Nederhosen?
25.05.2006
12 °C
My goodness, my goshness.
You should SEE what I bought today.
Alright, so you know how the whole European Union goes wild when they hear the mention of soccer? Well, the World Championships are coming up as you should know and every country goes nuts. Orange, The Netherlands national colour is on EVERYTHING and party favours, orange clothing and etc are everywhere already.
So here I was in the store today and I saw "NEDERHOSEN" Politically incorrect, of course; though hilarious, all the same. They are bright orange leiderhosen which directly mock Germany. Perfect, as the dutch aren't too fond of Germans. A picture will follow in only a couple days time... when we get up the courage to actually put them on.
So basically days in Katwijk (a town in the Netherlands) go by hanging out with Jolanda's friends, touring the town of Katwijk, eating and me pointing to something everÿ two seconds and saying "Vat is dat?"(Dutch for what is that? Hard, I know!)in an attempt to learn more Dutch.
The Katwijk museum was great. A little town on the sea, Katwijk is famous for sending its men off to sea while the women wait for them and make their fishing nets. Of course while not to the same extent as in the past, Katwijk still survives mainly based on its fishing industry.
Here I am 100 years ago, strangely modern, with the ladies making nets. What a good wifey I'd be...
Oh, and pumping water to make dinner. Sheesh, I'm fricken'amazing, eh? No cake mixes here!
Of course Jolanda had to demonstrate how old fashioned dutch boat toilets work....
And I accidently got a 30 minute history lesson in the dutch dialect of Katwijk when I unknowingly sat on a bench sensor in a makeshift beach hut (scattered all over the beach of Katwijk and are intended for you to leave your belongings in while you swim) which activates the very loud story. Basically, the whole museum staff glares at you when you set off the sensor.
The bench in the beach hut:
and the silly dutch it read from for a half hour:
Oh, and then we went on a three day cruise to Africa. The Captain died so Jolanda and I had to steer the ship there and back...
I lie....
Last night we went to The Holland Casino in The Hague. On the way through The Hague we passed landmarks such as the World's Supreme Court of Justice and the infamous Prison which holds criminals such as Hussein and the now deceased Milosovich. It was pouring too hard to get photos unfortunately and frankly the buildings weren't too exciting. The Prison was only high brick walls with a single black, heavily fortified door.
The Casino was a bust of course, Jolanda and I limited ourseleves to $20 Euro and spent most of our time on the penny machines to make ourselves believe that we weren't actually spending the money that should in fact be feeding and clothing us. Haha... The highlight of our night was probably when a guy walked away from his machine with a balance of 140.00 Euro and we convinced ourselves he wouldn't come back to which we began planning our future on 70 Euro each. Of course, he came back... Blah.
Tomorrow Jolanda and I are going to Amsterdam for the weekend! Yayyyyy. Erin is meeting us at the bus station and the weekend should be fun, fun, fun!
And of course I must end this with a picture of my wonderful hosts! Jolanda and her mum!
Posted by schwackers 2:51 PM Archived in Netherlands Comments (1)
