CK's World Adventures

Hi all this is Coleen and Kristen’s Travel Blog. If you can see this page, you will be able travel around Europe with us over the next while! We will post videos, pictures and stories here for you to enjoy!! It all starts September 15, 2017, so stay tuned

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Back to Driving on the Right Side of the Road!

Driving home from a great week of visiting our Kamloops family! bDrove trough some pretty icy/snowy section, but in the clear now!

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We <3 YEG

Well folks, our travels have taken us back to YEG until the end of January. We will return to Europe for a couple weeks then and will be sure to post some more pictures!

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Elly & Dirk our dutch AirBnB hosts in the Netherlands. They were great people and we really enjoyed staying at their place! Yip is their dog who we fell in love with right away!

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Amsterdam - Dec 1, 2017

Another picture of this beautiful city!! It’s our last day here, off to Germany tomorrow! We accidentally stumbled across a few of the shops in the red light district today. I think it’s quite sad, but I guess it’s a fact of life :( 

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December 1, 2017 - Amsterdam

We visited the house that Anne Frank and her family hid in for two years before they were discovered by the Nazis and deported to concentration camps. Anne, her sister and her mother all died in the camp, while her father survived. It’s a horrible story, and only one of many!!

We weren't able to take any pictures inside the house. It certainly gave you chills to think of how life must have been for this family.

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Gas is 1.649 Euro per litre in the Netherlands which converts to about $2.52/litre in Canadian dollars!! Diesel is much cheaper at $2.03/litre! 

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The Netherlands

This dike system is another form of keeping the land from flooding. You see these dikes literally everywhere and apparently they are very effective at their job! About two thirds of the land in the Netherlands is vulnerable to flooding and would be unusable if not for the windmills and dike systems.

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The restaurant near the windmills at Kinderdijk had two full walls full of old radios among other antiques. 

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Nov 30, 2017 - Kinderdijk, The Netherlands

We drove to Kinderdijk today to look at these beautiful windmills! They aren’t a common as they used to be, but you still see some of them around the countryside. The windmills and pumping stations have been used to keep the land dry for nearly a thousand years!

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Nov 29, 2017 - Utrecht, The Netherlands

We stopped at Ikea for supper (for those of you that know Kristen, may know that’s a thing :) )

She decided to check out the display to see if it was comfy . . . she looks like she belongs there!

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This is the other Autobahn video Kristen took. I wish we would have thought to start recording earlier when the fast ones were passing us! 

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Nov 29, 2017

We got to experience the Autobahn in Germany today!! There is no federally mandated speed limit except in specific areas. On speed-unrestricted stretches, an ‘advisory’ speed limit of 130 kms/hr applies. 

This video is a small example of how fast people drive, but these cars were not the real fast ones we seen today!! I was driving 120 and the fast guys literally flew past us like we were standing still. 

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Nov 29, 2017 - Werl Germany

Verla Katherine Fuller January 10, 1939 - May 25, 1967 Not Lost But Sent Ahead

We drove to Werl Germany today from Holland to visit my Aunt’s grave. Aunt Verla was Mom’s youngest sister who died in Germany in 1967 when she was 28 years old (she was a year older than Uncle Marvin). Her husband was in the air force and was stationed in Germany at the time Aunt Verla died.

Canada's commitment to NATO resulted in the stationing of brigade groups in Germany for a time in the 50s and 60s, and 474 of those troops and their dependents were buried in the Cemetery in Werl.

I thought this was interesting . . . in most locations in Europe plots are not acquired in perpetuity but rather for a specific period of time, after which the grave marker is removed and eventually the plot is reused. Fortunately, the two Canadian Sections in Werl are secured with a 50-year lease and a renewal clause, so these graves won’t be lost.

All the Canadian grave markers in Werl were replaced with granite ones in 2003.

I’m not sure if any other family members have been there to visit Aunt Verla’s grave. Perhaps there has been, but I’m really happy Kristen and I were able to make it there to visit her for a bit!

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-armed-forces/canadian-post-war-military-dependant-graves/city/1?p=6

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More of the cute houses by the canals in Amsterdam.

We discovered that Noord is north and Oost is east in Dutch. Some of the words almost sound like a slang dialect of English.

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November 28, 2017 - Amsterdam

There are plenty of ‘coffee houses’ around the canals in the centre of Amsterdam. Plenty of coffee paraphernalia shops around too! A person could almost get high just walking by some of these places!

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November 28, 2017 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

We walked for hours around the centre of Amsterdam today. Even though it rained quite a bit, we still enjoyed it! Amsterdam has more than a hundred kms of grachten (canals) and 1,500 bridges!! It is so beautiful to see!!

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An outside view of the Markthal.