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Hi and welcome to my travel-page. Are you up for some exciting stories? Then you are at the right address!!
Feb 20, 2005 07:00 PM Startup of the new project
We went to Gent in the afternoon. After some chatting and fun, we got our new camper and went to the head office in Gent.
There we got to know for the first time where the trip would go to...Southern France (yiha!!). We had to map the whole Côte d'Azur.
So we went home with the good news. Wouter took the camper at first, to fill it up and would then come to me.
He didn't come to me the same day anymore, but would be at my place first thing next day.
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Jan 30, 2005 07:00 PM Back in Belgium
We had gotten another project, just for a week. Just because we would be on the road for 4 weeks, in stead of just 3.
Anyway, the project was Belgium itself.
Because I'm so bored by Belgium, I won't write anything about it, because it would only be negative.
Our next trip will be in two weeks...
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Jan 26, 2005 07:00 PM Finishing off
We actually didn't had all that much to do anymore. And because it was only highway, it all went very fast. We drove passed the side of Austria and went back towards Basel.
We stopped somewhere in France, got to bed after finishing off all the backups and everything and went home next day.
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Jan 24, 2005 07:00 PM Broken off
We got up in the morning and checked out of our hotel at about 11.00hours. The hotel was kinda cool, certainly with the club and everything, but not all that special...
Our small Twingo was parked in the garage, but there was a brand new land rover standing behind it and we couldn't really move. We had to make a very very sharp turn to the right to be able to get out. Luckily there were a couple of men working in that garage and while Wouter was sitting in the car, we lifted it with a couple of men and changed its direction :) It was just a Twingo... ;)
When we came in Urdorf, we passed our camper...the technician was taking it for a drive, to see if he had been able to fix the problem. He had noticed us too and waved :) we actually waved to someone we knew in another country than our residence, while he was sitting in our car and we in his. :D
The guy had been able to fix everything, even something from the gearbox which had broken strangely enough off.
We were glad to have our camper back and drove whole afternoon...
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Jan 23, 2005 07:00 PM Mondays at Zürich
Next day, there wasn't much to do actually. It had been snowing about 15 cm, but after breakfast, many of the roads were already cleared and easily to be driven.
First we tossed, to see wether we would visit the zoo or an airplane museum not so far from Zürich city. The museum won and we went to the tourist office in the station (das hauptbahnhof).
There they told us the museum was closed on monday (and so was every other museum in Switserland). Logical decision: we went to the zoo. But because of the snow we didn't even enter and just left off again.
Then we visited one of the Starbucks and went to the internetcafe we had already been visiting twice the day before. It was getting quite boring actually, because we had to wait until about 18.00 hours before our camper would be ready again.
Around 15.00hours we went to Urdorf (where the garage was). We visited the village, walked a bit around and eventually drove towards the garage around 17.00hours.
Right before we would arrive at the garage I got a call from them. They told us we would have to wait till the day after, because something was broken (which they hadn't expect) and it would take some while longer.
We made a U-turn and went back to Zürich, somewhat relieved.
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Jan 23, 2005 07:00 PM Hotel X-tra
It would be kinda strange to go back to the Ibis hotel where we had stayed the days before. We had checked out in the morning, so they wouldn't probably understand what was going on. And besides, Zürich appeared to be a nice city, so why shouldn't we go to another hotel?
Wouter had read about a youngster-hotel, something with a club and bar and everything. We got a room there, installed ourselves and went back out to go eat and afterwards visit the big bioscope Cinemax. I had liked Thai, but the restaurant didn't look really clean. When we passed at the back of the Cinemax, there appeared to be a noodle restaurant, real clean and new. It was called the Nooche.
We had a great dinner and if you ever decide to go to Zürich, you should try it. Its in Zürich-west, behind the Cinemax.
Cinemax is quite a big cinema. It is like every other building in the neigbourhood really modern and nice. You even have different kinds of seats (so the price differs too). The movie was called The Aviator (with Leonardo), but even till this moment, it must still come to me. I don't really see why everyone makes all that buzz around it...
After the movie we went back to our hotel and got into the club of it. We had a cocktail and went to bed.
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Jan 22, 2005 07:00 PM Zürich city
We ate in a pizzeria and went to some local clubs. The area the hotel was in, was a restaurated area, with all old buildings changed into loft-alike places. Really cool!!
Next day we slept until 9.15h and got ourselves a good breakfast. Afterwards we went into the city and looked up an internetcafe, to check our mails.
