The Dutch are Cycle-paths
It's not a great start to a weekend away when the bus is half an hour late and you're already doubting if you'll make your connection. I find whenever I'm doing these things, there's always a moment before the bus shows up or before you leave the house, where you consider not going. It's this reflex to back out, abort mission, because that feels a lot less scary than going through with it. I feel like this entire year has been an exercise in muscling past that. Apparently, the other bus was late too so I did manage to catch them both. The bus got onto a ferry, which made it a bit hard to try and sleep. The engines beneath the deck felt like the Jurassic Park T-Rex was pacing around in the hold. I imagine it would have been a pretty view of the ocean if it hadn't been pitch black. Once we were back on the bus and dry land I could get a bit more shut-eye, despite the man who snored like a growling Rottweiler- made me miss Kita.
I met Tanya at the bus stop. The last time I had seen her was on a ten hour car ride from Calgary to Abbotsford, when I was on my way to Vanarts, four years ago but it's always amazing how with Bode friends you pick up where you left off. We caught the train to Haarlem and wandered around the open air market outside the main church looking for the Corrie Ten Boom Museum. After going up and down the same street 5 times, past some lovely cheese shops with a lot of free samples, we found it. Mom remembers well the late night scramble and multiple trips to Michael's craft store to finish my The Hiding Place project (which I got 100% on, procrastination works). The book was part of our Grade 8 curriculum in Mrs. Allan's class. A quick summary: during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Corrie's family became part of the Resistance. They sheltered Jews before they were smuggled out to the countryside or kept especially at-risk people in their home. After being betrayed, Corrie, her sister Betsy and her father were taken to concentrations camps where Betsy and Casper died. After the war, Corrie returned home and began a rehabilitation centre and speaking tour. The guided tour was amazing and more of the book came back to me. The tour was very focused on Corrie's own Christian testimony, which is an amazing story- everyone should read it.
After we left, we met up with Roxana, who I didn't realize had moved from Romania to Amsterdam, and we went to get coffee. I love that the Dutch turn all the chairs on the patio towards the street, walking along you feel like your on a stage. We found a spot for ourselves and watched all the bikes go past. I kept having a mental image of pregnant Dutch women's babies kicking a lot more because they're already practicing how to pedal. We found a giant windmill to take the necessary tourist picture before catching a train to Den Helder, where Tanya and I demolished an impressive amount of garlic mussels and garlic bread- no vampires tonight.
The next morning Tanya and I walked along the North Sea beach, along with everyone else and all their dogs. It was insanely windy, I'm surprised some of the smaller dogs didn't just lift of like kites on their leashes. We caught the train again back down to meet up with Roxana in Amsterdam and went to the Hillsong church. It's definitely not your typical church, meets in a nightclub and kinda feels like a youth conference, but it's good fun. We found our way back to my hostel, going through every cheese shop we passed for their amazing free samples. Afterwards I said goodbye and thanks to Tanya and I settled into my hostel, right off the street from the Red Light District.
