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Tuesday, April 18, 2017
I woke up about 5:30 and decided to just get up rather than lay there for another half hour. I finished packing up for the trip to our last hotel. We leave shortly after breakfast.
Breakfast was at 7 am and was the same zoo as yesterday. The oriental group was also checking out this morning...
Kevin and Mike (our leaders) went to get the vans while we all brought our suitcases downstairs. The orientals' bus was parked in front of the hotel, occupying the entire drop off area...
The guys came back with the vans to find there was no place to pull off legally while they loaded us up, so they circled the block while we brought the bags outside. The orientals' bus driver said we had to go around their bus – he wasn't moving the bags that were stacked there. I scooted a couple aside to make a path as going around his bus meant hauling our stuff down the middle of a narrow, busy street!!! We got loaded up, finally, and threaded our way back out of town.
Just as we finished loading, the rain started coming down in buckets. It was interesting watching the locals biking to work and school as if nothing was going on with the weather!
Our next stop was the “Blue Forest” - Het Hallerbos. This is a forest of very tall trees with fields of bluebells underneath. The flowers only bloom for about a week and they were at their peak!
On our way there, we managed to lose one of the vans and cell phone service was terrible, so it took a while to reconnect...
Absolutely gorgeous! We spent about an hour there and barely scratched the surface.
From there, it was back on the road to the airport hotel. Along the way, we spotted highway signs for Waterloo. We could see the monument there from the road, but didn't stop.
We finally pulled into the hotel a little before 4 pm and got settled in for the night. We all met back downstairs at 5:30 for our final dinner, which was delicious. Once again, I ate too much again... Lots of fond farewells.
Now to finalize packing for tomorrow. The guys are dropping Angie and I at the airport when they go to drop off the vans, so I won't have to fight for a seat on the shuttle in the morning. Tomorrow we all fly home.