Travelog for: Ambrosius

After the Bookmarket in Tilburg we went to the fair in Den Bosch; the 'Bossche Kermis'. This fair takes place once a year, in the summer. And it's very big!!





At the end of the fair, which took place for about a week, they set the city hall on fire!! It's looks very real doesn't it



But it was just fireworks. It looked great though

Hugs Ambrosius

Hi!!

Yesterday we said goodbye to Davy, Pingu, Casanova and Alizée. But it didn't stay quiet for long: today a couple of new ToyVoyagers arrived! They're Hinz + Kunz.

Hi Fi,

We went for a very nice bikeride today. The weather was very nice and Count wanted to go to a cemetery. It was a beautiful cemetery with lots of trees!



On the way back we went to a park.



Marjolein told me she has seen a lot of these parks in the Netherlands. All cities and big villages have a little lake with trees and stuff surrounded by houses.



Tonight we are going to a stand-up comedy show!

Hugs Ambrosius

In the night we went to a comedy club. This was in the Verkadefabriek in 's-Hertogenbosch. The Verkadefabriek is a former factory of the brand Verkade, who make cookies! Too bad they didn't had any more cookies in the factory hihi.



The stand-up comedyshow was very cool! Altough I didn't know the comedians, they where very funny. Yes, I am learning a lot of Dutch on this Dutch trail!

Across the road of the Verkadefabriek was yet another former factory. This is a sigaretfactory of Willem II.



This factory is also a place for theater, music and other performances now.

Doeg doeg (bye bye) Ambrosius

Hello mummy!

I went to the party of Marjolein's grandparents today! They are married for 55 years! Wow that is a very long time!! I got a very nice invitation just for me! We ate cake and drank coffe and after that made a boottrip, on the Paterswoldsemeer. That's a lake near Groningen.





After this we ate lots of food! Very, very nice food! And that wasn't all: they had cake! Mmmmm it was very nice!

Hugs Ambro

Aloha!

It was a wonderfull day so we went to see the city 's-Hertogenbosch!





This guy is looking of the water. He is a sailor put there because of Maritiem 's-Hertogenbosch which is held every year.







Let's see what he's looking at.



The central station.





This is the most touristic place of Den Bosch. It's where people get on the boat to go through the Dieze, which is the canal that goes through Den Bosch.





The market of Den Bosch.



The Sint Jan's Cathedral.



We went to the museum! It was the Noord Brabantsmuseum. Noord Brabant is the province Den Bosch is in. The museum contains lots of art from people from Den Bosch and mostly from the painter the city was named after: Jeroen Bosch.



There was a fourties exibition. So I learned a lot about the Netherlands in the fourties of the 20th century.
This is what there furnature looked like.



And the little boys.



And the carnaval.



We also went to see the history of 's-Hertogenbosch.

This is what the market looked like in 1665.



And this is what is looked like in 1579.



And more recently 1983.



Hugs Ambrosius

Hi there!

Did I ever tell you Marjolein studies Celtic Languages and Culture? Only since this September, but I already learned a lot from her about the man I was named after and the legend around him and King Arthur.
There are many stories about King Arther. Historici aren't even sure he really did excist. There is a legend in very old Welsh that tells the story but they never found any proof he ever really lived.
Well, that won't bother us, Marjolein and me love a good legend.

We dug into some books. (The mug Marjolein bought at a Celtic fair this summer)



And we looked at a dvd about the Celts.



And in the book The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World, I found a picture of King Arthur!





And the dvd tought me that King Arthur was apparently seated in Edingburgh, Scotland. I also saw the Merlintree in the Brocéliane forest, France. This tree is an oak. And that's no coincidence. Because as you probably know, Merlin was a druide. And do you know what druide means? Well, it's a Celtic word, and it means: ancient knowledge of an oak. Wow, I love that translation!

This is a famous statue of the Celtic world called the Dying Gaul. It was made by Greek, who defeated the Gaul.



I saw a map of the place I want to visit: Wales!





Marjolein also lend some Celtic books from the library of her university.



From the book Dafyd ap gwilyn, his poems, I'll put a little poem here. This poem is from the 14th century. I hope you like it!

