Four likely lads travel the planet

OK then let's start with some facts:

LATE UPDATE!!
(I forgot to put this in earlier but remembered today when I had some lolly and realised it was much too salty)
- The Netherlands are home to possibly the world's largest collection of salt based confectionary. When looking for lollies be warned: try one first because when you get that bag of goodies back home, no doubt they will be salty and disgusting. As usual the dutchies love them

- There are tonnes of people in the Netherlands that are huge and by huge I mean massive. On the right is Gijs, I am staying at his house and he was a school friend of my dad's. On the left is Ben, his son. Ben lives in the house behind us, luckily only the door is really low

- People really do wear clogs and not just for ceremonial purposes, but for everyday life. Milking the cows, going to tractor pulls (more on this later on) and going to the shops, just knocking about, anything

For the record this old dude is the bloke who now owns the farm where my dad was born (and his dad and his dad's dad built it... you get the picture). The guy on the right bought it off my Opa before they left the Netherlands for Australia

- People ride bikes everywhere. They go on special cycling holidays where they drive somewhere just to ride their bike around. They love bikes so much they even have them in their coal mines

- There are tonnes of cows. Apparently the Dutch eat about 16kg of cheese per person per year and that milk has gotta come from somewhere. They love milk so much that you can buy this stuff called "Karne Milk" which is basically a carton of sour milk, not the best tasting stuff but they love it

Secondly, some lesser know facts about the Netherlands:

- They have their own fair share of LARGE attractions. For example near Achterveld there is the egg:

Please note that I had to ride a bike to get there

There is also the giant cigar:

Please note that is not just a turd with a cigar label in a plastic tube.

- There are lots of funny signs and street names

Literal translation, "Middle Arse Way"

Literal translation, "Ass Chatter Way"

I completely understand why the dog on the sign has a big smile, he just took a dump on someones neat, freshly cut grass.

Other Highlights:

- Playing the family card game "Skip-Bo" with my mum's elderly aunt and uncle in Terwinslen (southern Netherlands) when the CD we are listening to (which sounded a lot like a dutch version of Kevin "Bloody" Wilson) began playing the song "Livin' Next Door to Alice" in dutch except for one line in english, "who the f*** is Alice". I found it very difficult to not laugh out loud, lucky they don't speak english

- Driving down a street in Kerkrade where one side of the street is the Netherlands and the other is Germany. Street signs on side were Dutch and the other German

- Going to a tractor pull. Not the kind where two tractors battle it out but one where a suped up tractor pulls a massive sled in the dirt. This bad boy had 4 jet engines on it

The winners of each division we driven around on the dias in front of all the spectators.

- Visiting the Dutch "Alps" and the highest point in the Netherlands, a staggering 322.5 metres above sea level.

- Going to some museum and finding this old dutch supermarket product

Wow, this is going to be a draining entry. First things first: Melon and I made our rendez-vous with Morton and Kerr in Paris after taking a Lithuanian taxi, two quick flights, one expensive English express bus between airports and a French train into Paris.

The next three days involved knocking off major French attractions in most likely the highest culture point scoring day ever! First we hit the Eiffel Tower, then off to the Arc de Triomphe, then a stroll down the Champs Elysees towards the Louvre for our record breaking view of the "Highest Culture Point Scoring Attraction world wide" according to the Morton culture point scale, the Mona Lisa. Further to this we drank some french wine that night to completely max out the culture points for that day.

Saturday saw us heading back to the airport to pick up the much hyped and much beloved Peugeot Partner. After a few minutes to completely changing the way we drive we were off to Rotterdam and to our first Partner stop: a football friendly between The Netherlands and Australia!

Saturday the 4th started early with a breakfast of Hoegaarden Grand Cru´s and continued with a delicious kebab before heading to the Kuip dressed to the nines in our yellow Australian garb (except Morton who hadn't managed to locate a shirt yet).

If anyone has ever been to an interstate AFL match where the home fans outnumbered the visitors, think that except every single person is dressed in orange (usually pretty crazily and with an air horn), is super pumped to be at the game and also super friendly. The national anthem was sung with Advance Australia Fair sounding like only the singer was there compared to the 40,000 dutch fans singing at the top of their voice and drowning out everything!

The game was awesome as you would have seen on telly (if you watched) and you would have seen us sitting behind the goals at the end where both of the goals were scored. After the match we headed to an irish pub where the Aussie supporters were headed to party the night away. We met some interesting characters that night including "Frank the Tank" who had passed out in a chair in the middle of everyone a bit "Weekend at Bernies" and All-Australian "Dazza" who was supporting a green and gold Aussie Afro Wig and letting people sign his body (God only knows why).

We left the pub for our camping ground cabins, which were a little out of town so we decided to run a bit of the way. Morton and I got a little tired so we stopped and took it easy while the other two soldiered on. Morton and I, with our keen sense of direction found our way back to the cabin at around 2am to find no sign of either Melon or Kerr and with only one key for the cabin in Kerr´s pocket. So Morton and I got into the Partner for our first sleep in the van to wait and see if the other two arrived. An hour later I axoke to find Melon and Kerr inside the cabin playing cards. They had managed to run past the turn towards the camping ground to qnd when realising they were lost had found two Polish campers with a portable GPS machine who were also lost on their way to the campsite. After following the Poles who were going in the wrong direction to their GPS machine they bailed and flagged down a passing police car who told them they would need a taxi, so they asked what the police were doing to which they replied they were going to answer a call and said to wait where they were and they would come back and get them in about 10 minutes. Like clockwork the police returned 10 minutes later and gave the boys a lift back to the camp. I am still not sure who was more excited, looking at the photo with the police the cop looks like he was having the time of his life.

coming up soon... more pictures and Amsterdam and Brussells