Europe Day 12 – Belgium and Holland

When we decided to stay in Paris an extra day we gave up Belgium. Of course we did change trains in Bruxelles and went through the town on the train but we basically didn’t visit the place. It was too bad. The train wound it self north, slower than the train that brought us to Bruxelles that clipped along going more thant 300 KPH.

The country side was beautiful, think Lord of the Rings but flatter. The train stopped in Rotterdam and we had 10 minutes to switch trains. We ran outside and took some pictures.

What can I tell you about Rotterdam? It looks nice by the train station. Rotterdam is also Bean’s home town. As in, Bean from Ender Game is from Rotterdam. From where we were it didn’t look like there were gangs of pre-pubescent adolescents roaming the streets stealing. Go figure.

We ran back in side and jumped on the train to Utrecht. When we arrived everyone spoke english. It was uncanny, see incredible. I still don’t really get how an entire nation can just pick up a foreign language that has no roots in that country. We asked the pretty girl in the bus that was going to let us know when our stop was how she learned english.

She looked confused and said, as if it were nothing, “I took it in school.” Raise your hand if you took a 2nd language in high school, keep it raised if you learned to actually speak it in that class.

That’s what I thought.

I guess all movies are also shown in english with dutch subtitles. I can see that helping but still, make everyone fluent?!

We got to Sylvia’s house around 7 and met Evanne, one of her room mates. The house that Sylvia lives in actually has 15 students living there. They all seem to have their own rooms and it’s mixed gender. We hung out with Evanne who showed us around. Another room mate got home while I was playing one of their Guitars. He got out his, Evanne got our her harp and we jammed. I never even knew there was such a thing as “Jazz Harp” but there it is and it’s awesome.

We recorded one song that came out ok and I will play upon request for those that wish to hear a Holland Jam. Sylvia showed up at the very end so we have our whole greeting recorded as well. I hadn’t seen Sylvia in 4-5 years so it was really good to see her again and hang out. She was sorry that she got there late and even more sorry that she had to go to bed early for work in the morning. Good night Sylvia.

Evanne didn’t need to be to bed and actually needed to make pancakes. So we stayed up with her and made pancakes into the wee hours of the morning.

Tomorrow is Sunday and after church I’ll get some pictures of architecture and that sort of stuff.