Courtney's Back - Part 2

Our next stop was Delft, a small town endlessly full of charm. Camping Ulyenburg was our first experience of life in a van (yes, we literally were right down on the river) and it was a delightful place. With the river on one side and our friendly farm neighbors (goats, horses, ducks, and the like) on the others, we settled in quite nicely. We soon found our favorite coffee and bagel shop (bagels – a long forgotten carb option - yum) where we would hunker down for an hour or two each morning before hitting the town. In the evenings we'd take a leisurely bikeride around the neighborhoods and backwoods areas, where we made friends with (and then subsequently had to go back to revisit) more farm friends....a handsome white horse and black goat combo, who were shy at first but thrilled to see us back again, several cats, dogs, and what could only be described as cowsheep, a brown spotted baby goat who loved to have his chin scratched, and even a kangaroo! I nearly cried on our last visit when it was time to say goodbye for good. Clearly I was in serious need of an animal fix!





We thought it'd be cool to hook up with some Dutch friends from our scuba class (back in Australia), Erik and Anouk. I started emailing with Erik over Facebook and he wanted us to come out that first weekend in Utrecht, but we were going to a concert. We'd chatted with a guy in the band and it sounded cool (check out Sleepy Sun – they were SO good. Totally awesome in concert but their CD is cool too. They're from SF) So then some time goes by and we end up getting in touch again from Delft and this time I'm messaging back and forth with both Erik and Anouk. We made plans to come by on Saturday afternoon (this was Friday) and Anouk made some comment about how Erik wouldn't be home til 8 or 9pm but we could have dinner with her. I responded that it was funny that Erik said to come around 4pm but he wasn't actually going to be there? So she writes back and asks if maybe I have made an “appointment” with a different Erik because her Erik has never had any email contact with us. Oh SHIT!! How freaking embarrassing.....turns out the Erik I was chatting with was ANOTHER young blonde Dutch guy named Erik, that we'd met in a campground in NZ at the very beginning of the trip! We couldn't even remember what his girlfriend looked like, and I can't imagine how we would've played it off if we showed up and she was not Anouk! Erik #2's FB pic looked exactly like Erik #1 with sunglasses on and a goofy grin.....sooo embarrassing. So we kept our “appt” with Erik and Monique (who we recognized at once) and had a blast hanging out, christening their new mini-kegerator, and talking about our trips at their new place in Waarbrugge that they'd moved into THAT day. We instantly remembered how much fun we'd had with them way back in Waitangi.



Then the next day we bombed to Breda, another cute university town, and went to a huge outdoor concert with Erik and Anouk and had an awesome time with them as well. We never told E&M about the mix-up so they wouldn't know we originally didn't have intentions of calling them up to hang out! Thankfully Dutch people are all so nice and hospitable. We did have a constant sense of deja vu that weekend, not being sure which Erik couple we'd had which conversations with. Their lives were eerily similar!...both just got back from touring NZ and OZ in a campervan, both just moved in together for the first time (besides the van), both just graduated and started their first job, yada yada. I think the mix-up doesn't make me a TOTAL crack smoker! Though Jeremy has offered to take on the social planning role from now on...

Courtney's Back - Part 3

After that we found out Tanan and Michael were going to be in Paris within a week or two. Tanan and I became friends through work and her and Michael are Sasha's newly adopted and probably much more loved parents. They spoil her effing ROTTEN so we're going to have a monster on our hands when we get her back! I'm not kidding here....she has since upgraded from her cat bed on the armchair beside our bed, where we thought she was quite happy, to sleeping IN their bed, BETWEEN them, UNDER the covers, with her head on the PILLOW!! Needless to say, she gets away with everything she didn't with us. It's like a year straight at Grandma's house. Boy, she's gonna be a treat once she comes home to what will seem like prison. Thanks guys!! :) Anyway, I digress. They had missed their flight for their originally planned trip to Paris by writing the wrong day on their calendar! How devastating. Anyway, Tanan's birthday wish was to go to Disneyland Paris so we bombed to France and met them there....it was pretty funny. We crashed in the bunk beds in their room at the Hotel Cheyenne.....this place was hilarious!! Every bit of it was themed out to the max: bandanna print curtains, cowboy boot beside lamps, the mirror was framed like a huge rope and lasso, etc etc. It was hilarious but very comfortable with an awesome breakfast buffet. Disney Paris was pretty much the same as LA Disney but smaller scale. The highlight was being dared to eat the entire tub of cotton candy in one chubby bunny stuffing while laughing my ass off (I almost choked because I couldn't produce any saliva to get the crap to melt and dissipate in my mouth), then Tanan and I assing out and taking pictures with every Disney character we could find. We were practically shoving kids out of the way, jumping in pictures, getting reprimanded for hopping the barriers....it was hilarious. I blamed the behavior on an insane sugar rush, but Tanan is just Disney crazy!







