Day the 5th in Holland

Start de-camping and getting ready to pack. First things first and I had breakfast with Mr. and Mrs. Aafke – more free-range eggs and ham and stuff. Said ‘Hasta luego’ to Mr. Aafke as he had a meeting in another part of the country this morning. One of the best things about visiting a foreign country is visiting and indeed, buying lots of stuff at the supermarket. This was no exception as we visited Albert Heijn, the supermarket chain par excellence in Holland and stocked up on mustards, Indonesian spice mixes, herring, mackerel, eel and anything else that would taste good a thousand miles away. Aafke was still stocking up on Dutch football stuff – you can’t have enough orange in a Dutch bar, it remains to be seen what the other, English part of the bar will look like. A sombre note; we visited the Dutch resistance cemetery just outside Overveen, it’s where the graves of known resistance members were re-interred after WWII. Several things struck me about this place; It’s a resting place for some very brave people. They were, in general, in their early twenties. There was one woman, Hannie Schaft, a red-haired girl from Haarlem. Most of the murders took place after D-Day and indeed well into 1945, when most of Holland was liberated. It was a very eerie feeling walking along the path to the cemetery knowing that some of these people were taken on this walk, never to return, although most of the bodies were dumped here, having being executed elsewhere. There are still several people unaccounted for. www.eerebegraafplaatsbloemendaal.eu

Back to finish packing and re-distribute breakables and dry-goods between our luggage (I can only take dry-goods, but up to 20k). Mama Aafke dropped us off at Schiphol and with loads of time to spare we descended on the bars. There are several places worth mentioning – The Café Rembrandt in the arrivals hall is a true Amsterdam bar and once you pass through the security check (the lady in front was allowed to keep her safety pin so as to keep her skirt up), the Café Real is another classic bar with views of aeroplanes, a cheery staff and a great menu, quite the opposite from the awful service and bars that is Barajas, WHERE DID YOU GO WRONG??? We boarded bang on time (the ‘plane was late). We took our places and, surprise surprise, the freak sitting next to Aafke started squeezing blackheads from his forehead. As on the way out, they ran out of shandy and I was stuck drinking Cruzcampo gnats. And we had the pre-requisite screaming infant, though Aafke schnorkled through it. A wonderful holiday and thank you very much Aafke for sharing your time and family and let’s not forget Mama and Papa Aafke for allowing me into their splendid home and without whom, none of this would have been possible.