If any of you are even considering a spring/summer trip to the netherlands you MUST stay here. Having had our fill of Amsterdam, nightlife, debouchery, dutch masterworks in painting, we fled the city for a tiny hostel 11 miles outside of Amsterdam called Lucky Lake. It’s one of those hostels whose directions include: “call this number from the payphone in the bar across the street from the train station” and when you get here, ah, amazing. Every one of the 30 rooms at this hostel is actually a caravan, or trailer from the 60’s 70’s. Ours is just big enough for the two of us and our ginormous bags but the bed is a futon so its super comfy and the linens are clean and starched. in between the caravans there are sculptures of lizards and a homemade elephant fountain. There are hammocks, bikes for rent and kayaks to take out on the lake. It’s like summer camp without the kids. Incredible and perfect. SO many places we’ve gone in the Netherlands have been perfect, like the disneyworld version of life, whether it’s slightly shady, or idyllic farm scape, it’s all been just perfect. Today we rented bikes for the day and rode about 15 kilometers through a super rich neighborhood with canals and gates on every property to nothing but farm land on all sides, goats and baby ducks and even an enormous turkey. it was a long ride and neither of us feel like doing anything tonight except for grilling our family pack of meat products and playing some much neglected scrabble. There’s a communal tent here which is furnished like your grandmothers basement. Everything about Lucky Lake is cool without trying. I am in love with the idea of a trailer-park hostel. It’s so much cleaner and more relaxed than the huge hostels in AMsterdam and it’s like 18$ per person per night. It’s sad that we leave tomorrow morning because i could easily spend another week here, laying in the hammock, riding bikes and playing scrabble. BUt tomorrow brings a train ride to Belgium, our first use of the eurail pass and our second country on the continent of Europe. Two weeks already guys, do you miss us yet? Evevry person we see reminds us of one of you and we talk about home a lot. Miss you all, love you all.
CRT AND RPK
Posted from Netherlands:
posted Friday June 2006