A visit to the city followed and after having found some flyers, we checked out a place where there would be a special kind of loung party that evening. We went back to the internet cafe for another hour of internet, ate at a swiss restaurant and went back to the lounge place.
We got to see a special movie, which existed out of the original Psycho and a remake of it. They where synchronised and then played over eachother. Really hard to see in the beginning, but eventually you could follow it. That way I can at least say I've seen Psycho twice ;).
Afterwards there was a small lounge party. The whole event took place in an old building of the electricity company of Zurich (EWZ).
If you ask me, Zürich doesn't look real cool when you enter the city in the first place, but when you get to the details of it, it's throughly a cool city!!
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Jan 21, 2005 07:00 PM Twingo WITH edelweiss
We drove carefull, really no kidding. But it didn't help...We had been driving whole day long. From Lugano over the Gothard to Zurich. But just when we wanted to stop, I couldn't get it anymore into gear. We were stranded in front of a trafficlight.
We easily got it to the side of the road and called the insurancecompany. They got us services in just 20 minutes. The guy was friendly and checked what the problem was first. He saw that we couldn't drive on with it, so asked us if we wanted to follow in his car, while he drove ours. So we did and after a couple of minutes we already arrived in his garage.
There he did another couple of checks after lifting the car about 1.5m. Something which had been so difficult to find in Lugano, was so close to where we stranded eventually. Anyways, he saw that the clotch was definatly broken and he had to replace it. This would take at least up to monday evening (and it was only saturday). So there was nothing left but to take our backs and search for an hotel.
We asked him if we could call a taxi, but he replied that he could give us a car if we wanted :)
There wasn't a doubt about that for us. So we got ourselves a cool Twingo with edelweiss on it. :D
We got a room for two nights in an ibis hotel and went out, already on the first night.
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Jan 19, 2005 07:00 PM The gearbox
The weather kept bad, but the predictions showed us that the southern part of Switserland had to be good. So...we drove towards the south. Going over Luzern and the Gotthard tunnel towards Lugano.
As you might know the Gotthard is quite some climbing and even before it, we had to stop on a parking and notice that the gearbox was again, acting strange.
So we called our office and explained the problem. They asked us to call the insurance company. And they told us (after a while and some phone calls) we had to drive to Altdorf where there was a VW garage and they might be able to help us.
Once we where there, a technician told us he couldn't do anything before the evening on the day after. This wasn't really a solution and while driving back, we pulled over to another VW garage. The technician over there told us the same...he didn't have time to do it and his garage wasn't big enough.
We decided that, if indeed it would take a couple of days, it might be better to drive towards Lugano and search for a garage there. They might be bigger and faster.
Lugano is really a nice city and has already lot's of Italian influence. In Altdorf we still had to talk German, but in Lugano, it was Italian. Luckily most of the people know a little bit English and manage to understand us.
We stopped at a first VW garage and asked if they could help us. Same story...garage was too small and there was no time. But the man was really friendly and told us there was another garage from the same 'family' (Cassarate) and they might be able to help us.
We drove around through Lugano and managed to find the garage quite fast. It appeared to be a huge one, but still, the problem stayed the same. There was no way they could do anything before tuesday (we were thursday) and there garage might been high enough, but they couldn't lift it (the car was too heavy).
But again, the person was really friendly and in no time everyone at the office (5 or 6 people) were looking for a solution and printing out a digital map (which appeared to be a road map by Tele Atlas afterwards ;o)). On this map they showed us how we had to drive towards a Mercedes garage. Why this garage? Well, the engine of our VW LT was actually a Mercedes engine. And because the garage repaired trucks, so a lift wouldn't be any problem.
It was already too late in the evening to go there, so we went there the next morning.
Again, friendly people (I had the illusion that most Swiss people were not friendly or social, but in the south, that appeared to be completely wrong), but again: not before tuesday. And even then, they had to see if the gearbox was actually made by Mercedes, because if not, they wouldn't be able to help us either.
We got sick of it and called the office to explain what had happened and where we were (not only fisically).
Afterwards we called the insurance company and had quite a few conversations with them too. One phone call after the other was made, but they came to the same conclusion: Mercedes on tuesday.
So, there was nothing left but driving very carefully, working off some roads, and eventually hoping tuesday would be there quickly.
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Jan 18, 2005 07:00 PM Bad weather conditions.
The day after, we had real bad weather. So we couldn't do much besides going on the internet (in a parking-place), watching some movies and reading some books.
Doing nothing really is boring and not so pleasant. We both love working more :o)
We were still standing on a parking close to Olten and besides changing the direction of our camper (going to the parking crossways).
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