Saturday, August 1, 2015

Gay pride

My mom and dad visited for coffee and a quick lunch. It was very nice to have them over :-)

When they left, Simone and I drove to Amsterdam for the afternoon to check out the gay pride boat parade.

Simone has never seen the parade because she always has to work so it was kinda now or never.
The weather was great and it was incredibly busy...

Well, here you go :-)

There were too many floats to show so here are a few of the nicest:














This one was my favourite. It had gay couples on top, kissing eachother. There are still people who can't handle this image and there are countries where this is actually illegal or worse, it can get you killed.

The "dick" boat.

My second favourite float was the "gaymobil" one, named after the toy "playmobil". I like :-)

Google had a float as well. I noticed more interest from big companies.

Spot the (Dutch) celebrity.

My third favourite float: the leather boys!

After a very busy afternoon our feet were killing us and we drove back to the camping. The peace and quiet was soooo nice there.

Friday, July 31, 2015

The backgammon

We cycled to town for some shopping.

That's all we did coz after all of yesterday's walking I'm fine with hanging around the caravan with a beer or two for a bit :-)

My view.

Yesterday Simone taught me how to play Backgammon. Now I like it so much that I wanna play all the time. I'm still losing though ;-)

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Visiting Zwolle.

Today Simone and I visited a town called Zwolle. I hadn't really visited it and had only heard it is quite nice. Well, it was! Here are the pictures to prove it ;-)

First building we saw after parking the car. We parked at the edge of the center, very convenient.

Another lovely house while we walked in to town.

Getting closer to the main square.

The weather was great. I took this photo not so much for the decor but...

For Mr. Green glasses overthere. He just looked funny I think :-)

First things first: coffee and cake. Which we had at the main square, in the sun. Weather is improving as of today and we were already feeling the change. It was getting nice and warm.

We continued walking.

This is the river/canal separating the 2 parts of the old center.


This tower is called "Wijndragerstoren". It's got a bit of old city wall attached to it still.


Us :-)

We kept walking along the old city wall untill we came at a point where you could actually go up. There was a gate I could play with ;-) When play-time was over we continued in to town where there were also very nice shops.

One of the shops sold vinyl records. I spotted this ZZ Top album from my birthyear 1973. I'm going to frame it :-) Btw, I took this photo while we were at another terrace having lunch. It was at a burgerbar called "Ingeburgerd". Their burger was great!

When we continued we came acros this little old church. A workman was busy with the door open so we sneaked in to have a little look. Very plain interior, nothing exciting really.

The workman told us a bit about the church and so we found out that it was in use by a bunch of about 40 Frenchies these days for their services, in French of course.

Side-door of the Frenchies church.

And then I came acros this LEGO shop! It was only selling LEGO and it must've had every single box you can get... Un-real! This is my favourite LEGO model of all times. It's a few years old now. When I was a kid I already used to make cranes without a booklet telling me how to. I love this crane. If I had a kid who liked technical LEGO I would not hesitate to get him/her this model.

And there was this racecar as well. Awesome.



As we continued we discovered more beautiful historic buildings. This is the "Sassenpoort".



When we arrived by car I had already spotted something very shiny. It was the roof of this museum. You love it or you hate it. I love it. I think it's so modern that, when looking at the older part, it fades and I don't see it.

The museum is at the edge of the old town so we walked back to the center again. I spotted this shop with my friend Eva's name on it. Nice building actually.

From where I spotted the "Eva" shop I also saw this old building. "Van GEND & LOOS" was a very old transport company.

A Hugo Boss store. Thankfully they left the facade like it was.

We walked back to the main square and went inside the big church. It's big.

Ceiling lamp.

The organ.

Then we walked towards another church you can't and shouldn't, miss.

This church is called the "Peppershaker", "Peperbus" in Dutch.

Totally different from the other churches we visited inside, nothing here was plain! Bright colours were everywhere...

I liked this statue of Maria and baby Jesus holding a basketball ;-) (I know it's the "world"...)

And then it was time for a sit again. We spotted this icecream place next to that city-wall where we went up. So we walked back and had amazing icecream.

Then it was time to head back to the car. We crossed the main square again. It has this glass statue which I liked a lot. It is the arch-angel Michael who is the city's patron saint.

One last view...

Bye bye Zwolle! It was great being here, you are a lovely little city! :-)