Llew Wanders the World

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 had got off to a wonderful start. I’d made friends with a Lufthansa gate agent and got myself upgraded to business class for the eight-hour flight to Frankfurt from where I’d be heading on to Amsterdam. Despite leaving at 02:25, I still managed to stay awake for almost all of the flight to fully enjoy the fruits of my upgrad seat. The wide selection of movies were all pretty poor, but the Gin! and tonics flowed freely and it ended up being an okay trip.

After a confusing time (and I swear, it was confusing because of the odd location of the departure gate and the weird immigration setup, not the Gin! and tonics) navigating Frankfurt airport I got myself aboard my second, much shorter flight.

I’d been asleep for the approach to Frankfurt, but was awake for this one. Seeing Holland’s flat, bright green farm fields and its busy motorways came as something of a shock after six months in the brown-coloured chaos that was pre-monsoon Asia.

I disembarked, found my bag and set out to tackle the unfamiliar jungle of an urban area in the developed world.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is wonderfully connected by public transport, so getting into the city’s centre was no problem (though the cost of the ticket was the first of many “price shocks” that awaited me in Europe following my 6 month Asian stint.)

Once in town I took a quick look at my e-mail to see if my friend Bill had written me and said where he was staying. He hadn’t, so I just found myself a hostel near the station andst about the important task of having a rest. My rest was only slightly unsettled by a second, much grander price shock. The cost of a bed in a 4-bed dorm in Amsterdam could have got me about ten days accomodation in Pakistan. True, the standard of cleanliness was more than a bit higher but, not for the last time, I found myself wishing I could have a cheap dirty room with a filthy, toilet-paper-less, cold water bathroom for one tenth the price. I think must have been getting used to Asia.

After my nice nap was complete, I woke up, showered, dressed and headed out to the first event of the wedding schedule. Eric’s parents were hosting a dinner that evening in Amesterdam in honour of the couple, and I was very excited to attend.

I walked through Amsterdam’s beautiful streets, along canals, past flower markets and after perhaps 20 minutes arrived at the appointed restaurant. I was rather early, so just stood around outside for a bit. As I did, I realized that a group of people on the patio in front of the place looked pretty familiar. I walked by once, trying to get a closer look at their faces, but couldn’t reach a conclusion. On my second pass the young lady at the table said “Llew?” Ah. SO I guess it WAS Eric’s sister mom and mom’s partner. In my defence, I hadn’t seen any of them for years.

I sat down and helped myself to my first Dutch beer, a delicious Wit (white) beer. As we sat on the patio sipping away and catching up, further guests began to arrive. My good friend Bill wasn’t too long in appearing, and the moment I saw him I jumped up and threw myself at him, giving him a hug and a head butt in the nose all at once. He was happy to see me anyhow.

After a bit we all headed inside and sat down for dinner. The guests of honour were a bit late arriving, but it was worth the wait to see Diane again, and especially to have the old SR4 (if you don’t know, don’t bother asking) roomates together once again. (Yes, it’s an unflattering picture, but given the three people involved managing a pic that flattered all of us would be well nigh impossible.)

With the soon-to-be bride and groom there, the party finally got into full swing. Round after round of beverages was produced, and before long the place had run out of “large” beer glasses. It is a curiosity that the Dutch most commonly drink their draft brew in the form of biertjies, 200ml glasses which come poured with lots of head. Thus when the waiter asked any of the Canadians in the party whether they’d prefer a normal beer or a large one, the response would be “a normal, by which I mean large, one.”

The dinner was lots of fun but not near enough for most in attendance. The rowdy crowd headed out into the streets of an Amsterdam Wednesday night and were soon confronted with a distressing reality: almost all of the bars were closed. Thankfully we did manage to find one place that would take us. The dance club even offered everyone a free shooter if we went inside.

The rest of the evening proceeded in a hazily entertaining fashion. Key recollections were Eric’s 13 year old cousin being chatted up by unwitting Dutch men twice her age (at least I hope they were unwitting) and the fact that the DJ played Paradise By the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf.

The party broke up at perhaps 03:00. Bill headed off to his hostel in the park, while I headed back to the station area with Eric’s brother, sister and sister-in-law, intent on getting at least a little sleep before being woken by Bill the next morning for our departure to the wedding site.

Much to my surprise Bill actually DID show up at the appointed time and place, and we headed down to the station in surprisingly good shape. We ran into some of Eric’s family there and the lot of us headed to the pre-booked hotel in the town of Gorencheim. The pronunciation of Gorencheim was a cause for much confusion and amusement; It’s actually pronounced (and I don’t even know why I’m bothering to try): Gchoringhem.

Once at the hotel, the previous night’s festivities were resumed. Everyone took trips to a nearby supermarket (Bill came back with 2kg of oranges, spice cookies and a bottle of Genever [Dutch Gin!]) while I joined Eric’s family on my run and shared a sense of awe with his brother Chris over the availability of 12 Bavaria Lager for 2.69 Euros plus deposit.

The evening continued as you’d probably expect. Or at the very least as people who know Eric, Bill, myself and Eric’s family would expect. We sat out on the patio occaisionally returning to our room to re-fill the hotel glasses with store-bought beers, only heading inside when dinner time came. At dinner I was delighted to debut the gorgeous silk smoking jacket I’d hade made for myself in Thailand, but sadly neglected to take a photo (you’ll have to wait for that one.) After dinner everyone retired to various hotel rooms not for sleep, but for further revelry. Bill and I joined Eric along with several family members for a long game of Poker in the Bridal Suite (Diane would be showing up the next day… If she’d been there that night I doubt if even we would have had the gall to keep her fiance up playing poker and drinking on the night before their wedding.) After Eric’s sister Meghan delivered a thorough thrashing to all of the men at the card table we figured it was time for bed and retired for the night.

