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Reports

During my travels, my compensation for free accommodation for one night, was for me to write a daily travel diary. Of how I got to my next location, the people who would host me, the food I was offered and everything else. Below you find the archives of the highly extensive reports. Know that English is not my native language and most reports were written at high speed around midnight. Enjoy.


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Tuesday, 8 May 2001
--> īs Hertogenbosch (NL) day 2

Sleeping out very long, walking through the city...
Living life the relaxed way: hakuna matata!
I have admitted that I could need a very good night sleep to my hostess Tamara, so when she had to leave to her work at an internet provider, she left me sleeping long.

I woke up around noon and was really relieved. Today I didn't need to pack my backpack again, and rush to say goodbye and worry about getting to the next place-to-stay.

Tamara left a little note and some money so I would make it through the day in town. After a shower she told me I could get myself some breakfast at the trainstation, before going into town.

After this breakfast and a [b]free coffee (I still have a bunch of free coffee coupons which I got sponsored from this train conductor on my very first day) I walked through the old center of 's Hertogenbosch and found the public library where I used the Internet for an hour.

On the streets of this city I had some talks with the helpdesk of my provider, because getting the right database for all my reports, photographs and invitations-processing took much too long. This night everything would be working good, finally.

Full respects go to my scripter, Tom, who I think must be becoming crazy of my emails and phonecalls, while he has his school exams the coming weeks...

's Hertogenbosch city isn't only a clean and old city, but what I remember most is that around 2pm in the afternoon EVERY terrace was full with elderly people only! That really striked me to see the grey hairs everywhere, drinking coffee and chatting together all afternoon long.

Becoming old in The Netherlands isn't that bad at all!

Around 4.30pm I was back in Tamara's room and she came back from work not much later. After she refreshed herself we got back into town -again- to eat at the St. Janneke's Snackbar , where the working lady got so excited of my appearance - 'the guy from TV!!!' - that we got free ice cream!!!

By the way, we ate a 'little super', which in this region means a super portion of French fries covered with mayonaise, curry and onions - and has a 'frikadel' (a minced-meat roll) hidden under it all. I know that forreigner will say 'Aaahhh!!!' about his, but this is the typical Dutch fast food.

After this simple but easy dinner we got back to Tamara's room again and watched some favorite tv-shows on the telly: Ally McBeal followed by Sex In The City and some vague English comedies. I think somewhere at that time I must have fallen asleep on the sleeping couch, dreaming about the following days where I'd cross the Belgium border...



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