Beach, hot chips and cheese!

Being childish (how unusual!) at an outdoor art expo

Crazy buildings in Rotterdam - people live in these

The beach

Tristan trying to beat a man on a mobility scooter who was in the bike lane!

Before - no seats, flat tyres and wonky handlebars

After outside the Queens residence!

Dear Diary ...

We thought it was about time we checked in and filled you in on our last couple of weeks based between Rotterdam and Den Haag.

We last left you while actively on the job hunt. This has proved a little harder than anticipated since the Netherlands thinks that it is still in the recession and it is summer holidays so half of the country is at the beach!! We have been through the registration process which required our Dutch family connections to help us and now we are in a 4 week queue for our tax and identification numbers to make us legal!! Yet with our current house sitting job, bikes, a foo market, plenty of sunshine and most importantly the beach only 4km from our door we are not to concerned about being available for work yet anyway!

We spent our initial 5 days in Rotterdam staying with family in the spare caravan - you beauty. Whilst we were there we got to see the sights of Rotterdam and a few neighbouring towns as Emilie played the friendly tour guide. We saw windmills, churches, boats, ate patot fritz wit mayonaise (hot chips with buckets of mayo) and lots of salty liquorice.

Now we are half way through our month long stay in Den Haag, house sitting and looking after the cat (Lisa) while her family are away on summer vacation. It is a fantastic spot and really nice to have a base after being on the go for so long. While we are here we are checking out as many neighbouring towns as possible, visiting museums, galleries, eating cheese and relaxing at the beach.

Our most important news though is to report on our latest purchase ... a matching pair of city bikes!!! We managed to negotiate the Dutch version of 'trade me'- still not sure how it works as was all in Dutch but we managed to send an email about a funky looking womens bike! Low and behold the response came back saying they had a mens one to match. We did a bit of bargaining, and after a short train ride to get them, we were dropped back to our house by the previous owner of the delightful pair as well being given some handy advice on where to look for work. After spending a hard day in the sun, drinking coffee, working spanners, and a trip to the market for a few more parts (new tubes to fix the flatties) - thunderbirds are go! We took them for a spin in the bos (forest) to visit the Queens residence to celebrate.

Last night we were invited to the neighbours for dinner as they are off to visit NZ and wanted some advice. So as you can see... we are loving this place.

x McDuff

Michele and Tristan