"Heineken Experience"

Today, we got out of class at noon, so a few of us decided we were going to test out our command of foreign public transportation and board a west-bound train from Zwolle to Amsterdam. It feels a little bit weird, but I think it is just swell that we can go to Amsterdam on a whim. It's like getting out of class at Dordt at noon and deciding to go to Sioux Falls for the rest of the day. But Amsterdam is quite a bit different from Sioux Falls.

We went to Amsterdam last Tuesday as well, and saw many sights, and then just ended up walking around for the rest of the time, so this time we decided to have a plan before we left. We decided on something called the "Heineken Experience." So, when we got to Amsterdam, we bought some bus tickets and headed to an old Heineken Beer brewery. According to information I gathered later, the building was actively used as a brewery until 1988, and since then it was a self-guided tour about how Heineken is made.

This is the part of the story where I offer my own opinion of it. Well here it is: the brewery was unimpressive. I would probably have been better off learning about the process of brewing on the internet, because the self-guided tour wasn't that great. Apparently, they use something like five ingredients and put them in big vats for a long time. Whoop-de-do. But when I left, they gave me a sweet mug which is probably worth the ten-euro entrance fee, so I guess that made it worth it.

After this "experience," we walked through the shops of Amsterdam again. I rather enjoy just meandering around; I find it oddly plesant to notice the architecture and watch the tourists and locals scurry about, each in her own unique way. Last time I went to Amsterdam, I didn't pick up a flag, so this time I was sure to find a nice red and white Ajax flag to add to my collection of football club flags (okay, actually to start my collection).

After getting some pizza, we boarded a train and got back to Zwolle safely. I still can't get over the fact that we decided at noon to go to Amsterdam, went, and returned by ten on the same day. I can't even do that to any major city in the United States from where I live.

Bryan Wants More Chocolate

There is nothing quite like the rich, savory taste of a smooth, dark, Hershey's chocolate bar. Or is there? This weekend I was awakened to a whole new world of tasty brown treats. Here is my account, slightly embellished for your enjoyment.

Saturday night we went to a local grocery store to grab some snacks. While roaming the rows of unfamiliar food stuffs labeled with names that look like a handful of letters illogically crammed together, I came across a universal sign: a colorful blue wrapper with a picture of a scrumptious looking chocolate bar on the front. "Swiss Chocolate," the hunk of tin-foil wrapped bliss boasted, and being the tight money-saver that I am, I thought to myself, "nah, probably way to expensive." But I had overlooked one important fact: The Netherlands is not far from Switzerland. The small black numbers beneath this fine Swiss export read €0.36; which I estimated to be less than $0.50. At that moment, I made a life-changing decision: €0.36 for a candy bar that had more milk-chocolate than a $1.00 Hershey bar is too good of a deal to miss. So I did what any typically impulsive chocolate-loving American would do, I purchased the fine treasure bundled in a Willy-Wonka-like wrapper. I could hardly contain my excitement as I softly rested my great discovery on the grocery-store cash-register conveyer belt. My heart skipped a beat or two when I dug through my pocket for the multi-national foreign coins to pay the angel who was uniting me with my own little piece of heaven. And when we finally arrived at the house, I could no longer hold myself back. The whole world disappeared; only the blue paper and the riches it held within existed in my universe. The moment was finally here; wide eyed like a child on Christmas morning, my hands, shaking with joy and wonderment, unwrapped the sky-blue paper and the silver foil underneath. The prize became visible; the soft milk chocolate color, the smooth texture, the pleasant aroma, and finally...

When I came to, the whole world was different. You couldn't find a happier boy; all of the colors of the spectrum were more vivid, the sun reflected off the dew, the cold winds of winter had given way to the soft warm breeze of spring-time, birds started singing lovely ballads and operas; I was in love. If I didn't come to Europe for this chocolate, I certainly should have.

There is one minor problem: I forgot her name.

Travis Wants More Pictures

The uploading of pictures is a bit slow, so there aren't many, but it might give you some bit of an idea of what I've seen. Also, I can't even crop pictures right now, so some aren't the best (for example, I wanted to crop the train station). But they're still good. Enjoy.

This is the train station in Amsterdam. Yes, even there train station looks brilliant.

Here's a picture of one of a few buildings in Amsterdam.

Me and my omafiets.

This picture is for my bro. I was looking at the flags and scarves (because I think I am going to collect one of the two; probably flags), and I came across this gem. The picture isn't so good, because I figured they probably wouldn't've approved of me taking pictures of their merchandice. Travis, you understand why I took this picture, right? The rest of you, it's nothing cool, so just don't worry about it.

Darin Wants More Adventures

Well, not much has been up recently (except going to Amsterdam on a class trip, but I don't really feel like writing about that), but Darin has recently demanded more adventures, so here I am, filling the needs of my adoring public.

As I may have explained earlier, I live in a town called Hattem, and have to bike to a different town, Zwolle, to go to class every day. Today, this trip took Dustin and I thirty minutes because we had to ride into a vicious headwind. But my story is not about today, rather, the excitement of my week took place yesterday.

