July 25-28: Rotterdam

 Monday, July 25

We finally got our van!!!! This grand event was after a marathon travel day in which we traveled overnight from London to Brussels.  This trip included a stop at customs in France and another ferry ride. This time — we stayed in the van during the ocean journey.  When we arrived at Brussels North, I got the sense that I was in Amsterdam with lots of window shopping for “women of the evening” or, in this case, the morning.

When we arrived in Heist at about 11:00 am, the fun really began as we walked to the Port of Zeebrugge carrying 20 pounds of supplies in my right hand.  It was relatively uneventful once we arrived as we picked up the van without incident—I couldn’t find a scratch.  With the exception of some uncooperative stickers, the van looks in amazing condition!  We met an attractive couple from France who were picking up their van after spending some time in Panama.

With the van secured, we met up with Lud and Peter and picked up our luggage.  After organizing a tiny bit, we took the train back to Brussels to stay the night at the Ibis Hotel near Brussels MIDI.

Tuesday, July 26

After breakfast, we then transitioned from Brussels back to Heist to grab the van.  We had several stops to fuel up, add air to our tires and go to a couple of grocery stores before finally settling down at a campsite near Zeebrugge.  We did a ton of cleaning and organizing— we still have a bit of organizing to do tomorrow.  It’s awesome to be back in our rolling home.  

Wednesday, July 27

We began to head toward Rotterdam making one stop at a rest area to eat a snack and use the toilet.  We ended up driving only for three hours and decided to stay at a great campsite where we arrived at about 3:00 pm.  

I made spaghetti for dinner and Ashley went for a run.  I finished and posted our Sri Lanka video — a pretty decent effort but not as good as my Egypt or National Park ones.

Thursday, July 28

We headed to Rotterdam at 9:30 am.  We filled up with diesel just outside the city — ugh, it cost us 120 euros for the fill up.  We eventually got to Rotterdam at about 11:00 am — what a cool city!  It has really interesting modern architecture and a really diverse population.  I was expecting a ton of white people but got pleasantly surprised seeing blacks, Asians, and Muslims walking the streets and riding bikes.  There were so many flipping bikes — what an incredible infrastructure they have built to make bicycles a viable option as opposed to cars — it’s refreshing.  No pun intended 

We did a bunch of errands — needed an updated SIM plan, bike shopping, Korean market time and bike rack installation.  We found two cool bikes for about $1250 each.  The bicycle store was impressive— not too surprising with all the bicyclists in town.