two hours in the museum and by the end i still did not really know what it was about!

Leah x