Discovery- I feel more South African than Dutch

Since Moscow I looked forward to get closer to Belgium and Holland so I can eat the things I know again, speak the language I know, but most of all to shop in the shops I know. I could not wait to eat ‘drop’ and ‘stroopwafels’ (typical Dutch sweets and cookies) and last Monday I was very excited that we were off to Antwerp in Belgium. We went with a very very fast train – The Talys from Paris to Brussel and got off in Antwerp.

But, now that we are in Belgium and close to Holland again I realize that South Africa is my country, my home. “I am proud to be a South African.”  There are some people who 

asked me which country I liked to live, where I feel more at home. At first I did not know which country was my home country. I was born and raised in South Africa, but in Holland I have family, my mom & dad are from Holland. I have a South African and a Dutch passport & I like to go to Holland and see my grannies and grandpa and have delicious products like kroket, drop, stroopwafels, cycling in the rain (ha-ha). But in South Africa I feel more at home, because of my friends and school. I also like the country with the weather, the different people and exciting environment. To go to the beach or have a picnic in Kirstenbosch, hike or cycle or do nothing and relax in the sun. I miss it and I am so glad that I have my phone and skype to stay in contact with my friends. This week was also great since most of my friends had winter holiday and had plenty of time to skype and Whats App!

Yum, Dutch chocolate milk, with biscuit
on a rainy day

While we are travelling and seeing all the different countries I also realise how special South Africa really is. In a lot of countries there is something I do not like. Cape Town becomes a paradise where you can drink the water from the tap, have sunny and most of the time blue sky, can talk English and can speak with people, have all kinds of food, have nature and birds. I always thought these things are everywhere, but now I see that often there is something missing.

RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!

My shopping !!!!

Ellen (the birthday girl) + MOM

After a few days in Belgium where we slept in a beautiful house with a garden we were looking forward to cycle in the forest and do shopping on our own. Sadly we had rain rain rain rain and more rain and did not go anywhere. Luckily we got picked up by Granny & Granpa who came from Holland to try their new car. We stayed with them for 4 nights. The first night I ate a kroket ( traditional Yummy Dutch...) The second day we went very early to surprise my mom’s friend Ellen Voets who was turning 50. It was a big surprise since she did not know of our visit. Ellen’s mom and dad brought us to her house. We first waited in the car, but we were quickly called that Ellen was getting cake so we went in the house. We heard her coming through the backdoor so we silently tip-toed to the nearest room, which was Ellen’s bedroom.  She was very shocked to find us there!! Happy Birthday!!!

While Shopping went into a shop full
of buttons

The other days we stayed at my grandparents house because it kept raining. They spoiled us of course and finally Granny took me Shopping YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

Unfortunately the city of Eindhoven was very wet, but I did get my Orange dress which I had seen some months earlier in Berlin. I had been saving for it and hoped it was on sale due to the bad weather, but it was still 15 Euro. Surprise!@@ When I got to the counter to pay for it my granny & grandpa had already bought it for me!!!!!THANKYOU GRANNY & GRANDPA!!!

Another typical Dutch thing is the Fair. I do not know the word for it, but it is an amusement park on wheels. It stays only a week in a city and then it moves to somewhere else. You can take crazy rides and scare yourself with weird attractions. It is very expensive in Euros and the rides take only a few minutes. So more fun to look at than to do!

Today dad and Steven will fetch us and bring us back to Antwerp. I seriously have to stop eating the delicious, yummy, Dutch sweets, cookies & cakes because I feel small pimples coming up. Is this part of my growing up or is it because I love SWEETS.

Attraction park

 Hopefully the rain will stop and we will have some nice days to go and see Brussel or Antwerp.

Granny & grandpa

Is Steven going to throw up?

DANKJE JE WEL

LOESJE 

Bonjour PARIS!!!!

