005/001.1
Netherlands - Belgium
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Border Crossing No.
005/001.1 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 29 April 1967, morning |
| Crossing point: | Breda - Antwerpen |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from The Hague to Paris |
| Vehicle: | Touring-car (The Hague - Paris) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | A group of high school students |
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This was the first time I entered into Belgian territory deeper than just a few meters. Astonished I looked at the huge billboards, the ugly side-facades without windows (because the Belgians paid taxes for each facade with windows) and the glossy black cars, decorated with huge silver crosses, used in funerals. |
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Border Crossing No.
006/001.2 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 29 April 1967, afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Mons - Maubeuge? |
| Passport check at: | In bus at Belgian/French border station (between Mons and Maubeuge?) |
| Travelling: | from The Hague to Paris |
| Vehicle: | Touring-car (The Hague - Paris) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | A group of high school students |
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This was the first time I passed a border with border control. Some of us tried to get a stamp in their passports, but the French customs refused. The landscape after the border showed less population. A town were we stopped, probably Laon or Soissons, looked uninhabited, but at arrival in Paris in the late afternoon I landed for the first time in my life in a traffic jam. |
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Border Crossing No.
007/001.3 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 5 May 1967, morning |
| Crossing point: | Maubeuge - Mons? |
| Passport check at: | In bus at French/Belgian border station (between Maubeuge and Mons?) |
| Travelling: | from Paris to Mechelen |
| Vehicle: | Touring-car (Paris - Mechelen) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | A group of high school students |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
008/001.4 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 5 May 1967, evening |
| Crossing point: | Antwerpen - Breda |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Mechelen to The Hague |
| Vehicle: | Touring-car (Mechelen - The Hague) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | A group of high school students |
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After a stop for dinner in Mechelen we drove home through the dark. I felt tired, sad and depressed and I did not want to join the people in the back playing guitar and singing songs. Two guys behind me opened the little parcels with butter from the restaurant and smeared it in my hair. At the last sanitation stop I tried in vain to clean myself. The gymnastics teacher asked what I was doing and said, after my explanation, with an unpleasant smile: "So you have butter on your head!" I did not understand his answer nor his smile. He explained it was a proverb, but its meaning I never got to know and never wanted to know. |
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