The Greeting

Greet, (yet) don't greet, you love-envoy,
I don't know who - the wife of a good youth?
Ask the girl I greeted I know not what
'Gainst tyranny's demands
To come tomorrow early
(I'm dull) I don't know where.
And I shall come - mindfull of unbeding wrath -
At what time I have no clue.
If she, of easy designation,  may demand
(A suitor's agony) who it was that greeted,
You tell [her], falling silent
(I am capricious), 'I don't know.'
If you see her who is so fair,
Although you may not see (not an unpleasant sight)
Her whose good, shining face is sun in early morning,
On your oath don't say a thing.

And Marjolein also has a tip for you, if you want to read a nice book about a Celtic legend read: Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams of Alexander Maccall Smith. That's a really cool author by the way, he wrote the most awesome books about Mme Ramotswe from Botswana!

Love Ambrosius

Today I arrived at our new hosts' place. It wasn't such a long trip, but I'm glad to be out of the box!

Today our host had an exam at the university in Leiden. We got to come along, as long as we were really silent during the exam. It took her an hour and a half to make the exam, and all that time we had to stay quiet. That was pretty hard! At one point I almost had to sneeze, so I had to try really hard to prevent that from happening. Luckily I could hold it back and nothing terrible happened
After the exam our host took us for a short tour of Leiden. We had to wait twenty-five minutes for the bus anyway. First we took a picture with this statue of Rembrandt.

And there's lots of water everywhere in the Netherlands:

At the busstop we saw this picture of some toys, though they are pretty scary. It's for a commercial by a Dutch supermarket company. You can save for these puppets from the movie 'Sleeping Beauty'. The TV-commercial is very funny.

Some more water...

And this is a school concerned with water, well, it's a teacher training college for seamanship.

Here's a Dutch windmill.

And our host's most favourite view in the Netherlands:

Another statue of Rembrandt:

And finally his picture and a Dutch lamppost.

This morning we had a really nice breakfast with fresh croissants. We baked them off ourselves and it smelled delicious!

Look at the picture of the windmills on the cheese package. That looks pretty Dutch, right

Today we had a very special lunch. We ate a 'kroket'! It's a Dutch snack. This is the description from Wikipedia: A croquette is a small fried roll containing mashed potatoes, minced meat, shellfish or vegetables, often encased in breadcrumbs. The croquette is usually shaped into a cylinder or disk, and then deep-fried. The Dutch version is filled with ragout.

It tasted very good!

Today Amelie arrived at our place! Welcome to our little gathering here!

They have this really strange tradition here in the Netherlands. It's called 'Sinterklaas'. It's a bit like Christmas with the Santa Claus, but not exactly. This is what Wikipedia says about Sinterklaas:
The Sinterklaas feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas (280-342), patron saint of children. Saint Nicholas was a Greek bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey and became the patron saint of children based on various legends that include resurrecting children from death and saving them from prostitution.

Sinterklaas has a long white beard, wears a red bishop's dress and red mitre (bishop's hat), and holds a crosier, a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top. Sinterklaas carries a big book with all the children's names in it, which states whether they have been naughty or nice in the past year. Sinterklaas is assisted by many mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful outfits, modelled after 16th century Spanish clothing. These helpers are called Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) in Dutch (see below for names in other languages). During the Middle Ages, Zwarte Piet was a name for the devil.[citation needed] Having triumphed over evil, it was said that on Saint Nicholas' eve, the devil was shackled and made his slave. Although the character of Black Pete later came to acquire racial connotations, his origins were in the devil figure. Sinterklaas traditionally arrives each year in November (usually on Saturday) by steamboat from Spain, and is then paraded through the streets, welcomed by cheering and singing children. Invariably, this event is broadcast live on national television in the Netherlands and Belgium. His Zwarte Piet helpers throw candy and small, round ginger bread-like cookies, kruidnoten or pepernoten, into the crowd. The children welcome him by singing traditional Sinterklaas songs.

And last Saturday he arrived in the Netherlands! He arrived in the town of Almere. We watched some of it online. This is Sinterklaas still on the boat:

And this is him with the 'Hoofdpiet':

It feels like a real celebration here!

Today we did something really exciting! We travelled by train! This is me next to a large cup of coffee

This is the view from the train:

And this is the inside of the train:

I arrived home...ahhh... quite a while ago, but Fi has been so busy that she never got round to letting everyone know!

Anyway, it is nice to be back after all my travels around the Netherlands. I have been catching up with old friends.

Fi finally paid us all some attention at  Easter, we got loads of eggs from the Easter bunny! This is just a few of them....



Fi says I can stay home for a bit, and maybe do some traveling  a little later in the year. I am happy wth that....