After coming from a short train ride from Berlin and loosing STEVEN’s bag. We arrived in Paris. We stayed at family friends; Chantal (the mother), Gerard (the father, but he was ill so he left to go to hospital) and the 3 sons (Antoin, Xavier and Nicolas). They were very hospitable to offer us a place in their family. The first night we heard a church bell. It continued the whole night long (Lionel Richie). The next morning we went outside, but we didn’t hear the clock anymore....yaay...but when we went inside again it was there again. Eventually we found the clock.... it was not the clock from the church but mom's alarm. She had forgotten to turn it off.

The next day we bought a transport (bus, metro & train) pass so we could go everywhere in and around Paris. Of course we went straight to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel tower is 320 m high and was named after an engineer named Gustave Eiffel. It was built in 1889. It is made from metal. We did not go up, because there was a line of 5 hours and that was only for getting the tickets. We went to see my mother's old company on Boulevard Malesherbes and saw the Arc de Triomph, the Champs Elysee and lots of other old and very big buildings. Of course we had school in the next morning and Xavier told us about the French Revolution. Afterwards we went to see the Palace of Versailles where Louis XIV-XV and XVI with Marie Antoinette lived and the Bastille where they celebrate Independance Day every year on the 14th July. We visited the rich, amazing, huge mansion/castle/Palace. It was in the morning very busy. Mom went to get the tickets (she waited in line for an hour) Steven went in the 320 meters line to go through to the entrance which went very slow and I was the messenger in between &  Dad..... was sitting at a cafe drinking a cup of coffee at a WIFI area overlooking us working so hard as a team. We saved 2 hrs working  together. After seeing the beautiful paintings and gold, reading & hearing about the construction of the castle & who lived in it etc. We went in the gardens and had a picnic with a Baguette. 

We also saw oma muis (grandma mouse) who came to Paris for a wedding! We call her oma muis because when she comes to visit us every year she catches the mice who live in our atic. When we hear the mice in October we know that Oma comes soon. 

Oma muis was staying at Uncle Jozef ( a friend of my granpa). He told me many stories about my granpa Flip. We also met Aunt Trees & Toos. We had lunch altogether, a nice salad and at the end we had mini magnum ice-creams. After chatting and eating we walked to the park where Steven and I met some friends and we played soccer together. Afterwards we left to ELizabeth & Hubert (family friends). We had a delicious supper...................... for dessert homemade kiwi ice-cream.

After waking up very late we went to the Notre Dame and the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, Venus of Milo and Rembrandt paintings. Afterwards we picked up Lex from London from the train station. We were waiting for my uncle for an hour. We arrived home with a buffet ready. It was raining outside. So it was extra cosy. There were all kinds of toasts and vegetables which you dipped in sauces. Also we tried foie gras (goose liver - sorry Meggy - the vegetarian) which we all ate first and afterwards they only told us what it was.

On Saturday we went to a french wedding of the family friends. We were a few minutes late, because we lost the way. When we arrived at the church it was raining cats and dogs, but the bride looked bright and beautiful. 

In the Versailles palace theyre were a pair of heels
made out of cooking pans.

Next Week Belgium ( We are leaving Paris  on Monday )

Merci et au revoir

Loes

A WEEK WITH MANY DIFFERENT EMOTIONS

This past week we :

 -saw our 'neighbours', the English team loose and leave
 -went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the well known concentration camp from World War II
 -went to Schindler’s Factory Museum & saw the movie they made about him.
 -went to Wieliczka Salt Mines and got a little scared going down under ground 135 meters          
 -went to Berlin - Germany and saw how east and west used to be divided by a long Wall. 
  -went to a cafe and saw how the German team lost from Italy in the Euro 2012.  

Coach  of English soccer team
living next door to us!

Krakow old city center

We left Kiev (Ukraine) and went to Krakow (Poland) by train. Poland is also hosting the Euro 2012 Soccer games, but we did not go to see more soccer. We wanted to visit Auschwitz, a very well known concentration camp from the WWII. On arrival in Krakow we had 2 big surprises. First we found out that we booked an apartment on the 3rd floor without elevator (for our 4 big, heavy suitcases and 4 hand bags).!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After breaking our backs and moaning we saw we had a great apartment overlooking the market square. Then we had a 2nd surprise; we found out that we were sleeping next to the hotel where the English soccer team was sleeping. Soon after we arrived Steven already saw the coach and Ashley Cole and had them sign their signature on his shirt. Unfortunately they left after 2 days because they lost and had to go home. Our apartment was very central in the old center of Krakow. We were 5 meters away from the main square with all the shops and restaurants and lots of terraces around it.

