On Friday night (see pics above), we went out in Enschede to celebrate K.'s 25th birthday. (That's K. in the peach sweater). We met in the inburgeringsprogramma and are very good friends. What's strange is that she is the same age as my little sister (well, now technically a year older). However, I still think of my little sister as my 'little' sister and I feel that K. and I are the same age. That evening, we had ladies from ages 20 to 42 present. It's funny how friendship just melts away age boundaries. After a yummy dinner (again at C'est Si Bon), we went out dancing to work off the calories. First, we danced at a popular, colorful locale called Paddy's. While that is totally an Irish bar name, they actually serve really great tapas on the upper floor. Go figure. It's very popular and usually demands a reservation. The dance floor is hopping around 11 pm, but it doesn't really get crowded in the city until after midnight. I think young people sit at home and wait until it's 11 pm before they start getting ready to go out. Around 2 am or so, the problem became that there was not enough space to move, much less dance (see bottom left picture). So, we went to a different dance bar, just across the way, called Lunatic. According to the extremely honest bouncer, this bar is only really popular on Saturday nights. Anyhow, it had lots more breathing room AND one of those cool seventies floors which fascinate me. I like to just stand on it and watch the lights flash around me. However, I look like a dork doing that, so I usually start dancing. We were the first ones on the dance floor. Of course, it only takes one and then the sheep begin to follow, but it was never too crowded. What was really great is that the DJ picked up on what music we liked and played our favorite songs, so that made the dancing even more fun. The bars here close at 4 am. When we left, it was pouring rain and P. and I cycled K. back home, with her on the back of his bike (she came into town via other means). You see this a lot in Holland --people riding on the metal bar that covers the back wheel. This is difficult to negotiate, for both driver and rider, but both P. and K. managed despite the rain and late hour. Also common to spot are couples cycling hand in hand. P. and I are known to do this on occassion.
On Saturday night (see pics above), we went to T.'s 26th birthday party (that's T. in his new birthday cap in the top left corner). I made chocolate cupcakes on request. It's a great, easy-to-make, recipe from scratch. Easter is just around the corner and the stores are overflowing with chocolate eggs. You can buy these in a variety of flavors (e.g., hazelnut, praline, caramel, advocaat -a special yellow Dutch liquer) in big plastic bags. I found out T. really likes these, so I added them inside the chocolate cupcakes. It worked out very well -they melted and were nice and gooey inside. Note: don't use icing (they don't have American style icing here, but the cupcakes don't need it). I met the guy in the orange sweatshirt (he and P. share the same first name) for the first time that night. He is from Canada and it was like that scene in West Side Story where Tony and Maria see each other for the first time at the dance. The crowd went on mute and kind of melted into the background when I picked up on his oh-so-close to American accent. I migrated to his side and we chatted almost the whole night. He's here studying at the University Twente and we shared a lot of (North American) inside jokes, as well as, discussed the journalist merits and failings of Michael Moore. He's also 25 (maybe I'm just old for this crowd) and owns a boat with his girlfriend from the UK (ok, the girlfriend owns 2/3) which they spent 4 months fixing up in Florida and 4 months sailing around tropical islands. Did I mention he's 25? I'm suffering a bout of jealousy.
Interesting to note: none of the girls at the party were Dutch. If you look at the bottom two pictures, the girls on the left represent Russia, Spain, America (me!) and the two on the right are Brazilian. T.'s girlfriend (not pictured here, but in the top two pics from Friday night) is German. I'm wondering what's wrong with the Dutch girls that all the boys had to cross the border to bring us womenfolk back?
Addendum: I do have some really nice Dutch girlfriends here! I just thought it was funny that most of the guys were Dutch and none of the girlfriends were.
1 comment:
Hey!
Just checking back in- loved all the updates! Are you going to post a picture of your dress?
Or... you could just email a picture to long lost friends! :)
Talk to you soon and good luck with the wedding plans!
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