L is for Leeuwarden, Lucozade and lots of luggage

Although a bit skiddish at first, I learned to love Lucozade, which tastes like candy and claims to boost my energy level. A big hit with Jason, and apparently with most of the U.K., Lucozade was completely unknown to me, so I turned it down several times because I wasn’t sure if it would make me loopy right before our presentations. I think back now to those yawns that didn’t have to be.

We became somewhat obsessed with finding the stuff and buying a stash before we returned to the States. And then I found out they sell it in bottles like Gator-ade!

Leeuwarden (remember, that’s LAY-oo-var-den) seemed like a really cool village-like college town. The hospitality school we visited also had a hotel the students ran as part of their studies, so we literally never had to leave the building.

The faculty was great, and they treated us to some great meals in the student restaurants. I tried buttermilk for the first and last time (bleck!!), enjoyed a variety of antipasti delicacies with marscapone and always seemed to order fish – which was delicious. One of the restaurants we visited was a very charming old place with excellent food.

After two nights in Leeuwarden, we traveled by train to Rotterdam. The trains were always a real trip. For a two-week journey, we actually did pack lightly. However, it was still a literal pain in the neck (and back) to travel with so much baggage. Kim and I always came close to surpassing our limit on the weight of our bags at the airports. With the trains, you had the luxury of not weighing them and the horror of having to carry all of them yourself. Well, unless you were traveling with a chivalrous Brit!
One of the trains we had the luck to ride had a mobile drinking cart on a guy's back!

If we weren’t laughing so hard passing luggage to each other over steep steps from the train platforms up to the cabs of the train, we would have cried like over-tired babies. Sometimes we were standing at the doors next to the business travelers, ready to exit the trains, knowing that we had three minutes to find our next train and carry all of our luggage on there before the whistle blew and left us behind.

In Rotterdam, like everywhere else in The Netherlands, the most popular form of travel seemed to be the bicycles. Here's a picture of a parking area -- how in the world do you remember where you parked your bike?

Rotterdam and s' Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) were next on our itinerary. We were in Rotterdam for only a few hours before traveling to Den Bosch just in time to get dinner at our hotel. The town looked like a great place for wandering around with my camera. But alas, it was dark when we arrived and rainy when we left the next morning.

In Den Bosch, we went to another school with faculty who were overly gracious and lots of fun. They brought us lots of different samples of Dutch food for lunch in the student-run restaurant. I had black pudding, which looks like a sausage patty, but it's actually pig's blood. It was actually kind of sweet. They were very kind to go to the trouble to welcome us, so I figured I should indulge. It was definitely an experience.

On a lighter note, here are some fun signs I came across in Switzerland. And yes, those first two were on bathroom doors.

Next up: LONDON, witches and boxing ballerinas