netherlands

Moving day is always difficult, but Future Katie had this well in hand!  When we decided to go from France to The Netherlands, she figured no problem…..we’ll just take a train.

Except….the trains are on strike in France.

Really!??!?!  Yes, for weeks now!  Politely, however, they post when they will be striking in advance.  And yes, they would be striking the day we needed to leave.

No problem.  With the expert help of Katie’s friend, they came up with a plan.  Uber from his condo in Valenciennes, since he would be at work.  Meet a woman named Sophie at the train station who they found on BlaBlaCar.com, a carpool website all the people in France use since there’s no trains!  Sophie would drive us to Lille for 4 euros each.  In Lille, we could catch a bus to Amsterdam.  What could possibly go wrong?!

Except there were no Ubers at 9:30 a.m., even though there were plenty during the plan development stage.  Katie quickly got a taxi company on my cell phone, which by itself was a miracle.  In some of the worst French heard in the region, I tried to request a cab.  When the guy finally said, “Cinq minutes,” (5 minutes), I paused, dumbfounded that it had worked, said, “Merci, au revoir!” and we grabbed our bags and hustled downstairs.

Sophie met us promptly at 10 a.m.   Another woman was alraedy in the car and a young man squeezed in with us, so we 5 sped off toward Lille, and in broken French and English we all tried to explain our stories.  While on the way, I got a text from the bus company that it was running 50 minutes late.  When it finally arrived, it was a nice double-decker bus with plenty of seats.  Our window view from the top was excellent!  

There was a sad little scene while we waited for a bus.  A woman was asking for money with her 3 year old daughter in tow.  The daughter seemed tired and like she had a cold.  The mother would yell at her and the daughter would yell back–it sounded like Italian.  Even the little girl would hold up her hand asking for money.  Shortly, some men in military uniforms patrolling the station came by and they wandered off.  The security presence is always strong in France and I saw it in Belgium too, with the police in Navy blue and military in full desert-camo uniforms with AK-15’s slung across their bodies, fingers near the triggers.

After about 30 minutes on the bus, we stopped at a rest area like on the Turnpike.  There was an announcement in English that we had 30 minutes.  Katie said she figured it was because there are strict regulations on how long the drivers can go without a break, and this guy was probably coming from Paris.  We picked up some food and drove to our first stop in Ghent. 

A few more people got on, then we drove to Antwerp for a few more.  I’ve never been there, but it looked much more industrialized.  So much of Europe was destroyed and/or occupied during both World Wars that sometimes they had to completely rebuild.  This was next to the bus station.

The drive was very pretty despite being on highways the whole way.  And just that quickly, we crossed into The Netherlands–another new country for me. 

Everywhere you could see the 2 and 3 pronged wind-powered towers.   In the fields, there were several old windmills. 

Katie’s friend had talked about what it was like for his parents in WWII.  They had to leave their home and stay in the countryside, hiding their valuables.  His mother would watch the planes fighting and dropping bombs.  When they got home the house was empty; the floor boards had been pulled up and everything was gone.

Katie and I had stayed home and relaxed the last day while he was at work.  The condo and terrace was so perfect we really didn’t want to go anywhere.  In the evening, we drove to Le Quesnoy, one of hundreds of small villages in France.  It was quaint and pretty with cobblestone streets, but many of the shops were empty or closed.  The village had been surrounded by a massive fortress, much of which still stands. Many of the cities still have working bell towers that chime on the hour. We drove back to his city, Valenciennes, and walked around a little.  So much of this city had been destroyed.  He explained that they built the new structures quickly so people would have a place to live, so they are not very pretty or traditional.  I noticed street names like Winston Churchill Boulevard and Franklin Roosevelt Place.  The facade of City Hall remains, but the rest of the building was plain. We stopped outside at a small bar and had another example of Belgian beer called Tripel Karmeliet which is made by monks.  Two well behaved large dogs from the bar sat by us with big eyes hoping for a couple peanuts.

Just after bed that night there was a powerful storm, with so much lightning and thunder it rumbled on for an hour.  It stormed again at 2 a.m., lightning flashing and rain coming down hard.  But the dawn broke cool and clear and it seemed like a good day for traveling.

On our bus, we came upon another storm as we neared The Netherlands.  The sky was gray, not purple or blue like at home.  As we drove past Rotterdam it was nearing rush hour and the traffic picked up.  By the time we drove past The Hague we were at a standstill and it was exactly like being on I-4.

Finally the bus pulled into Amsterdam.  Our new place was near the train station, but alas, now we were quite a ways from there.  My phone is only working with wifi, but we were able to order an Uber using the wifi in bus station.   The driver said something in English about the traffic and we all moaned together.  It took 20 minutes to get to our place and we were very grateful he knew the many back streets.  It had taken us 10 hours to go 195 miles.

The prices to stay here were high, so we opted for a modest hotel right downtown near one of the many canals.  Our room is small but really cute, clean, and quiet. It felt like a splurge to have a front desk clerk if we need something after staying only at apartments.  We will have a couple days to see if we can discover some of the real Amsterdam.