Renee and David's Europe Trip Part 2
August 11-17, 2014
This part of the trip was such a nice break after the craziness of travelling on the cruise ship with just Dave and I. We were in Holland for a week for Tom & Juanita's wedding, and stayed with family and just sat back and followed along. It was super relaxing, and felt almost nostalgic even though I'd never been there before. I loved it so much! I didn't journal during the week, but did a recap at the end.
August 11 - Arrival in Holland
We took the waterbus from Venice to the airport and flew to Holland. We were picked up by Mom & Dad and had a hectic drive into Barneveld, where we were staying in an empty house (#48) down the street from Uncle Reynold and Aunty Marjon. The house had a table, an eclectic set of chairs, and mattresses on the floor. We arrived just in time for a big dinner with all the De Jongs who had arrived in Holland to celebrate Tom and Juanita being legally married that day.
August 12 - Bike Tours
- A bike gang of De Jongs going around Barneveld. Broodje & Kroket lunch at Gribus.
- The "Wijn Winkel" came to Reynold & Marjon's and we had a very fun and tasty wine tasting and food pairing evening. Everyone drank a lot (they were full glass tastings). We were thankful we could walk back to our place and didn't have to bike or drive anywhere after!
August 13 - Leeuwarden & Indonesian Restaurant
Reynold rented a charter bus and all 35 of us De Jongs travelled to Leeuwarden, where Oma DJ grew up. While we were there, we followed Oma around and she came to life, sharing stories from her childhood.
- Her and her friends walking down this street arm in arm looking for boys.
- Her stealing chocolate bars from her dad's bakery
- Seeing soldiers march down the streets, and Nazis taking over this building.
- Her mom rushing her baby to the hospital, but not making it and losing the baby.
- When her dad lost the bakery, moving to a new house down the street
So incredible to hear her stories and watch her memories come to her as we went around. I'm incredibly grateful we could do that, especially before last year when she developed dementia and would not remember many of these things if we were to visit her hometown at this point. On our way back to the house, Oma described this day as "out of this world."
Towards the end of Oma's Leeuwarden tour, I had an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite on my forehead and it blew up like a goose egg (I remember reacting very differently to the European mosquitos than the ones at home). I took two Benadryl with my beer and the swelling went down a bit. I don't know how I made it through dinner without falling asleep.
We visited and climbed "The Oldehove of Leeuwarden" aka the Leaning Tower of Leeuwarden. Dave, Scott and I climbed to the top to take some pictures and wave at Oma, who we called the "pink beacon" as she was in an outfit of all hot pink.
We rented a whole Indonesian restaurant and had a 6 course meal with wine provided.
First course: pork pate wrapped in bacon (it was okay. Tasted great, but bad texture).
Second Course: Chicken, coconut milk, rice noodle, lemongrass, cabbage soup (INCREDIBLE!)
Third Course: Satay chicen skewers and homemade peanut sauce (Delectible)
Fourth Course: Two spicy beef dishes (one was too spicy), eggs in spicy sauce (nice balance), bean sin peanut sauce (too peanuty for me), chicken in green sauce (very tasty!), fish sauce (really yummy, but the fish still had skin which I found odd), rice served in a basket with a banana leaf.
Fifth Course: Coconut milk ice cream (sooo refreshing after all that spice)
Sixth Course: ice cream with strawberry sauce, and bananas cooked in brown sugar and cinnamon
Overall the food was awesome, but the experience was even better. We gave the host family a standing ovation, helped them prep some food and clean up the dishes. The whole dinner took 4.5 hours.
A little girl showed me her pet duck, Happy, who has to sleep with the chickens because the other ducks don't like him. (Somehow we communicated that through very broken English haha).
