Final week in mainland Europe

08 - 14 October

I left Lund & Elana's company early on the 8th to explore København (Copenhagen) for the day. Taking the train back over into Denmark, I spent three hours looking around their capital before flying to Amsterdam in the evening.

Central København

Nyhavn

Changing of the guard at Amalienborg

Kastellet - with a windmill that should belong in the Netherlands!

Thorvaldsen sculpture museum

One thing I'd missed out on doing when I'd been in Amsterdam in June had been to visit the Anne Frank House, in central Amsterdam where Anne and her family hid for several years before being discovered by the Nazis and taken away. I took the opportunity that evening to have a look. It has been well laid out into a museum, while still retaining some aspects of the original house - to see the tiny quarters where Anne's family and several others hid out for such a long time provided quite a different perspective on the injustices of war.

The next morning I headed off to Enschede, a town in the east where an old school friend, Ben Wylie-van Eerd, had recently moved to. He also has Dutch family and was starting to learn the language, just as I am doing now I am heading there too.

I spent a few hours there catching up with him and walking around the town. We even stumbled upon this...

IJssalon van der Poel - icecream in Enschede! (tasted good too...)

Later that evening I carried on to Made to stay a couple of nights at my great-auntie's place again. I borrowed her bike to head into Oosterhout for a few hours, loving the freedom of biking around in the Dutch countryside where the cyclist provisions are absolutely excellent.

I'd left some things at her house, and with some other assorted stuff I sent 7.5 kg back home - one thing I've definitely learnt is to travel as lightly as possible. Then it was back to Antwerpen to stay with Els again. I met her new Finnish boarder and spent a couple of days just relaxing with them, watching movies, playing Yahtzee, and catching up on the past few months, since I'd already seen the city (and it rained almost the whole time!).

So having finished mainland Europe the same way it started - the Netherlands and Belgium - it was off to Ireland and then England, with more family and friends to see...