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Meeting our American friends

It was quite late, tonight and we sleep late in our large room (about 100 square meters). The can with coffee that we order, is leaking but the girl who brings it, doesn't seem very eager to get a new one and we decide we manage. Still not really what one should expect in an expensive hotel like this one.

The view is still a bit blurred but it is not the smog but the windows that are very dirty.
Susan went to work already on some art project and we have a cup of coffee with Astrid who leaves us around noon.

At twelve we have an appointment with Bobby and Christie, two Americans from Sacramento (California) with whom we have been emailing now for more than half a year. They have relatives in Holland and we decided to meet when we would get a chance. Quite exciting, a 'blind-date' like this, but we get along very well and stay talking in the hotel until 5 in the afternoon before we all walk to the Central Station.

Of course we know already a lot about each other through the emails, but it is different than meeting someone in person. We persuade a waiter to take some pictures of the four of us with all three camera's that we have. It is nice sitting at the window, in the sun, sometimes even a bit too warm.

When we get outside it turns out to be colder than we had expected because it is very windy. Despite the wind we walk over the famous Erasmusbridge which doesn't swing, as we had expected it would.
That we are conned yesterday with the taxi fee becomes very obvious when we reach the central station within 15 minutes.

And so this journey comes to an end, differently then normal when we return home immediately after arriving at Schiphol, the airport of Amsterdam. About 10 at night we are back home and Scotland seems to be a long time ago, although we left there only yesterday morning. Despite the rain and cold weather we are very happy with our experiences and we already long for our next visit to Scotland since there is still a lot to see and discover there for us!

Saturday and sunday 3 and 4 April, withour Amerivan friends through the Mosel Valley

And what do these pictures here, after our journey is finished? Well, Bobby and Christie travel to Germany the weekend after we met and since we are both off, we decide to pay them a visit at Koblenz and bring them the next day through the Mosel Valley to Trier.

This way we have another break and we get to learn them a bit better. We see a lot of places we have been to last year, when we also visited Trier and took this road to Koblenz. On the picture Bernkastel-Kues, one of the nicest towns along the Mosel.

After we have brought them to a hotel in Trier we drive home again. It is a few hours drive and not very tiring. We could do this more often, making a short trip, leaving on saturday morning and returning on sunday night. A good idea for the summer, since from June we don't have much opportunities to leave our jobs for more than a few days.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije