Woke up bright and early in our 144 sq ft villa around 6am so laid in bed and did a quick check and "yeh baby, jets win 3 in a row". It is going to be a good day. Check the weather forecast sunny 23 degrees. Oh boy it's 7:30 breakfast buffet is open in our hotel. Down goes Daddy for some breakfast eats.

I arrive and the same lovely couple who run the restaurant were up bright and early prepping the buffet...I give their daughter our room number and the mother says " oh yes, I need to make you a plate to take to your wife". I tried communicating that Dominique was somewhat particular and I would do it but she was persistent in her desire to do make a plate for periwinkle.

I wander around the buffet and oh yeh freshly squeezed orange juice. Look around for a cup and "oh fancy" their cups have paper doilies on the outside. I am just about to pour it into my fancy cup when the same lady hands me another glass and points out the doily glass actually had a tea light in the bottom and was a table decoration. Yep a littlest slip to start the day.

Well I had a very nice breakfast of croissants, lunch meats, cheese orange juice and toast with coffee. Just as I a am finishing up the Same lady hands me a paper shopping bag filled with food and drink for Dominique. She then Apologized because she didn't know what type of coffee to add, but stated let her know and she well run it up for her.

I get upstairs and included in her package which we photographed was a croissant, bun, another bun, bread, bowl of fresh fruit, plate of sandwich meats, plate of cheeses, cup of milk, cup of orange juice butter jams and boxes of sprinkles, and I know I forgot something. Wow

Periwinkle needs her dodos so I go for a bike ride and the village is neat and loaded with bike trails, bridges and canals and surrounded by homes, farms,
sheep, chickens, horses and cows. Make my way back to feed and water periwinkle and off we go for a bike ride all over town and into the country side. Our ride lasted around 3 hours and was very enjoyable but in this area bicycles get the right away and cars stop for them.....or so it seems. One thing I found neat was they have hay boats the farmers use to move hay down the canals to feed their animals. One even had a hydraulic grappler in the boat or barge.

We finish our ride and since it's 2 pm we decide to drop our bikes off and rent a canal boat but only after a quick lunch. Back to our hotel where we order up a burger and fries along with a glass of wine and two beers (they are small). While we are eating I notice a nice young couple taking their canal boat out except, I notice a square stern equipped with a motor pass leading the way followed by the bow of the boat. Yes, they were driving the boat backwards the whole way down the canal. We both laughed. We finish eating so we go get our boat

The canal boats you rent range in size, steering method and comfort. We chose a 16ft aluminum boat with mid bow steering and a battery operated tiller motor. We get the quick lessen, provided a map, suggested route, 1 rule ( big tour boats get right away).

Off we go when we come to our first turn it's is friggin mayhem with boats hitting boats on their sides, from behind, running alongside and being run into pillars. I was like what the hell....luckily these boats only go 2-3 miles an hour so no damage occurs. It finally thins out and becomes very very enjoyable with people taking photos of our boat because of the superb captaining I wasn't doing. OR was it the fact Periwinkle was sitting up front with her purple umbrella protected from the sun....I'Ll let u decide why they were taking photos of us.

We turn in our boat. And now it's 5:30 pm and back to our room for rum and coke with periwinkle having a quick nap.

Tomorrow hop on a bus back to steenjwik, then two trains later we arrive in Brussels Belgium where we will explore the rest of the day and then in for the night before packing up to go to Brugge and Ypres for some Canadian war culture.

Talk later

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