(Excerpt from a pamphlet: Construction of this leaning, curved and unfinished tower began in 1529. The original plan included attaching a new church to the tower, which would replace the old Saint Vitus church, but this was never realized. Master builder Jacob van Aken was unlucky from the start, because the tower began to sink during construction. In an effort to compensate for the tilt, it was decided to continue to build perpendicular on top of the leaning bottom. Because of this the tower is also curved. Construction was subsequently halted in 1533 and has never been resumed. The tower never reached its intended height of about 120m. Although the Oldehove has never been used for special purposes, it acquired a symbolic status nevertheless. Inhabitants of Leeuwarden are proud of their Oldehove. "I feel rather homesick when I cannot see the Oldehove", is a well-known saying in the local dialect.)
August 14 - Wedding Prep & Market
Most of the day was spent at the wedding venue making pompoms, taking stickers off bottles, assembling decorations, etc.
In the morning Dave, Scott and I met up with Jeff and Tyler to see the Barneveld market that happens every Thursday. We bought some cheese croissants and cheap sunglasses.
After dinner, some of us went to the Wijn Winkel at "The Hebberd". What a cool place and even cooler guy. He sampled us a great bottle of wine and then gifted us a 3L bottle of very expensive wine. He has a small shop and a large tasting room, and boy does he know his stuff! Such a treat to go there.
August 15
We got to meet Mom's half-sister, Lisa, from Wales. Opa DJ got remarried and had Lisa and Johanna, who we'd never met. Lisa was a pleasure to get to know. She's very cool, funny and looks like a De Jong.
We ate at Gribus again, where Jeff was so unbearably grumpy he left the restaurant before getting his meal. (I love that I felt this was worth noting in my journal. Must just be THAT out of character).
We spent a few more hours at the wedding site setting up tables and the bar, and putting flowers together. Dinner was leftover Indonesian food supplemented with lots more wine.
August 16 - Wedding Day!
We met up with some other family at a very cute restaurant called something like Ina's Eete_____". Soup, sandwich & kroket bun. Soo delicious! (I still think about this soup often and wish I could go back and have this meal again. It was so simple, but so nice to have some cozy homecooked comfort food).
Ceremony: It was outside in a field with cows in the background, paper balls hanging above, and white chairs. Thankfully there was no rain, but it was windy! Juanita came in riding on the front of Tom's bike which was super cute, and super Dutch! About half the ceremony was in English, which was unexpected, but much appreciated! The whole thing was very picturesque!
Cocktail Hour: After the ceremony everyone grabbed their chairs and brought them to the tables. There was champagne set out and a few toasts were done. The speeches were spread out nicely throughout the afternoon/evening.
Dinner: Dinner was buffet-style with bread, all sorts of salad, french fries and MEAT! The steak and salmon were to die for.
Bar: They had an open bar the whole evening, so things got a little messy by the end of the night. 250L of beer plus 16+ cases of wine plus rum for 170 guests! There was some sort of bucket going around with goodness knows what in it and straws for everyone to share - Thailand style. (This would NEVER fly these days!)
Dancing: Tom, being an event designer (or something), went over the top with the lights, sound, etc. We had so much fun dancing while 3 DJs, a saxophone man, and a live drummer played music. Danced until we were shut down by the police at 1:30am. The dance was inside a friend's helicopter hangar. Somewhere around midnight someone went to McDonald's and ordered over a hundred cheeseburgers, so suddenly there were cheeseburgers in everyone's hands. This is partying done right!
Photobooth: There was ones et up in the dance hall with a camera and remote and some props. We had a lot of fun and embarrassment going through the photos later on.
Fireworks: Reynold drove all the way to Belgium to pick up fireworks which were cool and exciting, but were over quick.
Drunkenness: Many of us were embarrassingly intoxicated, but one cousin takes the cake (I'll leave his name out haha). He made out with a lesbian and was found basically paralyzed in a ditch at 5am by some of the bridesmaids.
August 17 - From Holland to Germany
SO much fun reading through your journal off this trip! Man long time ago already but so nice to ‘experience’ it again through your younger self. Very special:)
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