We arrived in Malmo several hours ago, I am glad to come back to Sweden. My son has become a very typical American kid who wants to go back home to enjoy American life. So, tonight, I will walk out of hotel to have several draft beers and glasses of wine myself at Lilla Torg myself. It is 7:16 pm on 7/16/2015, wow, I have been behind on writing my diary for almost 3 days.
In the morning on 7/13, I walked on the street in that small suburban town of Hamburg when my son was still in sleep. Not having caught the name of the town, I asked two teens I encountered, one of them told me what it is. Coming back to Myappartment Hotel, I noticed an Opel dealership was across the street.
Checking out of the hotel, I chatted with the receptionist for several minutes. He mentioned it took him one hour and a half to come back town from the beach yesterday generally taking only half an hour because of the traffic jam on freeway. His answer to my question about the traffic collapse on Autobahn yesterday proved my assumption that it was driven by heavy construction work because the workers had to do it in summer to avoid the extreme cold weather in winter. By the way, before checking out, we had a very well prepared breakfast in its neat small restaurant. Not only the taste was great but the color of the foods was beautiful as well.
We drove across the street to Esso gas station to get 57 euros back. Unfortunately, the gal who said to me that she would come at 10:00 am didn't show. Another younger gal totally didn't know what I was talking about. After exchanging with another senior man, she asked me to come back at 2:00 pm to talk to their owner who might show then. It's impossible for us to wait until then for 57 euros because we needed to go to Tilburg. A young man came in to buy stuff who spoke very fluent English tried to help. At the beginning, we had miscommunicated as well, but after several minutes, he caught that I prepaid but never pumped any gas yesterday. In States, I almost always use my credit card to pump gas but only paid in cash at the counter no more than 10 times in the past 18 years. The practice is to pay in front with the total estimated gallons, then pump. You can experience it at Arco, which only accepts Debit Card at the Pump. This is why I made the mistake yesterday. The young man was so nice to try to convince the staff at Esso to reimburse the money to me but they didn't. At the end, I left my personal information to them in case if they could figure out and resolve it. I told them that I would come back after two days but knew we might not. Watching me to write my address on a form, that younger lady said to me that her father living in LA because she noticed we are from Washington State. Anyway, I pumped the gas at the end by paying extra money.
Leaving this small town for Netherlands, we didn't encounter bad traffic today. We seemed to reach our destination without any problem. Learning the lesson from losing 100 bucks, I didn't book the hotel in Tilburg.
Passing Bremen, we were heading to Amsterdam. At one point on A1, we switched onto E-30 by following GPS instruction. It started raining pretty harshly then.
Driving another hour or two, we entered Netherlands without paying the toll though I had seen a sign earlier but didn't find out how possible we could pay it. GPS told us to drive on A1 for 60 miles.
It probably was another hour left to Tilburg, so I stopped the car to park on the shoulder to book the hotel through Mobile App on Expedia. Though losing 100 bucks to that hotel, I still considered it the best option for us, so booked for tonight at it. The landscaping along the road was so beautiful just like Van Gogh's painting. The rain just dropped from time to time, it actually brought us a sort of artistic conception.
It took us several extra minutes to locate the hotel in Tilburg but we eventually arrived at it after two days. The surrounding was so quiet and peaceful, I don't blame myself to book it two nights in row so stubbornly.
We didn't have lunch, so were pretty hungry. However, it was only 4:30 pm then. The waitress asked us to come back at 6:00 pm if we really wanted a more formal dinner. Taking a nap, we actually came back at 6:30 pm.
Ordering a glass of wine, I started studying the menu. The same waitress introduced the varieties to me and my son. After she recommended Chef's specialty, I decided to have 4-course and recommended 6-course to my son.
As I had shared earlier, it ended up a very superior classic French dinner. I hadn't come back to our room until 10:30 pm. My son did go back a little bit earlier because he had been tired. The waitress who actually might be manager of the restaurant was happy that we enjoyed the dinner, so were another waiter and the chef. Since my son and I wore the sports shirts and Shorts, she guessed that we might be athletes. I told her my son looked like a pro due to his height and size but he rarely works out. I was trained as pro soccer player when I was a kid and am still very active at gym. We talked about Dutch Soccer Players, such as Van Basten, Koeman, Gullit and Rijkaard. When I mentioned Cruyff, it didn't ring the bell on her. She is probably at her late 20s, so might not know the super star in 70s very much. Later on, I blamed myself why I forgot to mention RVP.
The night ended up greatly and I will come back to taste their fantastic dinner again in future.
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