Packing it in

Catching up on two days is a bit of a challenge. Our last full day in Amsterdam could only be scripted by an urban planner and architect / housing developer. We headed to the Central station and caught the surface tram to a new 'town' east of the Amsterdam rings - Ijburg. Sue's friend and fellow urban planner Chris DeMarco had suggested the visit and Sue had read an article that described this new 'town' as one of the top 10 new urban developments to visit in Europe. So of course we headed out and after being there about 15 minutes and walking aimlessly around fairly austere six storey brick buildings all I could think was 'thank God we don't have the children with us'. The protests would have been deafening. We walked about, saw a couple of cool buildings, but overall it felt like a stripped down version of Toronto's new developments east of downtown.

After taking the tram back to the Central Station we rented bikes and headed north and west. A highlight was taking the free ferry across to the area north of the core city where we rode around areas where it seemed average Amsterdamers lived and worked. Took the 5 minute ferry ride back to central Amsterdam and enjoyed a cold beer in a typical corner pub as the sun fell behind nearby buildings. Had fun snapping pics of a very busy bike intersection where for the first time we saw somebody hit the deck - dumb tourist.

The next day was one I had dreaded as it was, on paper, the most complex of this multi pronged European campaign. It proved to be all that but was also fun and meaningful and confirmed for me that Sue and I are a great travel 'team'. The alarm clock went off at 6:30 and by 8:00 we were on a train to Dusseldorf. Sound simple but enroute we stopped at Nijmegen where we disembarked and caught an hour long bus ride to Uden. We had rushed to make this bus and so were stuck with lugging our packs, and bags including a shopping bag with beer and a 2/3 drunk bottle of red wine, cheese, stale buns, chips etc. It started to get heavy. Sue patiently put up with my whining - "Why the f... are we still travelling like students!"- was my refrain.

At Uden we made a short walk through town (with bags!) and found the immaculately maintained war cemetery where Sue's Uncle Herbert's remains lay. At 27 his plane was shot down nearby and only recently did they identify his remains. Sue was visibly touched. The cemetery was spotless and smelled vaguely like mushroom manure (all the planting beds around the grave stones were as fresh as a Polygon show home at a sales opening). Row on row of identical stones all marking the final resting place of men as young as 19 and as old as 37. Brits, Canadians, Welshmen, Scots - all Anglo - and ranging from airmen (lots) to infantry, engineers, tank corps. Uden is close to Arnhem immortalized in A Bridge Too Far, where the allied braintrust planned and flubbed Operation Market Garden.

One would assume the German train system would be punctual right? Right up there with the Japanese. Wrong. After busting it back from Uden - more lovely Dutch countryside - we got back to Nijbegen where our train to Dusseldorf, via the town of Venlo, was an hour late. Cut to arriving in Dusseldorf late afternoon, hoofing it out to the airport where we picked up a rental car, then diving, at 5:30, 60k to, I am still not sure where, somewhere in Germany where Sue believed her family / Haid roots are. Well she owes me one as by GPS we ended up at the edge of a town by someone's back yard that had an impressive number of sheep for such a small area and was adjacent to a street sign that said Haid St. "What the f....!, obligatory picture then head back to our one star hotel not in the centre of town where I swear I thought it was. Quick note on driving in Germany. Every cliche holds true. You must drive with an eye to the rear view mirror every 15 seconds if you dare to go into the passing lane. You will see a distant set of lights and instantly a bullet is on your ass, invariably a Mercedes although there is the odd delivery van and even though we are driving 130 in a nifty Citroen you are passed at no less than 170-180 kph. It is really fun driving.

So... the day ends at the Schlosser district of Dusseldorf. So named as it is where every Dusseldorf hooligan goes to got schlossed. After enjoying the local fare, burger and fries, we ended up at a very elegant wine bar, then home to the one star in the industrial park and head on pillow by 11:30. Remember we got up at 6:30 in Amsterdam. We were still on speaking terms at the end of the day. Remember the 'fun and meaningful'? - it was.