Haarlem

Monday 18th April
It was another lovely day, but unfortunately I was feeling very tired and was struggling a bit with a migraine that had started the previous day.

We went out mid-morning into the town centre, found a carpark in a parking building and went for a walk down the streets to the ten Boom museum. Deep shadows still filled some of the narrow streets due to the tall buildings blocking out the morning sunshine.
Unfortunately we found out that the museum is closed on Mondays, so we decided to try again the next day as we had the whole morning available.
So we went on a wander around the shopping area – lots of shops stocking clothing and shoes, and a range of others too of course. There were so many bicycles either being ridden or parked in the streets, often in one of the many bicycle parks
There was a very bustling market full of all kinds of interesting things and I enjoyed hearing Kay enquiring about prices at a stall, and the gutteral reply. The Town Hall is one of the imposing buildings surrounding the market place. We went for a coffee inside one of them before continuing our walk.



Guess what we saw on one street corner! (LH pic.) Inside an arched passage off another street we spied the fresh green of a spring garden - we found a plaque on the wall which said that it was the site of a former convent. Further on we saw a most unusual-looking building at the end of a long, narrow alleyway.
The many canals intersecting the city are very beautiful with a variety of boats and bridges. On the way back to the car park we came across a tiny car parked on the pavement!

After lunch, we went out for a good walk, passing by an old fortification and German gun positions from the Second World War before reaching the Spoorbaam river. Many people were out walking dogs, some several together – in fact, for some people it is their occupation, walking dogs for people who live in apartment buildings but work all day. There was a lot of traffic on the river, and one barge looked particularly low in the water, it appeared to be full of concrete! One could almost imagine you were out in the countryside walking beside the river as the houses drop back some way. Many people come here to escape their urban surroundings and to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.
We followed a canal back into Haarlem and enjoyed looking at the lock gates and interesting housing round and about. Soon we were back to the statue of the boy with his finger in the dyke. You can see just how unrealistic this is when you have seen the real dykes.



Some of the streets had some really interesting houses and some were at a much higher level than the canals.

Further on we walked beside a very dank smelling canal that had houses with quite substantial gardens on the opposite side to us. The path on our side of the canal bordered quite a larger marshy strip of land that has been allowed to remain as part of the green belt. There were quite a few wetland birds around.
After dinner we watched a couple of videos before going to bed rather later than usual. It had been a wonderful day.

A day in Brussels

Friday 8th April
We left Addis not long after midnight local time, spending 15 minutes waiting on the runway at one point. It seemed to be rather disorganised.
One thing we noticed about the service on the airline, you don’t get any refresher towels, and the food wasn’t very good. Breakfast consisted of fruit, juice, a rather dry, small ‘muffin’ and a spam roll. The latter two were not terribly appetising!
We landed in Paris just before 7 just as the day was dawning, but had to stay on the plane as it was only a short stop. We reached Brussels 45 minutes after taking off then had a ‘long’ wait at the immigration counters – well, the Americans standing in line thought it was very long. It actually was only half an hour! It hardly took any time at all to clear immigration once we arrived at the desk, and we wandered down to the train station. It was rather hard to find the correct timetable for our train and part of one platform was closed down, so it was rather confusing. Our train actually departed from a different place to where it had been advertised, and it was only by asking a guard that we were able to catch the right one!
Once at Le Midi, I tried to find a Brussels map, but they only had a rather large and expensive one at the first place I went to. We ate some coffee and cakes before heading off to our hotel. It was easy to find with the map, but we couldn’t go straight to our room as we arrived some hours before check-in time. So we left our bags there and wandered off around the streets for a few hours. We found a nice bakers’ quite close to the hotel, selling yummy cheap food. However, he thought I was saying ‘goûte’ instead of ‘coûte’ when I was trying to find out how much something cost! We walked down the street till we found a small park to sit down in. It was a very poor area of the city, lots of rather tatty-looking buildings. There were lots of African and Middle-Eastern people and an interesting-looking Turkish-Moroccan market. We bought some really nice oranges quite cheaply at a fruit stall and carried on on our adventure. At this stage we went completely off my map!
We ended up beside a canal, and watched a long barge with six loads of gravel go past. On the stern stood a car and a small dinghy. We enjoyed watching the Pont des Hospices bridge being raised, then lowered again to let the traffic cross. The whole road was winched up on both sides.
Further on, we came to an imposing gateway with a statue of a bull on each side. Inside was a market, and on the roadside was a café. We bought some coffee then wandered around the stalls, which were starting to be packed up at only 2 pm. Mostly they sold clothes or fruit and vegetables. Some of the vendors tried to persuade us to buy!
Just past the market was a busy street with many shops, many selling hams, salamis etc. One was called the King of Ham (in French). Bruce decided to try a hotdog at one stall, but the man didn’t reheat the frankfurter and onions properly. It looked like it had been a while since he last had had a customer, which is what put me off having one too.
We were pleased to see a street name that looked familiar, we had passed the other end of it on our way to the canal. We managed to successfully find our way back onto the map again, and back to the hotel, where we were able to book in.
We went for another walk after a rest, to find somewhere to eat tea as we thought the hotel meal looked a bit pricey. We went past quite a few eateries but Bruce didn’t like the look of them. On the way back to the hotel, we passed one that had a picture in the window advertising fish and chips for about 7 Euros. That sounded pretty good to me, so we went inside. The young lady who greeted us seemed a bit taken aback when I asked for the menu, and spoke to a young man who came up. She pointed us to the tables and we were rather taken aback to see a hookah on each one. She asked whether we’d like to sit at one of these tables or in the back room. When she took us towards it, I thought it looked just like one of those opium dens you see in films – everything was red, and there were reclining curtained couches around the walls. Needless to say, we backed out pretty quickly! Then I saw the front of the blackboard that was standing in the street – on it was a picture of a hookah with a price. We’d seen one or two other places advertising them too, and at first I wasn’t too sure whether or not the picture was of a rather fancy coffee urn! Perhaps such things are legal in Belgium!
We ended up having dinner at a Turkish restaurant and that was quite an experience. We were the only non-Turkish people present and it was a very traditional-looking meal. It started with an entrée of what at first I thought were green chillies – but which turned out to be okra, and pide bread with two dips – one was very sour and salty, the other a hot chilli paste.
After a while, we were brought a huge platter each of food. Bruce had asked for a combination of meats, and I’d asked for lamb, which was very nice, rather like barbecued ribs. Both plates were heaped high with salty-sour foods, a refreshing cucumber salad, and more pide bread. We had a lovely mint tea to drink too. It cost a total of 20 Euros, which was pretty good compared to other places we’d seen, and we certainly were well-filled!