Weekend Wrap Up and snippets of Luchtmacht Dagen

Friday – went to gym and worked out for 2.5 hours, then ask for and signed my “uitschrijving” because I am moving gyms. Thought its better to train nearby home during the weekends, plus Dutchman and I will be going together so that would be good I hope, hehe. He’s not into fitness though but swimming.

After the work out I had this insatiable hankering for hot spicy chicken wings, and since Dutchman is off skating for the evening, I really have no desire of getting my hands dirty in the kitchen, so here I come KFC! Yeah, KFC on my birthday, lol.

Saturday – picked up our blonde curly haired 11- year old nephew. We are borrowing him for a day to the Luchtmacht Dagen (Royal Netherlands Air Force Air Show) in Volkel Airbase down south in Brabant.


The impressive red and yellow act represent the Spanish flag. These are Spain's Patrulla Aguilla, one of the air show acts that I really like. Next foto is the British Avro Vulcan with his 2 escorts, famous to have served during the Cold War.

On the way, the traffic was horrible! It took us more than 2 hours to get to Volkel and vice versa to Utrecht. Because of this we missed a couple of shows.

Two of the shows we missed but were lucky enough to get a glimpse of are: a) the KLM Airbus with his entourage of jet fighters, and b) Chinook helicopter and a jeep strapped hanging below it, also with his entourage of helicopters.

Me sitting on the grass just after having lunch. Next foto... the Chinook has become a live museum.

We caught sight of the spectacular show on Peelweg, the road to the airbase which at that moment was jammed with cars moving slowly. I was able to take a foto of the Chinook and we had a great view of it through the trees when it flew so low and hovered above us. It was simply awesome. Images of the Vietnam War flashed before me.

Below are a few videos I took with my Nokia Nav mobile phone. More to come on a different post!




F-16 solo act from I believe a Belgian pilot, if not Dutch... then the Spanish Flies, the Patrulla Aguila, I really enjoyed this act.

It was my first air show and the Dutchman being the airplane enthusiast was our coach for the day, giving information about the airplane, the model, and pieces of related history which I find really neat. Most men are into cars and fast driving (think about a sports car shooting down the no speed limit autobahn here), unfortunately Dutchman is into flying. If he could turn back the clock he would have been a pilot now by profession.

The event anyway was a success. There were so many aficionados and spectators, even children!

Saturday evening – after dropping off little nephew at his parents – I like kids you know as long as I can return them to their parents, we went home to change for dinner.

Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht has a Michelin Star restaurant

I didn’t realize that Grand Karel V is actually a 5-star hotel until I saw the 5 stars on the hotel’s sign board. The food was good. The wine excellent! I didn’t take fotos of the food as I thought it would be “genant”. I don’t mind doing so during my holidays because many tourists do this anyway but not here and not in a fine dining place.

I however did take a foto of myself in the toilet. I also managed to take a snapshot of Karel V’s facial mural impression in the basement for souvenir which I will post later together with the other fotos and videos of the Air Show once I have the software of my camera installed and running on my new laptop. Right now I only have the software of my mobile installed.

Basement of Grand Hotel Karel V, quick fotos I took before the stroll outside in the garden.

After settling the bill, we went for a little stroll in the Centrum and discovered small passageways that we never saw before. We hopped on the bike just after midnight with me perched royally at the back as Dutchman pedals home.

Sunday – spent the morning till early afternoon cleaning the house after which entertained the Dutch families for my birthday feast. I got nice presents but the present I am waiting for is from Dutchman – he promised to bring me to Berlin this autumn when we are back from our Philippine summer holiday. Yay!

Original plan for Sunday was picnic at the park with everyone but the weather was not cooperating. Bouts of dark clouds, showers and sunshine... not a good idea to be staying outside.

All in all the weekend went good.

I will be posting fotos and videos of the Luchtmacht Dagen (Royal Netherlands Air Force Air Show) separately once I have uploaded them all to my laptop.
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