Crushes on Clog makers

Honesty time: I'm sorry but it's true - I’ve turned into a weekend only blogger, which sucks but alas, that’s the way the cookie crumbles for the moment. Life is a wee bit hectic.
Case in point: on Friday night I thought I'd have a wee nap around 6pm.
I woke up this morning at 8.30.
14.5 hours of sleep later and I still feel like a nap!

I wanted to quickly finish uploading the photos from my trip with TD so I can get on to current issues.
Ergo, today’s effort = Amsterdam.

After leaving Keukenhof’s magnificent gardens behind us, we slowly manoeuvred our way to our apartment in Amsterdam – not an easy feat given that the traffic and roads were a wee bit insane and we encountered the death trap for all car-bound tourists: a maze of fricken one-way streets!

Once there, we split up to do some exploring and then spent the next day and half visiting museums (the Van Gough museum in particular was outstanding) taking canal rides, enjoying the architecture and scenery, nearly getting run over every 5 minutes by people on bikes and avoiding the Red-Light district. Not because of any prudishness or squeamishness on my behalf – but simply because staring at gyrating naked women when with your mother and step-father = bad news bears.

I think after Delft, Amsterdam felt quite hectic and busy – but we all enjoyed it very much. We also went on a day trip which TD was keen for that took us out into the countryside north of Amsterdam and we got to see Windmills, authentic ye olde Cheese makers, Clog makers and lots of gorgeous, incredibly flat and green landscapes.

The water situation in the Netherlands blew my mind – in fairness I come from the driest state in the driest inhabited continent on the planet - but even still, the efforts they have to make and the costs involved in keeping the land free from water. Send some of it to South Australia, please!

Anyway - here be photos

Very near where we were staying - so pretty

On the day tour we went on:

Windmills? Check!

Clogs? Check!

I ended up having quite the debate with myself over whether or not to buy clogs.

I was very swayed by their prettiness but practical matters, plus M's voice in my head meant I left clog-less.

Cute, old skool Dutch architecture and lakeside villages?

Check!

This photo isn't particularly interesting but would you please check out the shutter speed action with that duck in flight?!

Damn! You go Canon SLR!

TD and I (ok, mostly me) spent a lot of time in Holland speaking pretend Dutch, which pretty much sounds like a combination of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets and adding faux Dutch sounding endings to English words. 

For example: Toilet became "pisssenhousen", Cat became "pussenkaten", and so on.We/I found this hilarious.

But, to be fair, sometimes you don't even need to make something up. "Klompenmakerij"?

And the final few photos are from the visit it said Klompenmakerij where there was a particularly cute and entertaining Klompenmaker. 

I wanted to bring him home instead of a pair of clogs. 

Rwoar.

Hello handsome young Dutch man who I am inappropriately oggling

But c'mon! How cute is that smile!?

errr .... the demonstration had finished by now. 

I was just taking photos of the machinery ....

And after that - it was back to France to meet up with M and Herge who had made it back from their Moroccan adventure in one piece and with many amusing camel-related tales to tell.

B xxx