Holy Bikers!

I have been meaning to post this blog for a couple of nights now, but by the time my day ends, I am so tired! Some of it is just the busyness of coralling the kids, but alot of it is also the fact that I am not getting any sleep at all at night. I either wake up every hour or just wake up and cannot go back to sleep for 3 hours... And as you can guess, that makes for a fun next day... But finally, thanks to a strong cup of coffee, I have finally mustered the energy for yet another enthralling blog post!

So on Monday, Esther (the mother) was off from work, so she tended to the kids. That left the day for me to catch up on some much needed sleep and also be toured around the Assen city center by Amanda (the other au pair who is still here). Everything was going fine. Then on Tuesday morning, Amanda woke up with a high fever and it was our day to care for the kids. Oh no. I was thrown into the deep end. With Amanda being too ill, it was up to me, and only me, to get the kids to school (and back). Did I mention they go to an international school in Groningen, a town in which I had never been to, let alone laid eyes on!! So at a quarter til 8, we embarked on my first (driving) journey through the Netherlands...

Meet my new best friend....

It is the only reason that I even came remotely close to surviving my first day.

So, directions to school: check! But do I know any Dutch traffic laws?? Not really. Oh well. I will just make it up as I go. But who would I have guessed I would have to account for a million of these?

There are more bikes on the roads here than there are cars! Take my word for it, driving here is not a leaisurely activity. It is quite a task. Making sure not to hit the hundreds, thousands, millions of bikers is only the half of it! Figuring out whether or not you have the right-of-way is also a bit more difficult (than usual) to process. Did you know that on many roads (in towns) in the Netherlands, the people coming from your right have the right-of-way; so even if they are turning onto your road, you must stop for them...?? Yes, that is for real. So trying to decide whether or not it was my turn to go while at the same time avoiding all the bikers--not to mention the dizziness from all the round-abouts*--made my first drive in Holland a bit tense...

*A bit emphasized.

But I survived! And even made it there and back in one piece, as I am proudly displaying here:

So next time you decide you want to take a joy ride through the province of Drenthe, come to me first and I could probably give you a pointer or two!

Oh, and just in case you are wondering, this is my set of wheels!

(Oh, and I make that MPV look good--real good!)