Today marks our 1 year anniversary of living in Holland. When we talked with the Americans who rented our house the previous year, they spoke of all the great places that they had seen in Europe during their one year stay. Now that our first year here is over, we can’t imagine how they could have possibly crammed in everything that they did in only one year.
Beth and I have taken a somewhat different approach. As you all know, we love to travel and want to see everything that Europe has to offer, but we’re also really immersing ourselves in the enjoyment of daily life here in Haarlem. And we are making what feel like life long new friends in the process.
To celebrate our 1 year anniversary, we went camping with some of these new friends in the Ardennes Mountains in Belgium. It was Sages first time camping and the weather forecast was not good – thunderstorms and rain. It was also “Black Weekend” here in Holland. This is the weekend that marks the beginning of the August holiday season when what seems like 90% of the 16,000,000 Dutch people pack up caravans (campers) and head for Belgium, France, and Spain for the entire month. The roads are typically jammed for 3 solid days. Think 4th of July beach traffic on steroids – “Here come da Dutch!”
With all this stacked against us, it was with more than a little apprehension that we packed up the cars and headed for a campground along the banks of the Ourthe river just outside the medieval village of La Roche.
But, as we rolled out of Haarlem on Saturday morning, the weather broke and while the traffic was certainly heavy, it never backed up and in fact thinned to “normal” as we approached the Belgium border.
I’ve posted some pictures from the weekend.
Cheers!
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