Amsterdam to Koln

The time has come to vent some more travelling steam! In our last message we were planning some cycling in Amsterdam, which we did on a fairly eventless afternoon on Sunday. It was pretty cool just cruising the cobbled streets and scaring pedestrians with our bell.

That night, after some pancakes, we went with our host Menno, to what we only knew as a life drawing session. It was a local couchsurfers meeting, and was taking place in the "supper club", which had loads of white beds surrounding the center of what is usually a dance floor. There were DJs and a live jazz band playing, but we were then presented with a nude model and some drawing stuff! It was so surreal, a bit like a movie. Theres a pic on the group that shows some of our attempts at "capturing" the beauty!

We left 'dam the next day at lunch time, aiming for Maastricht, and had loads of trouble hitching out of the city at an official hitch-hiking spot. We should have guessed really when other hitchers had written stuff like 'This place is so shit, only jokers and assholes pass by' all over a sign nearby! We tried at a petrol station, and a guy took us just out of the city where we had to compete, against some guys hitching to Hamburg, for a lift. After 4 more lifts of zig-zagging the Netherlands, we were standing by the side of the road in Tilburg, in the dark, at half eight in the evening, pretty much resigned to sleeping beside the road. Then, like a miracle, this local guy Benny stopped for us, he was late for his sport lesson and wanted to help us out. Maastricht was still 120km away, but he drove us the whole way, out of his way, because he wanted to talk to us! It was amazing, and I don't think we could have met a nicer guy. He'd left his job and his family, about 5 years ago, just before he turned 40, to walk from his home, near Eindoven, to Santiago de Compostella, to "discover".

So we arrived in Maastricht, with some much needed salad waiting for us at our next host Chiel's place, which was definately a blast from studentville past! We had a sunny morning in Maastricht, which is really beautiful and chilled, and hitched to Cologne in 3 very easy lifts, which took us about 3 hours to get to our next host, Inga. We had some beers last night, but were definitely ready for our fold out bed when we got back! We´re planning a relaxed day today in the city, exploring the old town a bit in the sun :D

Lots of love!

Lauren + Harri

xxxxxxx

written by  harripix on September 22, 2010 from Koln, Germany
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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