Today I went to Zandvoort Circuit Park to watch the A1GP motor-racing series, and the supporting events. It required getting up ridiculously early, but for a total of €26 it was certainly worth it. Zandvoort is a holiday village on the coast near Amsterdam, and if I'm being honest, is pretty awful. It's unashamedly touristy, which wouldn't be so bad if there were some around, but outside of holiday season it doesn't really work. I looked for some postcards, but ironically, they made it look better than it was, so I didn't think it was fair to propagate that view. Judging from the amount of planes in the sky all day, I got the feeling that all flights into and out of the Netherlands flew over Zandvoort - perhaps to show people what they're leaving behind, or coming to? No, probably not. Still, it was really nice to get out of Utrecht again and see the sea. I don't really appreciate the fact that I miss the sea until I come back to it, and I spent about half-an-hour just wandering along the coast. The weather was quite atmospheric all day:
The track itself was quite something else. It's built on sand dunes, so by the end of the day I had about a pint of sand in each of my shoes. The high dunes did though provide a great view of the action, but seeing as 99% of the people who read this don't follow motorsport, I'll spare you more information and just leave you with a picture of Darren Manning driving the Team GB entry to 6th place on the grid:
I spotted an empty Appletiser can in the hedge while there, which has rekindled my hopes that I may be able to find said beverage this side of the Channel. There were quite a few people there considering it was only the Saturday without any proper racing, and quite a few nationalities. The Dutch were all decked out in organge (the national sporting colours), and there were quite a few green Irish as well. I found myself sitting next to a couple from Leeds as well at one point. It's a small world.
The train journey back to Utrecht was uneventful, apart from me falling asleep and waking up to a carraige occupied by a number of different people. After playing through the scenarios (i.e. was I still in the Netherlands?), I realised that we'd just been through Amsterdam and hence were still on our way.
I came back to an Utrecht slightly more awake than when I left it, with a hot-air baballoon display in the sky:
Hopefully I'll be able to do things similar to this each weekend from now on. I think we're off to Amsterdam next weekend for Emma's birthday, there's a Discover Holland tour the next, and then I'm back to Cambridge. So I'll be keeping busy for the next few weeks at least!
I hope that everyone who is moving back to Cambridge this weekend, or who've already moved back, had a great time this week and doesn't work too hard. It would be great to hear how things are going.
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