Baracks with 'beds' in Auschwitz II Birkenau 

We were very busy in Poland, because there were many things to see and do, but the main reason we were here was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

Auschwitz I - the prisoners blocks

Since Russia we were/ are learning about WWI, WWII & the Cold War and have seen War museums in Russia and Ukraine and read many stories about the wars, but I found it difficult to imagine exactly how it was to live in a country in which there is a war. We went first to Auschwitz-Birkenau where Polish people, Gypsies and 1.300.000 Jewish people were killed by the Nazis. We went with a small tour bus and there was one lady in the bus who wanted to go out. We all thought the lady left because it was too much for her, she looked very worried and restless and was afraid of all the bad impressions she was going to see. The guide in Auschwitz was very good and explained very well what happened in the Concentration Camp during 1940 -1945. There were 2 parts of Auschwitz. The first part we saw all the houses were people lived while they had to work for the Nazis. You could see what was in the houses, how they slept very close to each other, how they went to the toilet with many people sharing just a few toilets and that the Jews who had to clean the toilets with a bucket was actually the luckiest, because they could always go to the toilet. We saw  the 'beds' in 3 layers. The tour guide asked what level would you like to sleep? All the Jews wanted to sleep on the top because if you sleep on the bottom or middle you will catch whatever the person on the top will drop!!!!. They where only allowed to go to the toilet 2 times a day for 2 minutes with so many at same time. If you did not listen you were punished and had to stand in a small cell for the whole night without bread or water. Or there was the 'suffocation cell' where 40 people had to breath from one small hole in the wall. No oxygen enough for everyone and often they would not be alive the next morning. 
Then we visited the 2 part of Auschwitz, a huge camp where all the prisoners were brought in with a cattle train and where they were selected (work or die) and most of the time were murdered in the gas-chambers and afterwards burned in the crematorium.

the only small breathing hole for
a room with 40 people 

Left over ruins of one of the
 gas chambers/crematorium

thousands of shoes of people who died in the camp

a family who may have stayed or died in Auschwitz.
I found the picture at the end of the train track!

the train track in which many Jews came to
the concentration camp to be murdered

I still cannot believe what happened. So many people where killed and in such a terrible way. The next day we went to Schindler’s factory which was in Krakow and there we could see more pictures which told us how the Jewish people where first put into a special area - Ghetto. Later, when Hitler said all Jews had to be killed in his Third Reich, they were sent to the concentration camps. It was a very creative museum which made it easier for Steven en me to understand what had happened. From our whole journey so far that was the best museum. For every room there were different floor tiles from the WW2. ...... Afterwards we also saw the movie ; Schindler’s List about a group of Jewish workers who were saved by Oskar Schindler who said to the Nazis that the people needed to work in his factory. It was a very sad movie.

The last day in Krakow we went to the Salt mine 135 metres underground. We went down many many many many many many..............STAIRS!!!!!!!!!!! were we saw salt statues. We learnt all about how people found the salt and how they dug the salt ...etc. There was also a church built underground with all the statues made by salt. We 'tasted' the walls and it was very salty. We luckily did not go up with the stairs but with a lift for 7 people that went very fast.

We went to Germany by train, learning German words. Mom & Dad can speak German, so it will be good to be able again to read and talk to everyone. We were sleeping in Hotel Bogota on the Kurfurstendam. It was not just a hotel noooo!!!. It was the hotel where my dad always sleeps when he was in Germany at the tourism fair. He goes already to the same hotel for 20 years and  there are still the same people working there. We got a great apartment in the hotel with old furniture and an old radio which still worked. We had German rolls and nice cheese and ham for breakfast. The waitress also spoke Spanish & German. Mom & Dad spoke German to her and Steven & I spoke Spanish. We went to a museum The Story of Berlin about the history of Berlin. First we visited the Nuclear bunkers where they slept if there was a Nuclear bomb attack during the Cold War.

