Monday 6 August 2018

Countries I Have Visited #LifeThisWeek


Hello there, lovely people! It's time to reveal the extensive list of countries I have visited. Here it is...

Countries I Have Visited:


  • Holland.


The End.

That was a quick post.

Byyyye!

Just kidding. I'm the queen of rambling. Can't get rid of me that easily. So ner!

It's true, though. The only country I've visited is Holland. Technically I should change the title of this post, but why nitpick?

I was certain I had already blogged about visiting Holland before, but when I went looking for the post I couldn't find it. Weird.

I went there as a ten year old with my parents and brother. It was 1981. I can still remember it. Well, bits of it.

We stayed with some friends of ours in Rotterdam. We ended up riding bikes everywhere. My parents have all the snapshots because obviously 1981 was a very long time ago. They also have footage which they had made into a DVD and gave me a copy, but I don't know how to upload it here.

In the footage I can be seen as a ten year old, skipping amongst the tulips.

Not the actual tulips I skipped amongst.


Other random memories of Holland:


  • When we arrived I allegedly slept for a solid 17 hours due to jet lag. If I ever travel overseas again as a middle-aged/old lady I'll likely fall into a coma, never to wake up again.  



  • I lived on bowls of custard and those round Dutch crisp bread thingys for a month. It was awesome.



  • Dutch liquorice called Drop (I think), is the most vile thing I've ever tasted. A million times more salty than vegemite. Yuck!



  • They served hot chips with peanut sauce, which struck me as revolting at the time. Now I realise it was probably some sort of satay type sauce and I'd probably love it.



  • Yep, we did visit a windmill. I think that was day my mum was filming away merrily only to discover later there was no film in the video recorder!



  • We visited some sort of touristy place where the bins would speak when you passed them saying "Papier here!" Or something. My memory of this is a little vague.



  • There was a lot of punk and new wave types about and I definitely gawked stupidly at them.



  • We went on a boat ride on the canal but as soon as it rocked I freaked and wanted to get off. So my dad got off with me. He doesn't like boats either and I provided him with a convenient smokescreen. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone! 😉



  • I remember some of the music that was popular at the time. Such as Double Dutch Bus and Grace Jones's Strange (I've Seen That Face Before). My parents bought a single of the latter, my brother the former. This was in the prehistoric days of vinyl records!




  • We almost missed the plane coming home! I'm not sure exactly how my parents got mixed up, but we were meandering around the airport thinking we had aaaages. Suddenly we heard our names being paged and had to bolt to the departure gate. We embarked red as beetroots, as all the other passengers gave us filthy looks. OOPS!


Those are snippets of memories from a very long time ago.

Sadly I've never visited any other countries, but if I could I'd visit the US, Canada and Prince Edward Island. Also; the UK. Not very likely at present, but you never know. Fingers crossed!

What about you?

Which countries have you visited?

5 comments:

  1. Oh Ness, this was sweet. It is hard to dredge up memories from long ago but I reckon you did well. I once got called over the speaker for a flight. I had to hightail it to the gate...for the bus trip ...to the little plane ...to fly me to Cobar for the DAY to observe a teacher for a promotion thingy! It was a LONG day..Left home 4.30 am and back home around 9 pm. Thank you for linking up for #lifethisweek Next week's optional prompt is "Famous People I Have Met". Denyse

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  2. Literally reading this whilst listening to vinyl records haha! I would love to go to Holland one day, if only for the talking bins. I hope they're still there. I've got the punk stuff covered at home.

    I have visited the US, Canada, Japan, Bali and Fiji but I'd totally love to go to the UK. Also just finished reading chapter two of Anne of Green Gables to my kids before bed... Prince Edward Island!

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  3. Holland is the actual greatest. A land of clogs and cheese! What more could you want in life? Oh yeah, windmills. But they've got them too. So two thumbs up from me! #LifeThisWeek

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  4. I visited Holland too many years ago. I remember catching the train into Amsterdam from the airport and then a taxi to my hotel. (It was my first stop on my first solo trip at 21). I jumped into the drivers seat of the taxi!! Because I had jetlag and didn't realise they drive on the other side of the rd. It was a beautiful place.

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  5. Why Holland? Was your family from there originally? I've never been there - the closest I've been is when we did a Mediterranean cruise in 2015!

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