It's only been a little over a week and I feel as though I have been here months. Thanksgiving was quite uneventful. Jamie and I went to the grocery store after work and tried our best to find turkey and pumpkin, none of which are easy to come by. We finally found some turkey lunch meat so we made ourselves turkey sandwiches. We tried 3 different stores to find pumpkin in a can but no one had any so we opted to eat some apple pie. We later found out we can find pumpkin at the nearby Turkish stores, so perhaps another time we will do that.
Friday I took the opportunity to see more of Holland with my new friend John. He is Jamie's roommate and after randomly bumping into him and having a drink last week, he invited me to go to the town of Wallwijk, where his parents live and see more towns out east. So after work, we hopped in a car equipped with Dutch raisin bread and Sinterklaas cookies for the hour and half drive. That evening I met his parents and I'm sure they weren't quite sure what to do with this random American girl coming into their home. But we ate dinner and talked about the differences between our countries. Then John and I headed to a nearby town, S-Hertogenbosch, the Bourgondic capital of Holland. We walked through the old city center and went to a pub where we met many of his friends and listened to a local band play. It's funny because the band spoke Dutch but all their songs were in English. This part of the night really reminded me of America. All the people hanging out, listening to a band play, and dancing to a dj afterward. John and I left sometime after 1am and stopped in Heusden, which is an old walled city. It was really neat to see this old city at night and walk through it to the harbor where a windmill sat on the hill alongside old cannons.
The next morning I had my first traditional Dutch breakfast, where I made a fool of myself. I have had two people assume I was Dutch before I began talking, but if this were a test I would have failed. They usually eat meat and cheese on bread in the morning. So I began by buttering my bread and placing a slice of meat on it with cheese. As I began eating John informed me that it was quite odd to eat the meat and cheese together. They told me they had never done it and it probably wouldn't be good. I thought this was odd since it was just like eating a sandwich but they thought I was crazy. Then I watched as John ate his bread with chocolate and vanilla sprinkles on it like we would put on a cake. Now I was astonished and his mom pulled out more boxes of different types of sprinkles you can put on your bread, even pink and blue for when a child is born. They gave me a special biscuit and had me try the pink sprinkles. They tasted like Good 'n Plentys but it wasn't too bad. I also tried a southern Dutch delicacy that his mom really liked, which you spread onto bread. John later told me I was eating pig brains!
After breakfast we drove to Ravenstein, where John had lived for a year while writing his thesis. This was a very small, quiet town and we walked along farm fields and through the cobblestone streets. I even saw two John Deere tractors! Below are some photos from this town. The one of me at the top is also from here.
Crazy trees!
After seeing this small town we drove into Nijmegen which was much busier and livelier. The city sits along the Rhine River, and we parked our car on the other side while walking across a large pedestrian/bike/train bridge.
John on the bridge with Nijmegen behind him.
This city is also on the border of Germany so there were many German touches. We walked through the streets, walked through the campus where John went to school and walked to the Roman ruins that look out over the Rhine. I also tried a Dutch treat called, stroop waffle. It was like two wafers with warm sugar in the middle. Very very delicious. From Nijmegen we drove into Kleve, Germany and also walked through the streets where everyone was doing their Christmas shopping. By that time it was getting dark so we drove back to the border and parked the car at the bottom of this hill. We proceeded to walk through the woods to get to a Dutch pancake house at the top of the hill. Dutch pancakes are much different than ours. They are thin and as big as a plate. You can get them sweet or with meat; I chose a salmon pancake with vegetables and John got a sweet apple one. It was a great place to eat because it is hard to find and not many people know of it, not even the Dutch! This picture is a view from the pancake house looking out at the woods.
Overall I had a wonderful experience traveling through the Netherlands and Germany. I saw so much I would have never seen on my own and experienced so many traditional Dutch things. I took the train home Saturday night and was exhausted. But so far I am learning a lot and being challenged daily here.