So we spent 5 days with them, crashing at their friends Frenchy and Maria's tiny apt in Paris, and then hit the road to make our way back to Holland. We drove through Roune, a cute little town in Normandy, and then through Brugge. Brugge was one of my ultimate favorite spots on my first European tour. It was a little medieval-feeling cobbled town full of charm at every turn. Canals, foot bridges, beautiful stone buildings with funny chocolate shops, (the chocolate boobs are pretty funny, come on!) and great plazas for stopping to have a drink and watch it all. It was relatively unheard of, aka “new on the scene” at that time (which was 8 years ago now). I couldn't wait to go back there and Jer was really stoked to see it too. Well, apparently the secret is out. This was the first time that my memory of a place was in juxtaposition with the 'new' reality of it. What a huge bummer! Brugge was still that charming city I described, but now overrun with tourists, absolutely crawling with people from charming stone wall to charming stone wall. We discovered near the very beginning of the trip that we don't enjoy the big cities near as much as the quieter, slower paced towns and I think the main reason is that there are so many less people, it's easier to actually see and enjoy the place.

We were thrilled to get back to Holland. Man, we really love that country. Is it a coincidence that our absolute favorite places look an awful lot like home in the good old Pacific Northwest? New Zealand and Holland are both verdant places, full of trees and farmland, hiking and biking trails, with a nice balance of sun and rain. Living everyday life makes you feel like you're still a close neighbor to nature. Qualities I look for in an ideal destination, I've discovered.

Our plan was to head to a weird theater festival in the very north on a tiny island called Terschelling. Apparently it started because people would just go out on the street corners and dress up in costumes, or put on impromptu skits or weird performances and stuff, so they created an entire festival around it. We met another guy in a different band (but also loved his music) who was playing several gigs there so that was a bonus as well. I was expecting this thing to be a total trip and was reaaaally looking forward to it, but in the end it didn't happen. The main issue is getting a spot on a ferry and we tried so many times but couldn't get the ferry website to work. Calling and emailing only got us automated responses in Dutch. Since the website listed several open timeslots, we decided to bomb up there anyway and take our chances. Turns out we could get TO the island, but every timeslot coming back was booked for weeks out. We had to be in Paris by June 23rd to meet my family, so it was a no go. I hope we can make it there someday in the future. The plus side was that we happened upon darling Harlingen (the town where you catch the ferry) and ended up scoring an amazing canal-side spot to crash. It was just one more delightful Dutch town.

Courtney's Back - Part 4

So instead we celebrated my birthday In Amsterdam.....not a bad place to ring in another year! I don't quite understand how a big city like Amsterdam manages to retain it's endless charm but a small place like Brugge doesn't. Amsterdam is quite easy to navigate once you've figured out how the main canals are laid out, and there are so many different sections of the city worth exploring. We hit museums, parks, movies, paddle boats around the canals, pancake houses, coffeeshops, and of course got a few good laughs and gasps in the red light district. We found some secondhand bikes and each day would bike in from our site at Camping Zeeburg and traipse all around the city. We also discovered Maoz, the best falaffel place ever! It's cheap and includes infinite trips back to the “salad bar” to reload your pita with any topping or sauce you could imagine. I'd also venture to say I had the best ice cream cone of the whole trip at a little cafe in Amsterdam (the cone was cinnamon-y and no cone has compared since), but I'll have to wait until we gelati-fy our way through Italy before settling on any conclusions.

Courtney's Back - Part 5

We rolled through yet another darling town called Amersfoort, and chose for our last stop an area just outside of Arnhem in the Hogue Veluwe National Park. This place was the perfect icing on the cake to wrap up our Dutch tour. Our campsite was set on the edge of the forest, with hiking and biking trails leading out just behind the van. A creek ran through it and the trees were constantly humming with birds chattering away. It seemed everyone had dogs so I was in heaven making furry friends; two of which were Bernese mountain dogs. I came away from my 'visit' (aka roll in the mud with them) covered in dog hair and caked with mud, but I felt like I'd gotten a dose of my girl Sanka! We did an amazing bike ride through the park, about 45km in total, which rode us through constantly changing landscapes. One minute we were ducking through the shade of the trees, and the next the forest would open up to a wind swept prairie with grasses as tall as either of us. Then we'd cycle over some rolling hills surrounded by sand dunes past a range of wild elk grazing on their dinner, only to arrive at the former summer house (more like a castle with pristine gardens and lake) of the wealthy couple who used to own the land before donating it to be used as the national park. My ass was sore for a day or two after that ride but it made for quite a memory!

The next installment was the familiar trip back to Paris, round 2, where we met my mom, dad, and brother to travel through France for almost three weeks. Team Buddbergen unite!

Vietnam Photos

Ok, they're all on there now. Love me some internet cafe...

Oy Choy Oy!!

Vietnam pictures - Two rounds, seven weeks, lots of soup, tailored clothing, numb bum and stolen shoes. Loved it.

