{"id":212,"date":"2008-08-23T17:19:06","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T16:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=212"},"modified":"2008-08-23T17:19:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T16:19:43","slug":"staphorst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/23\/staphorst\/","title":{"rendered":"Staphorst"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had a very nice evening in Amsterdam. Met up at the art bar where Joe and I went for a drink and he uploaded some photos (it’s the panoramio<\/a> site). Had another drink then off for an Indonesian meal. Got a selection and had loads of wonderful food and conversation.<\/p>\n

Up late this morning (we are on holiday!) and breakfast at the hotel before a slow stroll to the station, going through the flower market where hordes of tourists take photos. Train to the airport to get the car and for the first time I’m driving in a country where I can’t read the signs! So we took the easy way to Staphorst via the motorways and it was much easier than I expected. Found the hotel with no problems at all. Neat little motorway motel and finding the reception was harder than finding the place! <\/p>\n

Once settled in and eaten lunch we headed back out to find out where we should be this evening. That’s when Dutch roads became very interesting – only just two cars’ width wide and bikes having right of way – a few cyclists take this to mean they can just shoot out into the road without even looking, swerve around the road without looking, and make turns without indicating or even looking! Most however value their lives and at least look!<\/p>\n

It was easy to find the location as there are wooden signs with ‘Party!’ painted on pointing the way. So once we’d figured that out we went for a drive in the area. This part of the Netherlands is very lovely, with sailing lakes and wildlife. Except Joe decided we didn’t need the binoculars. But we did get some lovely photos and had a nice drive.<\/p>\n

Now to get ready for the party!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had a very nice evening in Amsterdam. Met up at the art bar where Joe and I went for a drink and he uploaded some photos (it’s the panoramio site). Had another drink then off for an Indonesian meal. Got a selection and had loads of wonderful food and conversation. Up late this morning (we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-3q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/25\/it%c2%b4s-ok-we%c2%b4re-from-belguim\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":0},"title":"It\u00c2\u00b4s OK we\u00c2\u00b4re from Belguim","date":"Monday, 25 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Dutch keyboard! Nothing is in the right place! That\u00c2\u00b4s my excuse for any typos. We pulled in to park at the wedding party and met up with another group parking. They said \"so you\u00c2\u00b4re from Belgium!\" We said from the UK and they said \"so you went to Belgium and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4302,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/19\/return-to-naples\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":1},"title":"Return to Naples","date":"Friday, 19 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"We slept in and slowly packed. Checked out after 10 and left our bags at the hotel and headed out to explore the modern town of Pompeii. Walked up to the cafe that we'd stopped at on our first day and had coffee and pastries, just as good as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1005,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/14\/more-barcelona\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":2},"title":"More Barcelona","date":"Saturday, 14 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Slept in a bit after lots of wine with paella for dinner. Out of the hotel to find food - decided to take the metro today and head straight to Palau Guell, Gaudi's early building. So off the metro and Joe spotted the Mercat de la Boqueria - large colourful,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1045,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/15\/evening-on-la-rambla\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":3},"title":"Evening on La Rambla","date":"Sunday, 15 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Left the hotel and headed for coordinates given as the meeting spot. Even with the coordinates, three groups of us managed to wait in totally separate places, until Koyan appeared with a few people which coalesced everyone into a group of 13 (representing several different countries). \u00a0Luckily one of these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/26\/amsterdam-joes-version\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":4},"title":"Amsterdam – Joe’s version","date":"Tuesday, 26 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Kathleen awoke far too early (it was after 7!) still hoping to get into hte park and that the Python would be fixed. However, after explaining we were going back to Amsterdam she did calm down a bit. So we packed the bags, checked out of the hotel, put the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dyslexic Discourse"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4087,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/22\/roman-around\/","url_meta":{"origin":212,"position":5},"title":"Roman around","date":"Friday, 22 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"That's Joe's title. Not mine.\u00a0 We walked today. Well, today isn't over, but we'll be doing more walking this evening. We started out on the metro though to the Vatican - we did that today because Monday we'll be doing it again at stupid o'clock. Found the nearest metro station\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}