On the last few nice days of a Holland summer, I enjoyed a trip to the southern province of Brabat, specifically to the cities of Eindhoven and s'Hertogenbosch (more popularly known as Den Bosch). For 65 Euros I got a fun-filled weekend with 80 other international students. It included the bus, 2 night accommodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner, snacks, Dutch version of mini-golf, a museum and all the beer and beverages you could want to drink at night!
Friday night we met by the train station and loaded up onto our double-decker coach bus (I had no idea you could rent buses this big, definitely not an American thing).Though we were visiting Brabat, we ended up staying in a small town of Bree in northern Belgium. We stayed in 2 buildings right next to an old mansion/castle built by some important person...yeah I forget the story. I also got to see the Milky Way for the first time in a long time and it was so nice to see the night sky so clearly!!
That night we played a couple games like speed dating and musical chairs (from which I have a massive bruise...honestly how old are we that we need to get violent) and were provided all the beer, wine and soda we could drink! I went to bed early as I had been a little sick all week and definitely needed all the rest I could get.
In the morning we had a Dutch breakfast of either sandwichs or bread with sprinkles on top (I am not kidding...), but I stuck with a normal jam and butter. All of us loaded back onto the bus and drove to the middle of nowhere and played...Boerengolf!!!
Basically it is a cross between golf and mini-golf, except you are on cow pastures and use a mini-soccer ball as the golf ball. Naturally the golf club has a clog on the end of it...so Dutch. Since we played among the cows, we were given little booties to place over our shoes in the event we stepped in some cow patties...which happened to the majority of people including me.
For dinner, ESN took us into the city of Eindhoven, a more modern city in the province of Brabat. It is definitely not as cute as your typical European town, but as it was bombed during World War II it could not be helped. There are apparently some good museums there and the city center has designated pedestrian streets. Once back at our accommodation, you had the option of "making a party" as the saying seems to go...though I went right to sleep and had a glorious 10 hours of sleep while most people had 5 hours or less.
Sunday morning after breakfast, we all pitched in and cleaned up as you will be fined otherwise. For the day we went to Den Bosch, ate a local pastry called Bossche bol (basically a large cream puff) and took a canal tour. This city is very different from Eindhoven as it is cute and a bit larger, I definitely would like to go back if I have the chance. As it was the first Sunday of the month, shops were allowed to open from 11 to 4 and most take advantage of that. It was beautiful day and there was also a festival of musicals going on at the same time...so lots of people were out and about enjoying the shops, music and being outside.
Around 5/6 pm we headed back to Utrecht and by the time I arrived back to my room in Zeist, I was exhausted and tired...and unfortunately still sick. In terms of Discovering Holland, definitely got a little taste of it, but it is a country hard to define and still do not feel like I know all of it...but plenty of time for that!
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