Not too much editing going on, so there are a lot of shots in a few of the albums. Here they are - well, about half of them at least.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremy.buddress

Booty Call

Ever since we got to Bali we've been working to control our urges when it comes to buying the crap out of all of the knock-off and pirated goods we've come across. From Billabong t-shirts to fake Zippos to Fau-lexes to Oakleys, Lonely Planet guidebooks, DVDs and CD and on and on... With the exception of some real artwork that we got in Bali and a few $3 t-shirts, we've kept it pretty well in control. That is until we got to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. From everything you read in the guidebooks this is the capital of copies. The number one for knock-offs. The front runner of forgeries.

We had heard about the pirated DVDs, CDs and software that go for next to nothing. I got the urge to pop into one of the DVD/CD stores while we were wandering around the streets near out guesthouse in Saigon one night. I was skeptical at first. On a previous pop-in to a shop in Bali, the Valkyrie DVD that was for sale, prior to the movie even being released, while of good quality only had the first chapter in English. The rest of the movie was actually in German, much to the contradiction of the shopkeeper and the DVD packaging. No, really, sir. That's not English. Whatever, that was Bali, this is Vietnam – they take this pirating stuff seriously here!

So in we went to browse the new release wall. Wow, look at that – I don't remember half of these movies even being released yet. The concerns with the pirated movies, aside from them being “pirated” (hey, when in Rome, eh?) are that they could be in a foreign language, they could have been filmed by some dude who snuck into a theater with his tripod and a camcorder or of course they may just not work. One of the guys working in the shop even let us know that we shouldn't buy Inkheart or one other movie as they were filmed in the theater and weren't actual copies of the original DVD. Fortunately this shop had four TVs and DVD players so that you could test all of the movies you were interested in buying. We quickly had an arm load so I went over and started checking them out. Much to my initial surprise, everything worked great. So while I tested away, Courtney turned one arm load into several. Round one racked up close to 60 DVDs for somewhere around $50. Sweet!

Of course now that we were seasoned film buyers our antenna were up and eyes open for more opportunities. Shop two came a few days later and jackpot, this place had box sets. Yes! They have Lost Seasons 1-4!! We're back in action! Round two rolled up half a dozen box sets of our favorite and soon to be favorite TV shows along with a few more movies. I think stop brought in another 30 or so discs. On our last day in town we wandered through one of the local markets in search of a dust mask to wear during our Mekong Delta motorcycle tour. But hey, what's that? A DVD stand? Ok, I think the entire Sapranos series and every single James Bond movie ever made should be bought for $15. Just to round out the collection... We found 40 or so CDs that we “needed” to add to the collection too.

Ok, we got the loot. But crap, it's heavy. And since the mini laptop doesn't have a DVD player, we don't actually have a way to watch them. Time to find the post office. This is where our new found elation over discount goods starts to go downhill. “No DVD!” says the man at the post office counter. After a bit of further inquiry and additional confusion, it was clear that for some reason?!?! they do not allow you to mail home the knock-off DVDs. Good thing our crack research department caught onto that one before we had our stack fulls bought and paid for. Ok, I guess we'll just have to carry them for a bit.

On to Cambodia we will head, then straight to the Fed Ex office. As we rolled up to the airport in Saigon, we wondered if we were going to run into any issues getting through Vietnam or Cambodian customs. The answer would be yes, we would. Quickly we check in and get the bags on their way to the plane. Our big mistake, we've decided, is lingering at the adjacent airport map to find the restaurants instead of getting as far away from our bags as possible. Because out comes one of the customs officials to bring us back for a security check on our bags. Sweeeeeeet.

You have DVD?
Yes.
Take out.
Ok.
Oooohhhhhh. That way to many.
Ok.
Copy. Too many. You pay fine.
?????
$50.
$20?
$30.
Ok. Here.
Pack your bags. Have a nice day.
Let's go.

The unabridged version of this conversation had much analysis of the “officials” document (which was in Vietnamese, no English version available for some reason) explaining the rules about pirated DVDs and Courtney's defiance that our “fine” was way too much. Pretty sure the $30 went into the guys pocket, but hey, we still have our new DVD collection in hand. Let's see if we have better luck getting them home from Cambodia. Movie night at our place when we get home!

And no, we did not actually get Booty Call, though it was one of Jamie Foxx's finest 90 minutes. Right up there with Ray in my opinion.

March 12th Edit: The handy UPS tracking number has at least let us know that our package home with said DVDs has made it into the US. Let's hope the calls that my brother and Eleissa are having with US Customs officers about “contraband materials” that are being sent to their house are going well...

April 18th Edit: Well, apparently today was D-Day. It would appear that UPS has destroyed our package for fear of counterfeit DVDs being released on the public and creating chaos. We are so f'n pissed that the pretty much ignored our requests to remove the questionable goods and send on the rest of the package. Here come the nasty-grams!! I guess I'd better re-up my Fed Ex and DHL accounts. Anyone know a good lawyer?