On Thursday we saw the soccer game Italy against Germany. 1:2 for Italy. Germany is out. Everyone in Berlin was sad, but the Italians were celebrating with lots of noise in the streets.

Germany and Berlin is very well known for their big pies and cakes, but my mother could not find the old cafes any more with the terraces and the nice cakes. Now there are Star bucks and Mc Donalds and not many old cafes.

left over of the Berlin wall 

In the weekend our cousins came from Holland to Germany to see us. We went with them to the old crossing Checkpoint Charlie and the famous museum where you can see how people tried to escape and cross from East to West Berlin.  We think it was the worst museum we ever saw this year. You could not breath, it was too hot and to much to read. We left the museum and went to see the memorial at the old Berlin Wall and then we went with our cousins in the sightseeing bus to see the rest of Berlin.

(Next week Paris)       

                                                                                    

Danke schon und aufwiedersehen,

Loes

We Felt Very Welcomed

Unfortunately the Dutch team is out of the EK. I never thought the Orange Party would be much better than the game, the feeling of “all for one” was great and the Ukrainians were also all wearing Orange on the day Holland played Portugal. Now that the Dutch team is out we continued to support the Ukrainian team.

We went to Kiev – the capital of Ukraine - after driving for 4 hours in a very modern Express Train. We were fetched     by Oleh and Sash who loved history

 and gave us a guided tour and told us some history of Kiev. The people we were staying with were Alina, Oleh, their daughter Sofia of 4 years old and Salma (the dog). They made us feel very welcome. Mom & Dad slept on the couch. I slept in Sofia’s bed and Steven slept the first night with me because when we wanted to pump up the mattress we found a pair wedding shoes of Alina’s mother in the box. It was late but we all had to laugh over that!

Their house was very central. Right side Kindergarten, left side shopping mall and straight metro station/subway. The fridge was full. Alina bought breakfast, yoghurts, berries, milk and ice cream......YUMM!!!  

Alina was born in Uzbekistan. She studied in Odessa and then moved to Kyiv. For the Euro 2012 the news reported  that the hotels were over expensive for the tourists and a lot of private people were renting their place out for high prices. Alina thought it was unfair for the tourists to come to see the soccer and Ukraine and pay so much money. Therefore Alina and her family wanted to be nice to the tourists and offer free accommodation.

We first wanted to stay for 2 days in Kiev, but because of the Swedish football matches the train was fully booked. Alina took 2 days off from work to be with us and to show us Kiev. We saw the old center with many beautiful old buildings, the Olympic stadium which was re-built and where the final of Euro 2012 will be played. Some streets were very old with round stones and there were many many churches with golden domes. We went to visit 2 museums about history. One was about the history of Ukraine/Kiev and the other was a military museum about the WWII (1940-1945) and a exhibition about soldiers in Afghanistan. Some things we had seen before because Ukraine was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union and this history was also in the museum in Moscow. In 1991 Ukraine was no longer part of the USSR but became its own country. 

The weather in Kyiv was NOT cold..... NOT....warm...BUT HOT!!!!!!!!! EXTREMELY HOT and we were happy to be back 'home' again. We fetched Sofia from kindergarten and took Salma for a walk. We always played with Sofia, singing, guitar, playing shop-shop, dolls etc. We also cooked a Dutch meal for them and we bought real Beluga caviar to try how it tastes. Caviar is eggs from the beluga sturgeon (a fish) which is found in only a few places - one of them is in the Black Sea in the south of Ukraine. In Ukraine it is eaten just with white bread and butter and some people eat it on toast with cream cheese , egg and onion. Later I read about caviar on internet and saw that the fish is endangered,although it tasted nice I will not eat the caviar again.

The home stay was very cozy and Alina and Oleh were very kind and helpful. When we left to go to the train station Oleh came with us to help with our suitcases and find the right platform for the train to Poland. 

Ukraine was great and we had a wonderful time.! Thank you Alina, Oleh, Sofia and Salma. We hope one day we can show you how beautiful South Africa is.

Loes