Loon op Zand & Eindhoven, Netherlands

Read below for Flat Kelly's continued adventures in the Netherlands with Saskia! 

After a busy and cold sunday, the rest of the week was more easy going. During weekdays we went to school in Eindhoven to study physiotherapy. On our way from the central station to my school building, we passed this work of art. It's a huge set of bowling pins, called Flying Pins. It's the biggest public piece of art in Eindhoven and catches your eye immediately.

Living in Loon op Zand, it takes about an hour and a half every day to get to Eindhoven. To get there, we took the train from Tilburg. Tilburg's central station has an impressive roof which seems to be floating over the tracks.

As you might notice from the pictures: yes, it got a lot warmer after we've been to the Efteling. Within a week, temperature flew from -2 degrees to an unbelievable 15 degrees! And then back to -2 within another week... Welcome to Dutch weather! Apart from the typical weather, it also seems that Dutch people have a typical way of transportation. Bikes are everywhere. People bike everywhere. Everyone owns a bike.

This is were Flat Kelly was staying over at her time in the Netherlands. In our garden, lovely flowers started opening up as this day was the first day that felt like it was spring.

Loon op Zand is a little village in the south of the Netherlands, and as most villages do, it comes with it's own church. As it got colder again, we found a new hat for Flat Kelly.

At the end of the week, we wanted to do something exciting after a week full of school, so we went to the cinema to see The Silver Linings Playbook.

(Real Life Kelly is a little jealous that Flat Kelly got to see this - it looks great!) 

Flat Kelly liked to play hide-and-seek in the huge cardboard displays, so good luck finding her.

During the two weeks she was here, she like to be funny with books. Even though she loves Jennifer Lawrence, she wanted to be on the cover with Bradley Cooper. And she thought she'd finish the cover of the City of Bones.

Even though they say a picture says more than a thousand words, some parts could not be captured on camera. Photographing at school was very difficult as we were busy studying and learning new stuff and at work we weren't really capable of taking a camera around, as we were busy working. Oh hey, we forgot to talk about that! Flat Kelly came to work as well. On Saturdays, we were working at a local butchershop and as you might imagine, I kept Flat Kelly safe and sound in my bag, as I didn't want to get her all dirty. On Tuesday nights and Sundays, Flat Kelly got really excited as we went to a guys soccer team. We were helping out massaging and taping them before the trainings on Tuesdays and matches on Sundays. Unfortunately, we didn't see them win yet. Would have been fun to capture Flat Kelly with half-naked guys on the treatment benches, not too sure if the guys would have liked that as well...

Unfortunately, these two weeks flew by and Flat Kelly is now on to her next destination. She will be missed and I'm sure she'll have a great time everywhere she's visiting next. Thanks Kelly for letting me have her over! :)

No, Saskia, thank YOU for taking her! It looks like Flat Kelly had an amazing time and I love, love, LOVE the pictures. You're fantastic and I really appreciate it :)

Where's Flat Kelly off too next? Saskia put her in the post March 11th... stay tuned! 

Efteling Amusement Park, Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands

That's right! Flat Kelly made her way from England to the Netherlands where she is graciously being hosted by the lovely Saskia!  See below for Saskia's account of her first few days... 

Flat Kelly made it safe and sound to the Netherlands, a little town called Loon op Zand on Friday the 22nd of February. Lucky her, Saskia had a trip to an amusement park planned on Sunday with her family! As they woke up on Sunday morning, everything was white. If you read the previous blogposts, you've already seen that Flat Kelly was not too impressed by this white blanket. However, after Saskia put a little hat on her and they arrived at the Efteling, all was well.

(Flat Kelly LOVES her hat) 

(Flat Kelly with her host, Saskia)

The Efteling is an amusement park situated in Kaatsheuvel and calls itself the 'World of Wonders'. It has various attractions, roller coasts and a very old yet very exciting Fairytale Forest. The latter was also the very first thing they visited. Flat Kelly demanded to take a picture in front of the famous candy house of Hansel and Grettel. 

After that it was time for some more action. They went for Saskia's all time favorite attraction: Villa Volta. As quoted from their website: 'A beautiful villa surrounded by an English garden, this house is no ordinary house. Hugo, the gentleman of the house, will never be at peace. He will haunt it, twist it and turn it until the end of time.' First, the story is being told by Hugo, which couldn't really impress Kelly at all...

