The Longer the Vacation, the more Astounding the Stories

My time in Holland has been very relaxing, mixed with a lot of water. In other words, rain, rain and more rain. Our week started our fairly dry, however today made up for all the days I've been here that it has not rained.

Earlier this week we took a walk through the forest called Groenendaal. It was a very peaceful and quiet walk, where people bring their dogs and let them run around. It seemed like a quiet day in the forest though as we didn't get attacked by too many dogs. Also on a positive note, we didn't get attacked by any of the wild cows that roam the forest. I unfortunately, have not see any of these supposed wild cows here though, only domesticated dogs.

After the forest we went to a nearby cemetery. I have seen many cemeteries in my travels and have been able to tell that they are different from many American cemeteries, however I have never walked through any other than the American ones. The two differ greatly. We walked through a children section, and I noticed that there were 2 two headstones on the same spot but in a row. It turns out that two children were buried in these sections, so that is why there are the two headstones. All the headstones throughout the cemetery looked independently different from one another. Others had nothing, as they probably did not have any relatives. This cemetery was very beautiful and also peaceful, like the forest. I surprisingly did not get freaked out in a more "spooky" looking cemetery than the typical American ones.

Today, the day of water, we went to a city called Den Bosch, about an hour from Ringo and Sandra's home. After my little nap in the car, we finally arrived to the city, and found a parking spot. We proceeded to the center of the village, called the Square. It was raining pretty lightly at this point so we decided to sit at a cafe for some coffee and a Bosche Bol, a cream filled chocolate covered delight. After we filled our tummies, we walked around the village and found a place to take a boat tour. We bought our tickets and had a couple hours until our boat took off.

We continued to walk around the village, in and out of little allies, somewhat getting lost, but that makes sightseeing all the better. The streets were close together and very quaint. The little canals throughout the city had bridges and tunnels about every 50 feet or so. The village reminded me of what Italy would look like with boats floating in and out of all the tunnels. We found a very large church and decided to take a brief look inside. On the inside it was extremely tall, and extremely long. They began a service so we sat at watched for a few minutes, convincing ourselves God would be happy we stopped in to say "hello". When we left the church it started to rain much harder, so we found a different cafe next to the boat dock and had some drinks before our tour. In hopes that the rain would lighten up before we took off on our roofless boat, we kept our eyes to the skies.

Finally, it was time to go to the dock. We were excited because the rain had ceased just as we were getting ready to board, but our luck it was only for a brief moment. We got our seats on the boat, that probably fit about 15 people, most of which had umbrellas and dorky ponchos. We ignorantly chuckled to each other about how silly the "bag ladies", as we called them, looked. The boat engine started and we were off. Just at that moment, the clouds burst open and hit us with piercing, cold rain. Every time we would go under a tunnel we tried to defrost, dreading the end of the tunnel where we were forced to get soaked. Here we are, the only three people on this entire boat without even just one umbrella, and definitely not wearing those dorky ponchos. The chuckles soon went from our mouths to our dry companions on the boat. I found it offensive that when I would squeeze out the water from my sweater, they would laugh, like I found what I was doing funny or something. Ringo spotted a woman on our boat who was in one of those ponchos, holding an umbrella. How ironic. She didn't even offer us a sleeve of her bag, or a corner of her umbrella. Dry, unkind woman! The tour itself was nice though, it would have been very nice though on a dry day. I like the city, but could barley look at it as I was trying to protect myself under my sweater that was definitely not helping to keep me dry. We soon realized that maybe our quick visit to the church, and leaving the service early, must have offended God, and this was his vengeance.

When we exited the boat, we ran for cover and made the decision that we desperately needed to find a cheap store to buy new clothes. So we ran through this village, dodging puddles and other people with umbrellas not paying attention, and we found a store that would fulfill our needs. Sandra and I went to the women section, and Ringo to the men. Two sweat pants and 3 shirts later we had dry clothes. As we proceeded to the bathroom to change, an alarm rang. Just as Ringo thought he could get away with theft, he was busted. Turned out the woman forgot to ring up his shirt, that he had already put on, in the middle of the store. So we stood in the customer service line to pay for his stolen shirt, still in our sopping wet clothes. We told the women about the boat tour and that we needed dry clothes so we were going to change in that bathroom, however they charged 30 cents to get in. The women was very nice and let us use the employee restroom to change, for free. After we changed we were walking out of the store and realized it would probably be wise to also purchase some umbrellas.

We were then able to walk through the city, as it was still pouring hurricane rain, in dry clothes, that would stay dry with our newly purchased umbrellas. Lunch and a souvenir shop later, we were ready to hit the road for home.

Even though the day was full of rain, and we all got completely drenched from head to toe, I really enjoyed our time in Den Bosch. It is a beautiful city and I would love to go back there, on a warm day, and be able to relax on the boat tour. But the experience today made for ironically, hysterical memories, that I know Ringo and Sandra will hold against me forever!