It was about 8:20 in the morning when Dustin and I took off for school. The paths were a bit icy due to some unpleasant freezing rain, but we were chugging along on our "Omafietsen," our "Grandma Bikes," slowly but surely. We came to a fairly major road, it had two lanes which in the Netherlands qualifies it as a major road, that we had to turn on. No problem, there wasn't much traffic as usual, so we turned across the major thoroughfare onto the red bicycle lane on the other side of the street. Almost immediately afterward, we needed to take another turn onto a not so busy street; a one-laner if you will. As Dustin found out the hard way, this less travelled street still had a nice thick coat of ice on it, and as my brave counterpart turned on to the street, the tires of his new black one-speed slid out from underneath the black frame, and both bicycle and rider went sliding across the iced cobblestones.

This was, of course, quite a humorous scene, and I wish you could have seen it; fortunately I was quite priveleged to have witnessed it, so I was chuckling to myself while I prepared to mock my riding companion, backpeddling on my two-wheeler to bring it to a halt (because these nice bikes of ours don't have hand breaks, rather they have the type of breaking system that bicycles for young children have that you must peddal backwards to bring the bike to a stop). Well it seems that breaking was not the best choice in this situation, because the ice decided to laugh at me as well. Yes, no longer than two metric seconds later (because the Dutch use the Système International d'Unités rather than our imperial system), I was doing the side-stroak across the ice-laden street like Dustin, still laughing hysterically. The simple irony of the story is the icing on top of the cake, the cherry on top of the ice cream, the whipped cream on top of the pudding, or any other final ingredient for a dessert you feel most comfortable with. The irony is that the only people to witness our ice-dancing fiasco was the drivers of the large, street-salting vehicle that turned onto the road behind us.

Darin, I hope this provided the fix for your adventure story cravings.

First Trip to Zwolle

First of all, I'd like to thank everbody who commented on this blog so far. I feel cool, even if I'm not.

So yesterday, a few of us hopped on our nice, black, one-speed bicycles to take the trip over the big old windy bridge from Hattem to Zwolle. Our destination: the Peperbus, or "Pepper-shaker." Apparently, it was named after some guy that was named Peper or something, but also it looks like a giant pepper shaker. The Peperbus is this old church that was built in "Old Zwolle" in the 1300's. Try to think of anything in the United States that was built in the 1300's. I bet you are having troubles. What's "Old Zwolle?" I'm glad you asked. Back in the day - where "back in the day" reads as "I don't know when" - Zwolle was a town in the middle ages - I guess that answers when - and it needed to defend itself. So, it built walls around the city, and a moat. So, in present day Zwolle, there is a part of the city in the center that is surrounded by water, which is old Zwolle. It's a nice place... looks very historic.

Anyway, so I think the point I was making is that the Peperbus is in Old Zwolle. So, after the Peperbus, we went to the only remaining of three towers that were built on the wall. The place was called "Sussenpoort," which apparently means the gate where the Sussens (I don't know who they are, but they come from the south) might attack from. And, I'm pretty sure "poort" means "gate," hence "Sussenpoort." It wasn't as cool as the old church, but it was still alright.

Then we went to some Irish pub. It's crazy that the organizer took us to a pub, and bought beer for the people that requested it. Crazy stuff.

After that, we rode home in the cold drizzle in the rain. I have the feeling this will be common.

The Adventure Begins

Yesterday was possibly the longest day of my life. For me, "yesterday" started at 9:30 am Central time on Thursday, January 19. It was "the big" day, the day that I flew off to the mythical land called "The Netherlands." At about noon, I went to the airport where I met Dustin, Juliet, and Emily, and me flew out at 1:30 pm CST. We arrived at Chicago for a short stop, picked up some Starbucks coffee, and were back on the plane to Frankfurt, Germany. Thankfully, I had an aisle seat, and there was nobody sitting next to me, so I was reasonably comfortable the entire flight. Around midnight CST, instead of going to sleep for the night, I reset my watch to be 7:00 am, so the night went really fast (or, there was no night at all)! After that, we arrived in Frankfurt, had to go through customs (but not with our suitcases), jumped to Amsterdam, oddly didn't have to go through customs in Amsterdam, was met by a bunch of people from the college, and then took an hour-and-a-half train ride to Zwolle.

Some of my host family met us in Zwolle and took us to their home it Hattem. I was home, at least for the next four months. The rest of the day was spent relaxing with the Vissers (my host family). I really like them, they seem to be really fun. Dustin and I can communicate with them pretty well, especially if they are in one group (so if one person doesn't know how to say something, they ask each other). It's kinda funny listening to them talk in Dutch, they just go off and I am clueless to what they are talking about. They'll be excitedly telling stories and laughing hysterically, and then take a short break to translate so we at least have some idea what is going on.

We had Klompen, I think that's what they called it, and Meatballs for dinner. It was really good; Klompen is mashed potatoes, with a bunch of other vegetables mashed in as well. After dinner, Elize, Lineke, Hans (Lineke's boyfriend), and Myranda took Dustin and I to "the center." The center is just the center of Hattem, as far as I could tell, but they have a really cool wall from the middle ages still standing, and they have a bunch of shops along one road.

Eventually I went to bed at 11:00 on Friday night, which is 4:00 pm Central time, meaning that my day lasted 31 hours with only a two hour nap. But I'm awake and having a great time!