But when they walked into the actual attraction, Kelly was super excited! Sadly, the clip they tried to film failed miserably, but this guy did a better job if you're interested what it is like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhjL7QO2oI

As this is kind of a world trip, they could not miss the Carnival Festival. It's a ride past 270 different dolls, which represent about 15 different countries. Unfortunately, very dark and very bad environment for taking pictures. Only one made it out safely.

Flat Kelly and Saskia had a really fun day together and are both looking forward to be spending the next two weeks together.

And the Real Kelly can't wait to see what happens next! A big thanks to Saskia for showing Flat Kelly a good time :) 

London, England

Flat Kelly's Adventures in England continued when Em took her to London! Read the post below for Em's recap of the fun events... 

On the 16th Feb, we drove down to London to see a show called 'Midnight Tango' which was showing at the Phoenix Theatre, close to Leicester Square. We couldn't take pictures inside the theatre (no photography allowed!) but Kelly enjoyed reading the programme and the ticket stub has been saved in the diary.

We did however go to a tapas restaurant and drank mojitos together. It became apparent after the fourth one that Flat Kelly loves her mojitos! 

(True story, Flat Kelly really DOES love mojitos)

We had a mooch round Covent Garden, made a few risque phone calls together and appreciated all the street performers and artists that frequent Covent Garden.

We were only in London for 24 hours so didn't really get a lot of photo opportunities but hopefully it's a good start for Flat Kelly's world travels?

Yes, Em, that was the perfect start for Flat Kelly's world travels! Thank you so much Em for taking her around with you and getting her off to such a fabulous start! I can't wait to see where she goes next!

Speaking of which... where IS Flat Kelly off to next? Check back in a few weeks to find out!

Coventry, England

Flat Kelly's first stop was Coventry, England where she was taken care of by the lovely Em! See below for Em's recap of their time together... 

Kelly arrived in Coventry on the 31st of January where she lived in this house for two weeks... 

In Coventry, she met Em (photos together a bit later on!) but also met Jess the cat. Alfie the cat isn't as social as Jess, but he was there too. Jess & Flat Kelly got on really well! 

We've had some choice weather in the UK over the past couple of weeks, including lots of snow! She was non too impressed with the snow.

Flat Kelly also came to work with Em in Lutterworth and was really helpful answering the phones...

And then, as if Coventry wasn't cool enough, Em took Flat Kelly to London as well! Stay tuned for that post, coming up next! 

Hello World! Meet Flat Kelly...

My birthday is in the middle of January, so when I turned 25 I went out, bought myself a travel journal, took a couple of pictures, glued said pictures to popsicle sticks, and Flat Kelly was born.

I wanted to do 25 things for myself in my 25th year; Flat Kelly is one of them. Thanks to some lovely friends that I've made through a writing group and some of my 'real life' friends, I think that Flat Kelly will make it to at least 25 cities. The ultimate goal would be to make it to 25 countries, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that one.

The Flat Kelly package includes the following...

• The Flat Kelly travel journal - inside the journal is a personal message from me thanking all the wonderful people who will encounter Flat Kelly over the next year. There's also a Flat Kelly challenge in case they get her and have no idea what to do with her. The rest of the pages are to be filled by the people who get Flat Kelly - they can leave personal messages, glue in ticket stubs, restaurant menus, etc. I'm super excited to get this back at the end of the year!
• Not one, but four different Flat Kelly photos. Why did I do four? Well, originally I was going to do two front and back Flat Kelly's. But obviously my handy camera-man and I were not so great at sizing them up correctly, so we ended up with four instead. I think this is for the best - in the event that one Flat Kelly is damaged, there's always another one right there! 
• There's Excited Kelly (who could double as Scared Kelly, if need be)
• There's Kelly-Is-Not-Impressed (thank you, McKayla Maroney for the inspiration)
• There's Nice Kelly #1 (who I feel has a more summer, tropical vibe to her) 
• There's Nice Kelly #2 (who has more of that sophisticated feel... or I'm just making crap up now). 

On January 22, 2013 Flat Kelly began her adventure! First stop? England!!!! (which just happens to be one of my favorite places in the world, ever). 

Approximately every 2 weeks this blog will be updated with a new adventure, so stay tuned!