Going to Holland

For the next few days I would love to share with you a few of the highlights of our trip to the Netherlands over New Years. We went to spend time with Jim's sister and her family (Carole & Jeff Seume, Peter, David, Mark, Christina and Caroline) with Jim's oldest sister (Bevie & Marcol Demaurex) and two of their three daughters and their families (niece Laurelle & Stefane with their kids Effie and Augustin; and niece Nikki & Caryl), and also with one of Jim's brothers, Stephen and his wife Joy.

What a mouthful! We had a wonderful time, and being with family was by far the highlight.

In order to get to Holland from England we drove down to Dover and took a ferry to Dunkerque, France.


The port of Dover--and southern England--sits on a foundation of chalk. Cliffs stand above the beaches for miles and the most famous are the White Cliffs of Dover.


Below is a picture from the boat of Dover Castle. For 900 years English troops were held here to protect the coast from invasion. I wish it were not so foggy, for this castle is a stunning sight from any angle you look at it.


This two hour ferry ride was a great way to break up this day long trip. The ferry had a nice area for the kids to play in and we had fun playing "Qwitch" and "War" (card games) together as a family too.

Here are a few pictures Jim took of the children looking about the boat:




Before we arrived we needed to gear up for driving back on the right side of the road.

A little known fact (at least for me): In order to drive a right-hand drive car in continental Europe, you have to buy special headlight "stickers" that redirect the beam of your headlights to the right-side of the road instead of the left. Headlights are designed to shine not only straight ahead but on the shoulder as well; while the shoulder in England is on the left, oncoming traffic is on the left in the rest of Europe. So our English headlights would blind drivers coming the other way on the Continent.

So we bought a pair of special stickers, opened them up, and realized, our car already had them on -- no wonder our headlights weren't working as well as we thought they should have! We never would have thought to check this out.

After we got off the boat we headed North through Beligium where we stopped for dinner at a little local place called "Pizza Hut." Once again I was reminded of how different Europe is from America. We had forgotten about paying to use the bathroom so as we all piled out of the car, we had a frantic few moments. We hadn't changed money yet, but fortunately we had a few Euro coins with us! Well, you pay many places here it seems. With four children, we should have had a line item in our budget for bathroom breaks.

We did make it safely to Carole's house before too late, and how happy we were to arrive!