Tea, Bikes and Open Mics

This past weekend was my first-ever trip to the Netherlands! A flat land of bicycle lovers-and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible. From Saturday morning to Monday afternoon, I took a little side trip to the small Dutch town of Nijmegen. The reason why I went there and why you have probably never heard of it (No, I wasn't in Amsterdam), is that I have some old friends there from my studies in Glasgow, Scotland. A handful of them all came from the same University, which as you probably guessed, is in Nijmegen. Like a lot of places in Europe, the Netherlands are actually quite close, it only took me two and half hours to get there by train. The difference with this train ride is that everything gradually began to be in Dutch...

As I've mentioned before, Belgium is divided into to halves: French-speaking Wallonia in the South, and Flemish or Dutch-speaking Flanders in the North. So once I got out of Brussels and transfered to my next train, people started speaking Dutch everywhere, and all the station signs were in Dutch. Luckily, since Brussels is a bilingual city, I'm already used to some words in Dutch- like 'spoor' for train platform. As with Luxembourg, I'm not sure when I crossed the border, but at some point everything outside my window became flat in all directions. It's a beautiful country, full of green farm lands and gleaming rivers cutting through the land.

I got off the train, looking around for the exit to the main train station where I hoped to find my friends, and instead found my friend Elke right in front of me! Walking to the main area we found my friend Daan as well- it was so good to see them again. It's been a year since Glasgow, so we haven't seen each other face to face for quite a while- it was at first a little hard to believe that we were actually all there together again, but after just an hour it was the most normal thing in the world.

But besides being ridiculously excited to see my friends, the first thing I noticed about the Netherlands? BIKES! Stereotypical, and exceedingly true. As in we came out of the train station, and went to go get my friends bikes- out of a two floor 'bike garage'. The only way to understand this is to show it, so here you go:

The top level, there's another one underground, plus there's about 10 rows of bikes

While bikes might be stereotypical Netherlands, they are really practical. Since it's such a flat country, there are no difficult hills to bike up, and you can just keep going for ages. The entire city of Nijmegen is built for bikes, all roads and paths have bike lanes. Traffic lights not only have the pedestrian walk or don't walk lights, but red and green bike ones as well! Stairs such as the ones leading up to brides have a rivet along the side so you can walk your bike up next to you. In the heart of the town, and outside all buildings and residences are bike racks. With this plethora of bikes, there are also a bunch of little accessories that I'm sure are second nature to the Dutch, but which I noticed. For example: everybody has these little clip-on lights, one red (for the back) and one white (for the front) to put on their bikes at night so they can be seen. Easy and ingenious. The bikes also all have a mini-platform on the back of them- a lot of people have these packs that hang off either side which you can put items in-or, you can sit on them while your friend tows you.

That's how I spent the majority of my weekend, hanging on to Elke and sitting on the back of her bike! I'll be honest, I was terrible at getting on at first and had no idea how to sit. But by Sunday, I felt like a pro- I could hop on and off the bike while it was moving. I felt a little bit more Dutch.

Elke's beautiful turquoise bike that I rode on the back of all weekend

Nijmegen is a beautiful little city, and perhaps the oldest in the Netherlands (a debate with Maastricht I believe). The River Waal runs right next to the city, dividing it from Nijmegen Lent, and crossed by two arching bridges that gave a lovely view of the city. There are loads of quaint and reasonably priced restaurants on the side of the river- and also seven or eight foot tall gates to hold back the water should it flood- not something I'm used to!

The River Waal

As we walked around the city, they recounted some of the city history for me, from how a random big stone in the ground used to be where criminals were judged (though a virgin could walk around them three times and claim him as a husband if she wanted and he'd be saved), to a statue of a young woman who defied the devil. It being a Saturday, there were markets in full swing, and perhaps the most tempting were the bakery stands and freshly made stroopwafels! Stoopwafels are another ingenious dutch invention- two wafer-thin waffles with a carmel layer in between. Delicious. Especially with tea, which we had a whole lot of that weekend. In fact, most of the weekend was either spent biking around the city in the lovely, spring-like weather or sitting in somebody's room talking and drinking tea- and I was completely okay with that!

Downtown, pleasantly busy Nigmegen

Fresh Stroopwafels!

The church in Nijmegen

We did see some other cool sites in the city, evidence of it's ancient beginnings such as castle walls, a half-ruin in the park and not so ancient things in the form of a giant bunny. No one is really sure why it's there, but there's a huge, blue and white bunny with a red nose that stands a good 50ft high in the park. Rumors are that it was built to see if something that tall would work well in that part of the city, but it's awkwardly stayed there. Other highlights of the city would be seeing a real black swan in another park- they're beautiful and slightly intimidating with their blood-red beaks. Ironically, I realized that I saw the movie black swan almost exactly a year ago- nice timing.

Told you there was a giant bunny.

Me, Daan and Elke in the park!

Black Swan! the real kind

We went to a football match on Saturday night, and it was great fun to see everybody, literally everybody from the community come out and cheer for their team. Nijmegen won 4-0, so it was definitely a good night, with a really fun atmosphere! Plus, I love soccer/football, so it was great to see a live match again. I tried some Dutch food as well that was really good- suikerbrood or sugarbread and yogurt-drink at breakfast, and hutspot for dinner (a mix of mashed potatoes, carrots, onions).

The stadium was packed full, completely unlike the US with its soccer matches

Since this post is getting rather long, I'll wrap up with our fantastic Sunday night- we went out to a pub called Wunderbar, where they have live music and an open mic night every Sunday evening. It was a great little place with a great atmosphere, and a guy who can play nearly every instrument possible and sing heads up the night. People just got up and jammed together, and there were even some freestylers that were really good. Plus this guy that was incredible- rapping and switching back and forth between Dutch and English flawlessly. Somehow, I ended up on stage as well, singing a song with the main guy backing me up on guitar. I love singing, but I've never done an open mic night before and was slightly terrified but it was really fun and the guy was fantastic despite not actually knowing the song!

Proof that I sang :)

So, a lovely first introduction to the Netherlands- lots of bikes, tea and catching up with old friends. Seemed like the perfect weekend to me.