Camping trip to Bouillon (2)

After a good night sleep in the cozy tent, I was waken up by the chirps in the forest and the sound of ducks landing on the water. The morning in the valley was beautiful. Though it was quite chilly, the scenery was breath-taking. The mountains were shadowed by the morning fog. We could hear the chipping of the birds and the sound of the river running. The feeling was amazing. After having a very enjoyable breakfast, we started off to our kayaking trip. We walked to the bottom of the castle and found this Kayak rental store. We rented a double kayak and began our 15km of kayaking. It was quite a relaxing trip. The weather was great, sunny but not too hot. The water was cool but not cold. Since it hasn't been raining much, the water in the river was quite shallow. Along the river, there are different little beaches you can easily "pull over" and have a break. We stopped for a few times to take some pictures and just simply enjoy the nature. We even stopped by a camp site and had ice-cream there. The water of the river was not particularly clear, but we could still see through the water and found a lot of fish. There were also lots of river weeds all flowing in the same direction and waving gracefully under water.

The river was generally very calm, but once in a while, there were little rapids. Whenever we saw one ahead, we had to make good decision on which way to paddle. For most of the time, we managed to pick the right way to go over the rapids and had some fun exciting moments. However, sometimes we picked the wrong way and got our kayak stuck on the rock and that's when Harm came in handy. I treasured every time we got stuck, because when Harm was pushing the boat, I felt like a princess being saved by a handsome prince. The whole trip took us about 3 to 4 hours and we quite tired after that, but it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

After the kayaking trip, we took an orange bus back to the center of Bouillon. We decided to do some grocery shopping for that night's dinner. In this cute little town, we were expecting to find a cute little supermarket, but out of our expectations, we found a very very very very big supermarket there. I think that supermarket is the biggest supermarket I've seen in Europe so far. It's like the wholesale supermarket Costco in Canada. Everything was big in that supermarket, from shopping carts to even the receipts. After quite a long browsing and searching for the things we needed for BBQ and headed back to the camp site.

After the yummy dinner, we had a chat with our neighbours. They spoke Dutch but I didn't know exactly where they were from. They had been there for a few days already. They told us about the rats around the camp site. The rats actually came close to their tent and tried to get their food. That would explain the flickering sound I heard the other night. They must have come for the cheese the other night. The father and the son were very enthusiastic about taking a good picture of the rats. I just felt lucky that I didn't have to meet the rats face to face. We then enjoyed another romantic night and good sleep.

Camping trip to Bouillon (1)

After a cold and rainy summer, the weather here is finally getting better. At the end of August, we made a short camping trip to Bouillon, Belgium. Bouillon is a very beautiful town at the southern part of Belgium near the French border. It's a very peaceful place with magnificent nature and scenery. Bouillon is very famous for its old castle. I am very happy that I had a chance to visit there.

It took us about 4 hours to travel from Holland to Bertix. Bertix is another small town in Belgium and we had to take a bus from Bertix to Bouillon. The bus ride itself is only about 30 minutes. However, we happened to travel there during school holidays, so there were only 4 buses running between Bertix and Bouillon. So we ended up waiting in the small town for about 2 and a half hour. It didn't really spoil our fun though. It gave us actually a good chance to take a look at this little town.

People there only speak French. Harm used his limited French to communicate with them. First, he tried to ask a kind old man working at the station about the bus to Bouillon. He reminded me of Dumbledore in Harry Potter, only that he can't speak any English. He told us that the next bus was in about 2 and a half hours. Then we decided to first get a drink. We then walked into this very old and smelly pub to get a drink. After the drink, Harm asked the lady there about the direction to a nearby supermarket. She was very kind and explained to us in great detail and of course in French also. She kept speaking and speaking as if we could really understand her. With the help of her body language -- her hands kept pointing ups and downs, I had a bad feeling that we might have to climb over a mountain to get to the supermarket. Harm understood a bit and there was actually one main road leading to the center. With a little walk down the slop, we found the supermarket and found things we need for dinner.

Since we didn't want to miss the next bus, we actually waited at a bus stop and when a bus pulled over, we tried to ask the bus driver about the next bus. He said something in French and we had no idea what he was talking about. He saw than and actually switched off the bus (about 15 passengers were onboard), found a piece of paper and wrote down the time for us. We were amazed by his kindness as well as the patience of all the people on the bus. Finally we successfully got on our bus and was on our way to Bouillon.

We arrived at Bouillon after 30 mins of bus ride. The first thing got into my eyes was the swans in the river. They were not real swans, they were swan-like paddle boats on the river, some of them were even in the shape of dolphins. They were very funny. We got off the bus, checked out the time for out return bus, then we started walking towards our camp site.

