a amazing man,,,,
about 4 years ago i was travelling from my house in bulgaria back to my apartment in the south of turkey,which is a two day journey by coach , and for the first leg of the journey a fellow traveller an elderly dutch man sat in the adjoining seats ,and as the refreshments were served we struck up a conversation ,,
just the normal chit chat like where are you travelling to and the like ,
when we reached the turkish border control we had to leave the coach to have our passports stamped or purchase a visa for those that had not done so prior to travelling ,
which it turned out that the dutch guy had not done , and the turkish border control officers are not the friendliest people you will ever meet ,,my passport was stamped no problem then the dutch guy handed his over ,only to have it thrown back at him with a grunt of no ,,
and he just turned to me with a smile and said oh i seem to have a problem , i said do you have a visa ,,no was his reply ,,ok i said and took him over to the visa office to buy a visa which only took a few minutes , i will see you at the coach i told him as i was going to have a smoke ,,back at the coach we reached the final police check for passports and the officer looked at his passport shook his head and said no ,,still smiling the dutch guy looked at me and asked what was wrong ,i looked at the passport and he had not got the visa stamped at the border control ,so with a smile he walked back to get the stamp and all was well ,,when we stopped in a small town for a short break we were chatting and i said you do not get fazed by situations do you ,and he smiled as he told me that he had been on the road for 12 years with his suit case and just enjoying life and seeing new places,,
we arrived in istanbul at 7 pm and we said our goodbyes as i had another coach to catch to the south of turkey, and the smiley dutch man walked across the concourse to book into the hotel there,,,,
i often think about that dutch man and think what an amazing man he is ,,,,the world is his oyster and he is living it .....
Comments (5)
different attitude to life ,,,,
v ,,, as always young man a good comment ,,you would certainly make a fine history tutor ,,,
She was the daughter of one of S. Dali's models, who got her masters at the university.
So, my only Dutch experiences were very fond ones. To the Dutch;
jim ...so was it tulips from amsterdam ,,then as the song says ,,,,
also going dutch is saying that you do not see today ,,meaning a date where both parties pay the bill ,,,,
and double dutch ,,,,which means making no sense ,,,,
then you have a dutch drain ,,,,which protects your house from dampness ,,,as it is a sunken drain that goes around the house ,,,i use one here as my house is on a incline ,,,
and holland being the flattest country in europe then dutch drains are every where ,,,