Veluwe: Valentines, Van Gogh and a Very cute squirrel

Not that I’m complaining, but we had been doing lots of out-of-country holidays lately and decided to spend our Valentines weekend in Holland! So, Kaushik rented a car and we drove (well Kaushik drove..I handed him water and cookies as needed) about 2 hours to our rented cabin in the province of Gelderland.

It was a lovely scenic drive, which along the way we managed to spot a man wearing clogs! The Netherlands is often a cliche of people wearing clogs and growing tulips, but the only people you see wearing clogs these days are farmers or people living in rural areas. So yes, it was quite a treat to see and one which I greeted with an enthusiastic “Oh my god that man is wearing clogs!!!”

Once we arrived at our cabin and packed our fridge full of copious and probably un-necessary amounts of food, we hopped back in to the car and drove to Veluwe which contains the national park, Nationaal Park de Hoge Veluwe.

There wasn’t much daylight left once we arrived at the park, but we were still keen to check it out so we went on in (there is a 7 euro entry per adult) and helped ourselves to their courtesy bikes provided.

I can’t tell you how amazed I was at the ever changing landscape of this national park! One moment it looked like you were in a dense woodland in the Netherlands (funny that!) but then the trees would clear, sand would appear and it seemed like you were all of a sudden in the middle of an Australian desert. Keep riding, then you’re in Africa! It was amazing. And this was only seen through our short 10km ride that afternoon, I couldn’t wait to come back tomorrow and see what else this landscape had to offer.

Tired and hungry, we drove back to our cabin and dined on some obligatory romantic wine and cheese, it was Valentines day after all! Then it was time for dinner which was a delicious mushroom risotto ala Kaushik, and then I made a ridiculously decadent chocolate fondue with strawberries.

We also watched a particularly unromantic and heavy film called Children of Men. It was a fantastic movie, one which involved me yelling and sitting on the edge of the couch, but not one I would recommend if you’re in the mood for a chortle.

Good night!

Next morning I got up pretty quickly for I was hoping and wishing to catch a glimpse of a squirrel (Dutch word: Eekhorn) which I had been told by my boss at work I would probably see. I was preparing some pancake batter when Kaushik called out “Look there he is!!” so I ran to the glass door and sure enough there was a squirrel, bouncing around in the distance! We went outside very carefully and left some bits of biscuit in hopes of luring him closer.

This did work, momentarily…he came right up to our cabin (with us inside excitedly whispering and dancing around) but he didn’t seem too fussed with said biscuit and he hopped away, breaking our hearts. So we snuck outside again and left little bits of banana in hopes that perhaps he had more of a sweet tooth. Which he did! He came back and we managed to take about 72 photos of him, this being one of them:

Aaaanyway I think I’m dwelling a little too long on him….he was just extremely cute, tiny and had pointed ears…I can’t help my excitement. So, we ate my pancakes and drove back to the national park for an epic 26 km bike ride!

Mind you, we did stop for lunch and a tour of the Kroller Muller museum which is situated in the middle of the National park. This particular art gallery is home to the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world, so we were naturally excited. Here we are with our favorites from this particular collection:

Back on to our bikes to complete our journey through the park where we faced very rainy and windy conditions! It was certainly hard slogging and a lot of work, but I found it really rewarding to push myself.

See what I mean about the ever changing landscape here?

An old hunting lodge situated in the park (yes the lake is frozen!)

Me looking very intelligent, making a hole in the ice with a stick

Ahh, we finally made it back to the car with thighs that felt like truck tyres! We finished the night off with some greasy chinese food to ruin all of the goodness we did for our bodies that day.

Oh and to cut a long story not very short, Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe has been one of my most favorite trips so far. I can’t explain how beautiful and strange the scenery was and I love how you could feel like you were in the middle of nowhere. I’m looking forward to going back when it’s warmer, but riding around in the rain was half the fun!

London

My first impression of London? A girls skanky behind. Seriously.

We got off the train from the airport at Victoria station and were heading towards our hotel room when these two girls walked past us and made me stare for all of the wrong reasons, then when I did a double take, her skirt was so short that I could actually see her bum crack, from below!

Then we thought we were about to be mugged by this group of teenagers straight out of Vickie Pollard’s friendship circle from Little Brittain. Luckily we didn’t, they just offered to sell us a stolen phone.

Finally we made it safely to our hotel room to drop our bags off and then it was time for dinner at a lovely Turkish restaurant where we stuffed our faces. Good food from restaurants is very unpredictable and inconsistent in The Netherlands, so we were excited to be in London where there’s a lot of variety.

Bed time already after a few cocktails which helped me have a deep night sleep, something I hadn’t experienced for a while.

The next day started with a delicious coffee, another thing I miss since living in The Netherlands. The Dutch drink a lot of coffee….but it’s generally quite unpleasant. Or maybe it’s just different to what I’m used to?

Then we caught a bus to the London Bridge which we of course walked across. I think Holland has toughened us up in terms of dealing with cold weather, because while we were simply sporting  jumpers, most people around us were rugged up in ski jackets, scarves, beanies and anything else you would wear if it were actually freezing.

We look like lego people with lego hair

The sun was in and out of the clouds that day, made for this unique lighting

More walking took us to the Borough Markets where we ate some lunch (Kaushik had his token fish and chips) and then we continued on to the Tate Modern art gallery. I really like Kaushik’s honesty when it comes to art. I do, I’m not being sarcastic. He doesn’t wank around, trying to see meaning in artworks or why they chose this color etc etc. He simply likes it, doesn’t like it or thinks it’s ridiculous that it’s in a gallery in the first place because it looks like anyone could have made it.

I often feel the same, but on the other hand believe that art doesn’t have to be something you spend days, months or years on. Just because it may have only taken minutes to splash the paint on to the canvas, it shouldn’t determine whether it is art gallery worthy or not.

Moving on, we did more walking which took us past a skateboard park where we stopped and watched for a while, as did most passer by-ers as it just seemed so out of place, but pretty cool.

Onwards towards Big Ben. (We skipped the London Eye: at 30 pounds per ticket and probably 2 hours waiting in line, we could think of 376 better things to do with our time and money.)

Before we get to my touristy photos of Giant Benjamin, I want to share this photo with you. Might I add, this isn’t the first humorous photo I have taken of Ms. Hilton in a pile of garbage. Also note the title of the article.

Having done enough site seeing, it was time to meet up with our friends Matt and Trixie  from Sydney who have moved to London. We really enjoyed hanging out with them, indulging in a few too many drinks which lead to us going to a Purple Sneakers-esque type of night called After School Club. I think it really was an after school club because the patrons mostly looked about 18 years old. I’m getting old! Never the less we still had fun dancing around to Vampire Weekend and other fun music being played.

Matt and Trix

It was time for bed, after walking for about an hour back to our hotel. Another night of good sleep!

The next day started a little more relaxed and slow, but we made the treck to the famous Camden markets where it quickly became extremely busy and a little full on! I scored a beautiful green coat for just 15 pounds, and I could have easily bought more so I reccomend dropping by these markets if you’re after anything vintage at a good price!

Well, that’s probably all you want to know about our trip to London….that’s if you even made it this far!