Friesland Day1: Friday

Having almost moved to the Netherlands in 2003, but not having visited it since, the chance to meet up with TB friends (new and old) in the land of clogs was too good to pass up.

Friday was an early start, with a bumpy propeller-driven flight from the ultra-convenient London City Airport. I met up with Brett (metsbwd) who had very kindly offered to give me a lift, together with Quim (yokim) and a Portuguese guy that Quim had met on his flight, in Amsterdam.

After a very brief tour of the city, some lunch and some gift shopping for our organiser Wendy (wendyveer), we set off for the meet up venue at Lee warden. Quim and I pretty much slept the whole time that we crossed mile after mile of flat countryside, windmills, and eventually traversed the heavily fortified border between Flevoland and Friesland. Obviously everything was fine with my visa because they didn't wake me up. Brett and I met Wendy at the hotel, and in a quick alteration to our 'catch up on sleep' plans, we were down at Min 12 (minus 12) having some very good ice cream.

We later met everyone at the Waag (weighing house) which is pretty much the Leeuwarden (Ljouwert in Frisian) equivalent of the north star. Ten of us were there for the first dinner despite Mickey (tj1777) losing his phone in Copenhagen and Sanne (sannekoek) losing voltage in her car battery. The restaurant, an elaborately-decorated tapas place, had a pretty broad menu, with items such as "Pollo Loco" (mad chicken), "Pollo Dedo" (dead chicken) and "Testiculos de Toro" (Spanish meatballs). I managed to spill red wine on Rowena (Jamarek)'s white trousers and was in trouble for about two hours, after which she managed to write them off by tearing them on something (I can't remember what).

Afterwards, we went to see the opening on Sneek week (a water festival) which is a spectacular sight as long as you're on the right side of the drawbridge. We weren't, but I still got some decent photos and videos (Brett's are even better, see his blog). Apparently his driving was not so good, and he was pulled over for drink driving on the way back (I wouldn't know, I was asleep).