And it's all over
Soon after my last post, we tediously moved all our camping gear and other luggage back into my car, which was parked 800m away from the HAR2009 campsite, as were all other cars. We set off, got horribly lost in Belgium (again*) and eventually got to Luxembourg. There we spent a week not doing very much, and yesterday we went back to Exeter, this time without getting lost in Belgium.
Well, the week wasn't that boring. For one thing, to my great relief, the Fiat passed its contrôle technique (MOT equivalent) without incident. We also discovered a source of Club-Mate in Trier and bought six cases to take back with us - and Graham started working out the economics of importing the stuff to Britain, as clearly the hackerspace he's planning will need a supply, having heard in a podcast that some hackerspaces pay half their rent through sales of the stuff. I also bought quite a lot of beer to take to Exeter, both for myself and for various people that have put in requests. Graham got to try a Spaghettieis (I can't believe there's a Wikipedia article about it, and in English as well) which he found every bit as exciting as Tom did on our Interrail trip in 2005. Graham installed Steam on his Macbook (on Windows, obviously) and started playing Half-Life 2 after I gave him my extra copy that came with the Orange Box that I bought to get Portal and Episode 2.
* we got lost in Belgium the first time round, on our way from Calais to the Netherlands. The directions I'd printed out specified motorways by their Belgian numbers (A1 etc.) - but the Belgian road signs only give the E-road numbers. As a result, we went around the entire Antwerp ring road, then realised what had happened and took a guess at which exit we needed to take. We guessed right, but we'd already wasted an hour circling the city. Graham now understands why I dislike driving in Belgium, although my usual route is actually fairly straightforward. The unusually high density of bad drivers, to put it mildly, that I always seem to encounter in Belgium doesn't help.
Oh, and since I haven't mentioned it here: One thing that struck us while in the Netherlands, driving to and from HAR2009 as well as in the village and on our expedition to the nearest town to get an extension lead, is how incredibly neat and tidy everything is. Seriously. I've noticed it before, as we always go through NL on the way to visiting my dad's relatives in his hometown. I've still only seen a tiny handful of places in the country, but in very different parts of the country, and it still holds.
That's about it - back to the daily grind (?) in Exeter, although I haven't completely unpacked/cleared away all the traces of the expedition, plus my car is still full of beer and Club-Mate that I need to distribute and/or lug upstairs.
All in all, I think we can call this trip a success.
Well, the week wasn't that boring. For one thing, to my great relief, the Fiat passed its contrôle technique (MOT equivalent) without incident. We also discovered a source of Club-Mate in Trier and bought six cases to take back with us - and Graham started working out the economics of importing the stuff to Britain, as clearly the hackerspace he's planning will need a supply, having heard in a podcast that some hackerspaces pay half their rent through sales of the stuff. I also bought quite a lot of beer to take to Exeter, both for myself and for various people that have put in requests. Graham got to try a Spaghettieis (I can't believe there's a Wikipedia article about it, and in English as well) which he found every bit as exciting as Tom did on our Interrail trip in 2005. Graham installed Steam on his Macbook (on Windows, obviously) and started playing Half-Life 2 after I gave him my extra copy that came with the Orange Box that I bought to get Portal and Episode 2.
* we got lost in Belgium the first time round, on our way from Calais to the Netherlands. The directions I'd printed out specified motorways by their Belgian numbers (A1 etc.) - but the Belgian road signs only give the E-road numbers. As a result, we went around the entire Antwerp ring road, then realised what had happened and took a guess at which exit we needed to take. We guessed right, but we'd already wasted an hour circling the city. Graham now understands why I dislike driving in Belgium, although my usual route is actually fairly straightforward. The unusually high density of bad drivers, to put it mildly, that I always seem to encounter in Belgium doesn't help.
Oh, and since I haven't mentioned it here: One thing that struck us while in the Netherlands, driving to and from HAR2009 as well as in the village and on our expedition to the nearest town to get an extension lead, is how incredibly neat and tidy everything is. Seriously. I've noticed it before, as we always go through NL on the way to visiting my dad's relatives in his hometown. I've still only seen a tiny handful of places in the country, but in very different parts of the country, and it still holds.
That's about it - back to the daily grind (?) in Exeter, although I haven't completely unpacked/cleared away all the traces of the expedition, plus my car is still full of beer and Club-Mate that I need to distribute and/or lug upstairs.
All in all, I think we can call this trip a success.