Payment for shipping Tulip was required to be in the Wallenius bank account one week prior to departure. So we arrived here early just to go to their bank in Zeebrugge yesterday and found out we were not allowed to make the deposit unless we also had an account. We spent almost the entire day getting an alternative solution and I won’t go into that long frustrating saga. That incident reminds me of our renter trying to put the rent money into our Chase account a few months ago but she had misplaced our account number and the bank absolutely would not let her put the money in our account. Our renter even pointed out that they could look on our account and see that same deposit each month. Only after phone calls to higher headquarters did they make an exception. It sure wasn’t this complicated in the olden days to pay people.
I was not looking forward to being in Zeebrugge for almost a week but we parked at an informal Aires last night that at first glance was not appealing at all. 
The oddity though was seeing at least 30 other RV’s here and wondering why. Now we know. There’s a small park next to us and on the other side is the yacht harbor. Straight in front of us is an enormous round deck (with seating) over the water to watch the boats being unloaded by the huge cranes. There’s also a huge flower display in the shape of an anchor.
Since we don’t have much to do for a few days I decided to try and learn HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and processing. Some people dislike the looks of HDR pictures but it’s a novelty for now. The pictures on this post were all taken within just yards of our RV using HDR. You might notice a watermark on some of the pictures. That is because I have a trial version of the software.
Sunday, 31 July
I took the picture below because the lady is so dressed up to go bike riding. That’s not an unusual sight in Europe as women wear dresses often and it doesn’t matter what the occasion. People are dressed in a much more stylish way here. Even the elderly ladies are wearing the knee length leotard pants with a short over dress/long blouse.
The cranes are quiet today because it is Sunday, otherwise they are working 24 hours around the clock loading and unloading ships.
I didn’t use HDR on this picture but tried something called tone mapping.
Month: July 2011
Calais to Dunkirk
Calais is a great place for shopping because of all the ferry traffic coming and going. There is a big combination supermarket/department store called Auchan and it’s a good thing we don’t know what most of the foods are because we would have gone on a wild buying spree. I would bet there were over 100 different kinds of sausage and several hundred kinds of cheese available. They had every fruit and vegetable imaginable. France has the best green beans – we eat them constantly because they are so tender and never stringy. It’s a mystery how the French stay slender. Well actually, I think I know one of the reasons. Portions are very tiny. Some of the yogurt containers aren’t much bigger than a thimble.
Now we are parked a about 300 feet from the beach in Dunkirk in a park like area. There’s a wide boardwalk that runs along the beach for about 2 miles clear to the port.
There are so many custom designed motor homes in Europe. Many appear rough and tough as if they travel all over Africa or Siberia.
Nine More Days!
After we left Holland we drove into northern Belgium which neither one of us cares for too much. Southern Belgium is much nicer but was too far out of the way at this point. So we did a flanking maneuver and drove to just a very few miles west of Calais, France. Actually, we are only 85 miles from the port in Zeebrugge. We are at an Aires in the country on a hill overlooking the English Channel and White Cliffs of Dover. It’s quite nice compared to the places we had been the few nights previous. We’re here for two days (no internet though) and tomorrow will go a little farther east. I think there’s another place to park at Gravelines right at the port watching the boats. We need to be in Zeebrugge either Friday or Monday to deposit the shipping funds into the bank account there. Then there’s two free Aires in Zeebrugge and two or more just west in Oostende that we will check out. At least we are at the point of not having to buy any more diesel fuel. We did have to get a little more propane yesterday but must use it all up prior to dropping Tulip off at the port the 4th. It’s chilly enough anyway that we run the heat in the morning.
The sky is too overcast to see England and the white cliffs on the other side of the channel. The countryside is just gorgeous with patchwork fields of wheat and little villages.
We started stashing and rearranging our things today. Also Steve spent quite a bit of time trying to repair damage from ANOTHER incident yesterday. He backed into a pole (after panicking because he turned down a one way street) and swore there was nothing behind him and it was impossible that he could have hit anything even though there was a lot of crunching sounds going on. Anyway, that resulted in a broken tail light, two 6″ cracks in the fiberglass and broken latches on an outside cabinet. I wonder if fiberglass can be repaired to look good as new again because we have a chunk of fiberglass missing in another place and more cracks from hitting a basketball hoop in Newfoundland. When it comes to “coulda, woulda, shoulda” we shoulda been driving around Europe in a van. This RV is so small in the U.S. but in Europe it has become a monster in size.
Wanderlets 