Along the way, we saw a lot of restaurants, cafe and different gift shops. Tables were set in front of the restaurants. I was instantly distracted by all the yummy food people were eating. This place was not as busy as the city, but it was definitely very lively with people enjoying themselves. As we turned around the corner, a hill with a big castle on top of it suddenly came into view. I was in awe. It looked so huge and high up. I've never seen such a big castle before. We walked through the tunnel under it. The tunnel led us to a totally different world behind the hill. It was a lot quieter and all I could see was green grass, green trees and a very beautiful river. We kept walking along the side of the road. Then we turned into a little path along the river and let it lead us to pur camp site. The walk was very pleasant. I was totally enjoying the view of the river and the greenery. Before we knew it we arrived the campsite. The campsite was actually very big, at the valley just beside the river. We picked a spot right next to the river. I haven't been camping a lot, so I was so excited about sleeping beside a river. Harm walked to the office and registered and I just sat down on the grass and enjoyed the great view. We then set up out tent and decided to walked back to the center for a little stroll. We enjoyed yummy ice-cream at a place called Mont Blanc and a very romantic walk around town.

We made dinner after we walked back to the camp site. We had stir fry vegetable and meat and Japanese cold noodle (soba) that night. I know...quite fancy for a camping meal, but we definitely enjoyed it. That night was unbelievably nice. The sky was clear and I felt like I was surrounded by all the stars. We just laid on the grass and enjoyed our romantic starry night. Sleeping in a tent is cozier than I thought. The only thing I didn't like was the moisture inside the tent. The temperature was quite low during the night I remembered being woken up by the chilled air and some flickering sound outside the tent. I didn't pay much attention and felt back to sleep.

Bas, the cat just moved in with us

I'm always a cat person, but I've never actually kept a cat before. After I moved to Holland, living with a guy who is also a big cat lover, I know I would, for the first time in my life, live with a cat. We moved to a cozy little house in Leiden. It's not a very well furnished or a very luxurious house. As a matter of fact, it's rather old and shabby when we first saw it. Obviously, this house has been through a lot. It has survived a fire and was the home of over 30 guinea pigs, a few cats, a few dogs and a few chickens. Afterall, it is still a very cozy little house with a small garden at the back. Before we moved into the house, we spent some time painting and cleaning the house. One day, after painting a wall in the living room, i took a break in our garden. Suddenly, I felt a pair of curious eyes looking at me. I looked through the bamboo screen of my neighbor and saw a silhouette of a fluffy thing. When I look closer, it was a big cat. I kept meowing and tried to communicate with this new neighbor. He was not shy at all and he managed to climb into our garden through a secret passage behind the big pine tree. I think it's love at the first sight. When I saw this big fluffy cat and its friendly and curious eyes, I fell in love with it. It has grey hair with black strips, a long and bushy tail and yellow green eyes, just like a little tiger. It wasn't shy at all. It's in fact a very cuddly cat. On the second day we were there, it was already nudging our hands and walking around our feet. Finally, we had a chance to talk to our neighbor and found our that it was her cat, named Bas.

Bas kept his daily visit for the next few days. First, he was just wandering in the garden, fliggering the garbage. Whenever we were sitting outside, he would appear gracefully from the secret passage and come to us for a pat. He sure liked the attention and the companies i guess. Not before long, he started strolling first into our kitchen, then to the rest of the house. It seemed like he was checking how the progress was or if we were slacking off. At first, we kind of chased him out of the house, but later we just let him be. So, eventually he moved his way up to the second floor and started exploring every corner in our house.

When we first moved into the house, I always got startled by Bas' sudden entrance. He would come into the house from all different entrances. Sometimes, he would just jump in and out. Sometimes, he would stay for a short time and jump out again.

However, for one week, he spent more and more time in our house. We were so used to his presence in our house already. We weren't even surprised to see him jump in. He usually walked around out feet when we were cooking or eating. Since he wasn't our cat at that time, Harm just told me not to feed him. I couldn't help feeling that Bas was totally hungry, but I just had to be cruel and not give him any food. Later on one night, when we were sleeping, we suddenly heard a big bang coming from the next room. Before we could get up and find out what it was, Bas had already jumped onto our bed and started kneading on our blanket. We obviously left the computer room window opened and that gave Bas a good spot to break in. He was purring and walking around on us and finally fell asleep on our bed by our feet.

We first thought that he was only here for a night, kind of like a sleep over thing. But he kept coming back almost at the same time every night. After a few night, I just couldn't sleep until I know he was in. I started to question about our neighbour. I didn't seem to see her for a week. Later on, Harm talked to her and found out that she was on vacation, that's why Bas was just a bit hunger for attentions. However, she has returned home, Bas still spent most of his days and nights with us. About 2 weeks later, our neighbour came and asked us if Bas was in our house, because she had not seemed him for a whole week already and also Bas didn't touch the food she prepared for him. We told her that he had been spending most of the time in our house. She was worried that Bas was not eating, and we didn't feed him either. Then, she cleared up her cupboard and brought all Bas' food over, in desperate she said, "He doesn't eat at home anymore, he doesn't return home anymore. He left me I think. Maybe you can try to eat if he eats at your house." From that day on, we officially adopted Bas and he's staying with us till now.

I still feel sorry for our neighbour, because I felt like I took away the cat that has accompanied her for 2 years. But obviously, this is nothing we can do. Bas is a very special cat that has his own will. According to our neighbour, Bas also just walked into her house 2 years ago and decided to stay with her. I guess it's just one of his moving plans. I don't know how long he's planning to stay with us, I guess until he gets fed up with us and choose to take off again. Bas is the most special or strange cat I've ever met. In the future, I'll tell you more about his weird yet super cute behaviours.