Dag 3 -- Driving Aimlessly Around

As I have mentioned before, NOTHING is open on Sundays, other than restaurants and pubs. Ok, so what to do today??? We drove around.

One of the things on my list of things to see was windmills of course. So we drove to Ten Boer and saw the most peaceful and beautiful country side, with a couple of nicely restored windmills. There were people living right next to the windmills. Just another family with kids and plastic kids playground equipment much like what we have in the States. It was an odd contrast from the ancient windmill.

Next we drove through more country roads to a little fortress that, of course, weren't open! But the surrounding grounds were very pretty. Oh, but the pub on the grounds were open, true to their nature. :D

More driving took us to Bourtate, a big fortress that has never been overtaken in all of Dutch history. There was a faire going on on the grounds. There were arts and crafts by local artists for sale. Other than the resident restaurant on the grounds, there were food carts selling your typical street fair foods, burgers with curry sauce, various kinds of sausages that are a foot long, FRIES with mayo, and fish. On top of your normal fish and chips, there were also kipper. RAW kipper where you just put in a roll and eat it. I couldn't bring myself to try that, even though I have so far been very good with trying new things everywhere I go. I did here too, but NOT the kipper. Oh, and there was also an ice-cream cart. The Dutch must really like their ice-cream. There are ice-cream shops everywhere too! There was a family of actors dressed in the traditional clothes, from a little baby in the arms of his mom to the head of the family. They fired their guns and did a demonstration of firing a cannon. LOUD! There were also ordinary everyday people living in all the houses in the fortress area. In fact, there was a house for sale while we were there.

From there, we drove to... GERMANY. We were close to the border, so we just drove on through. There was a sign on one side of the road saying "Bundesreublek Deutchland" and a sign on the other side of the road facing the opposite direction saying "Welcome Nederland". No border checks, nothing. Just like driving into a different Virginia from Maryland.

Driving down the country sides of Germany is very much like how it was in Netherlands, with a few small exceptions. The houses are bigger, and more spaced apart. The styles of the architectures are slightly different. Apparently quite a lot of Dutch people live just across the border in Germany because taxes are cheaper there.

Enough sightseeing for one day! We headed back to Groningen for my long anticipated Dutch pancake dinner at the Pancake Ship. Yep, it's a pancake restaurant on a ship docked on the river running through the city. Quaint. The kids menu came equipped with Eyepatch pancakes and pirate pancakes. The regular menu came with tons of different types of pancakes! There were bacon pancakes, thai pancakes that came with beef and thai basil and peanut sauce, vegetarian pancake that had white asperagus, eggplant, cucumber, zuchini and more. That was what I tried. It was quite yummy! The pancakes are thin, MUCH thinner than what we're used to in the States. It's more like crepes than pancakes to us. There were also sweet ones, with strawberries, banans, apples, whipped cream, etc. Yum!!! A good way to end Day 3.