In Amsterdam

18 February 2012. Amsterdam, Netherlands.

We have been in the Low Lands for more than a week now, went on a family visit and arranged some boring bureaucratic "stuff". The good news is that we are almost ready to go South by South-East (as those will be the predominant direction of our journey: south to Kenya first, than South-East to Capetown and hopping over to South America). But we might as well change our plans completely and go to any other country in the world (with very few exceptions). Do you have a suggestion where we should go?

Winter seems to be over here, the traditional ice-skating competition, the Elfstedentocht, was cancelled on the night we arrived here, and we can walk around with not much more than a sweater. The city is vibrant: through the window of a coffee shop where we worked today (I mean a shop where the sell coffee), we saw a parade of adorned cars proclaiming the greatness of the Prophet Mahomet. I thought that the participants looked rather dull and dutiful, but still, this colors public life.

Inside that coffee shop, the Stadskantine, Kamiel worked on the kindmankind.net-website, and now volunteertravelfreedom.org
is pointing to it (check it out and participate!). Meanwhile, Yeon visited a museum that turned out to be closed. More luck if we go out, tonight.

We are going to Holland!

6. February. Istanbul, Turkey.

For practical reasons, we have decided to visit the Netherlands for two weeks; Kamiel's family is there, and some unfinished paperwork. Add the fact that Dutch is his native tongue, so he can use the thing on media and potential supporters of Charity Travel. Plus we might get a chance to chime in with protests against some radical new Dutch laws. We're planning to move on to Kenya around February 20.