Further Wanderings

I can’t believe this is my final entry! It’s probably going to be a pretty short one too, because A. I didn’t make notes for this portion of the trip, B. My memories of this weekend are pretty hazy and C. I’m writing it almost three months after the fact. Anyway, as fun as it was for me, you don’t want to spend THAT long reading about me playing rugby and drinking beer in the Netherlands, do you? It couldn’t possibly be THAT interesting, at least not without more pictures than I have to go with it…
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I’ll begin by apologizing for the title. But I just couldn’t resist.

When we last left our heroes, they were standing on the platform at Delft station waiting for a train that would take them in the direction of Maastricht.

Eric had printed out a nice routing guide for us that listed which trains to take, where to make connections, the times of the trains, and even gave several different options for how to get there. It all looked so easy. LOOKED.

I don’t even know if I have the energy to write about the trip to Maastricht… It took us about seven hours (as opposed to the four it was supposed to.) We took… I think six different trains. Due to scheduling problems, un-announced track maintenance work and general confusion (not least stemming from Dutch announcements on board) we visited the same station three times before finally getting to our destination. On the whole, it was fortunate that we had plenty of beer and stroopwaffels. They almost made the trip tolerable, but at one brief, terrible moment (when the near empty train stopped ten minutes out of the station in the middle of nowhere then reversed directions and returned to the station) we had to resort to the genever.
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Just in case you're wondering, the title of this entry comes from the invitation to my friends Eric and Diane's wedding, which was the prime reason for my stop in Holland. My longest air trip since crossing the Pacific in August ... [Continue reading this entry]