For our road trip we have hired a car. We went to the office at the 10am pick up time to register.
We were then sent to 'Level 5' to pick it up - A Volkswagen Polo. We went to level 5 and there was one blue polo there but our keys wouldn't work the locks.
We went back to the front desk and had to wait for the lady to finish with the next customer. We said we couldn't find the car and so she came with us. We had gone to the wrong level 5, there's another one... and the car was there. A little embarrassing!
We drove the car back through Berlin to pick up our luggage and the dog. As our landlady is moving back into our apartment temporarily we also had to clean the house fully and pack up all of our stuff. We really wanted to get going as soon as possible but the cleaning and packing took longer than expected and the little problem with finding the car hadn't helped either. We had hoped to leave at 11am and be in Amsterdam by 6pm but we didn't get out of Berlin to around 12:30am. Anyone who has done these last minute packs knows this isn't the most stress free of times.
It was good to be finally on the road. We have bought a GPS and so this has taken the stress out of navigation.
The drive was very easy once out of Berlin, straight onto Autobahns for hundreds of kilometers (About 670kms). Our Volkswagen is only a 1,4 litre engine but handled the autobahns pretty well. It doesn't have much pick up at 140 km/hr though.
Throughout the Autobahns we had a very smooth drive and one very long stretch of unrestricted speeds. We (safely) were at 170 km/h for a bit but the more comfortable speed is 130 km/h.
It doesn't matter how fast you are going though there is always and Audi, BMW or even a Lamborghini wanting to go faster. For most of the trip there were signed limits of 120 km/h.
Things were going well and after the first rest stop we decided we would only stop once more for fuel. My thinking was, when we get to a quarter tank left we will fill up.
We got down to a quarter of a tank just as we passed one of those large motorway service areas. 'Too soon' I thought, we'll go to the very next one. I wanted to fill up in Germany though as based on my father-in-laws expertise the fuel is cheaper there than Holland. I didn't want to let him down after all the times he had mentioned it to us.
I checked the GPS route overview, we had stacks of time in Germany before we got to Holland. Shouldn't be a problem.
Wrong.
Why is it that whenever you need something it is nowhere to be seen. We'd seen stacks of service stations and then nothing. The car told us we had 150 km worth of fuel left. We weren't panicking yet.
The road went on, time went by and fuel was depleting. When we had 80 km's left we weren't too happy. A sign indicated a service station was coming up but it never did. 40 km's of fuel left, nothing in sight. We were down to about 20 km of fuel left when we really started to get worried. Should we pull off the highway and find the nearest town? What if we were somewhere in the countryside?
We probably could have used the GPS to better effect in this instance.
We had gone so far by now that we had already driven into Holland. Oh man...higher prices! At this stage though a high price was a small price to pay. We thought aloud in the car about what could we do if we ran out of fuel on the highway. We didn't want to think of how much of a hassle this would be but it felt like it was about to happen to us.
With only 15 km left of fuel a Texaco station popped up. Massive relief. The relief evaporated when we had to pay 1.79 Euros per litre though. Pretty sure it is a bit cheaper in Germany!
With the tank filled we had an hour and a half until we made it to Sloten Amsterdam - arriving at about 7:45pm. We went to our friends Claudia and Guido's house.
We caught up and most importantly went immediately to the local snack shop for our fix of fried junk. This shop is the best...the Pataat Zaak.
Dinner for us was a huge bag of chips, a kroket, a bahmi, and a big curry meatball (beerehap). This cost 9.60 Euros. Worth it.
Claudia's house is very small and so there is no room for us here. She owns what she calls a 'tuinhuis' which is a small shed like thing in a garden community. More on that later.
It was late after we had finished our dinner so Claudia walked us to the tuinhuis. It is only about 300 metres from her house. Very interesting this almost village lifestyle.
We were then sent to 'Level 5' to pick it up - A Volkswagen Polo. We went to level 5 and there was one blue polo there but our keys wouldn't work the locks.
We went back to the front desk and had to wait for the lady to finish with the next customer. We said we couldn't find the car and so she came with us. We had gone to the wrong level 5, there's another one... and the car was there. A little embarrassing!
We drove the car back through Berlin to pick up our luggage and the dog. As our landlady is moving back into our apartment temporarily we also had to clean the house fully and pack up all of our stuff. We really wanted to get going as soon as possible but the cleaning and packing took longer than expected and the little problem with finding the car hadn't helped either. We had hoped to leave at 11am and be in Amsterdam by 6pm but we didn't get out of Berlin to around 12:30am. Anyone who has done these last minute packs knows this isn't the most stress free of times.
It was good to be finally on the road. We have bought a GPS and so this has taken the stress out of navigation.
The drive was very easy once out of Berlin, straight onto Autobahns for hundreds of kilometers (About 670kms). Our Volkswagen is only a 1,4 litre engine but handled the autobahns pretty well. It doesn't have much pick up at 140 km/hr though.
Throughout the Autobahns we had a very smooth drive and one very long stretch of unrestricted speeds. We (safely) were at 170 km/h for a bit but the more comfortable speed is 130 km/h.
It doesn't matter how fast you are going though there is always and Audi, BMW or even a Lamborghini wanting to go faster. For most of the trip there were signed limits of 120 km/h.
Things were going well and after the first rest stop we decided we would only stop once more for fuel. My thinking was, when we get to a quarter tank left we will fill up.
We got down to a quarter of a tank just as we passed one of those large motorway service areas. 'Too soon' I thought, we'll go to the very next one. I wanted to fill up in Germany though as based on my father-in-laws expertise the fuel is cheaper there than Holland. I didn't want to let him down after all the times he had mentioned it to us.
I checked the GPS route overview, we had stacks of time in Germany before we got to Holland. Shouldn't be a problem.
Wrong.
Why is it that whenever you need something it is nowhere to be seen. We'd seen stacks of service stations and then nothing. The car told us we had 150 km worth of fuel left. We weren't panicking yet.
The road went on, time went by and fuel was depleting. When we had 80 km's left we weren't too happy. A sign indicated a service station was coming up but it never did. 40 km's of fuel left, nothing in sight. We were down to about 20 km of fuel left when we really started to get worried. Should we pull off the highway and find the nearest town? What if we were somewhere in the countryside?
We probably could have used the GPS to better effect in this instance.
We had gone so far by now that we had already driven into Holland. Oh man...higher prices! At this stage though a high price was a small price to pay. We thought aloud in the car about what could we do if we ran out of fuel on the highway. We didn't want to think of how much of a hassle this would be but it felt like it was about to happen to us.
With only 15 km left of fuel a Texaco station popped up. Massive relief. The relief evaporated when we had to pay 1.79 Euros per litre though. Pretty sure it is a bit cheaper in Germany!
With the tank filled we had an hour and a half until we made it to Sloten Amsterdam - arriving at about 7:45pm. We went to our friends Claudia and Guido's house.
We caught up and most importantly went immediately to the local snack shop for our fix of fried junk. This shop is the best...the Pataat Zaak.
Dinner for us was a huge bag of chips, a kroket, a bahmi, and a big curry meatball (beerehap). This cost 9.60 Euros. Worth it.
Claudia's house is very small and so there is no room for us here. She owns what she calls a 'tuinhuis' which is a small shed like thing in a garden community. More on that later.
It was late after we had finished our dinner so Claudia walked us to the tuinhuis. It is only about 300 metres from her house. Very interesting this almost village lifestyle.
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