The next day was the big one. It took Bill and I a while to get ready, but I must say that we cleaned up pretty good. We headed outside and waited with the rest of Eric’s family as the bride’s side began to arrive. Once the crowd was gathered, a bus showed up to take us to the site of the wedding itself:
Castle Lowenstein.

Yeah, you read that right. They got married in a castle! How cool is that?

The bus trip didn’t take too long. When we showed up the last of the normal visitors were departing (Lowenstein is actually somewhat significant in Dutch history, and plays host to tourists and school outings when it’s not hosting my friends’ weddings.) Everyone stood outside the entrance to the keep and anxiously awaited the arrival of the bride, who hadn’t taken the bus but would be arriving separately a bit later. Most anxious of all was (I assume) the groom. I really don’t like brown suits, but somehow Eric managed to make his look good. As I noted at the time, he hardly looked goofy at all.

Finally the bride arrived and everyone filed inside, climbing the steep stairs up to the chapel where the ceremony would take place. It was actually a pretty tight squeeze inside. This was partly due to the fact that it wasn’t a big room, but also to the fact that, with 50 or so guests, this was a very large wedding by Dutch standards. Dutch weddings are usually civil ceremonies attended only by close family and a few very good friends. They’re informal affairs (this was reflected in the dress of the guests: the Canadians in their suits, ties and evening dresses, the Dutch in their khakis and polo shirts.)

The ceremony was conducted by a wonderful old justice of the peace, who did her best to do all but the most official portions of it in English for the benefit of the overseas guests. It was short, but very, very sweet, both because of the beautiful location and the wonderfully, blissfully, happily obvious love of the bride and groom.

After the ceremony the guests were invited on a tour of the castle, or to go have a drink in the cellar. You’ll doubtless be surprised to learn that Bill and I opted for the tour, during which we saw the whole interior of Lowenstein and learned about its history as a prison (Hugo De Groot, a Dutch constitutionalist was imprisoned there and eventually smuggled himself out in a wooden box used to transport books in and out of the prison.)

The reception was, as you’d expect given the attendees, a great party. Bill and I were ceated at a table with other friends of the bride and groom, and had a nice time talking with them during the delicious buffet dinner. Unlike a traditional wedding, there were only a couple of VERY brief speeches before the meal, leaving everyone to get down to the serious business of enjoying themselves.

After dinner was complete, Bill and I could get down to the most important part of any SR4 reunion: the beer die game. We’d spotted a promising table outside the banquet hall near the bar, and had managed to convince a couple of Eric’s rugby teammates to join us for the game. It was a very, very, sloppy affair with a lot of terrible missed catches and bad throws showing how rusty we were. Nonetheless, everyone had fun and really got into the spirit of the game, with Bob and Bill quite properly obeying the pants rule at game’s end.

There was a brief interval between games when we headed back into the ballroom for the evening’s entertainment. Instead of speeches, the Dutch have a wonderful tradition of songs and skits being presented during the dance portion of the reception. They were an entertaining bunch of artistic endeavours, and they even convinced me to sing along to the story of Eric and Diane, presented in Dutch to the tune of Mambo Number Five (a song that, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have anything to do with.)

The evening carried on with a second game of beer-die, this time involving a pair of Diane’s cousins. They were, perhaps, a bit young for the game, being 15 and 16, but this was Europe after all. And besides that, they played at least as well as the vetrans. Much better, in fact, than Bill, who (shame of shames) dropped out of the game near its end. Actually, the true shame of shames arises from the fact that he was replaced by yet another one of Diane’s cousins, 14 year old Martje. I have to admit to being happy she only had less than one beertjie before the game ended, both because I felt guilty about corrupting youth (though no one else at the party seemed worried about this) and also because she was just too good, making the only sink of the evening and shattering my little Warsteiner flute in the process.

Bill and I finished off the evening with a little dancing. Somehow he managed to remain upright for this (in this instance by holding on to Diane’s mother, who was a very amused by it all) though couldn’t quite repeat the task for the walk back out to the waiting bus. I’d told him to take it easy on the wine during dinner.

At this point, I’ll apologize to Bill for the number of embarassing (to anyone with a sense of shame, his possession of which is doubtful) stories and photos of him that have been and will be presented. I’d happily provide some about myself, but I’m hardly an impartial observor, so I’ll inivite master Dolan to have a turn as a guest writer and even the accounts if he so desires.

Carrying on:
Everyone was pretty worn out by the three straight days of celebration, to things were surprisingly subdued back at the hotel, with pretty much the whole crew heading straight to bed.

The next day, Bill and I packed ourselves up, said our goodbyes to Eric’s family and headed down to the train station, destined for Delft, and a reunion with our third roommate and his new bride (now THAT is a good friend, not to mention a good wife… A pair who take the time to visit with old friends on the DAY AFTER THEIR WEDDING.)

We arrived in Delft and wandered through it’s pretty streets to the central square, where we checked into a hotel. After a bit of wandering around town, we gave Eric a call and sat down in one of the town’s gorgeous public squares (the unromantically named Beestenmarkt [livestock market]) to await the arrival of he and Diane. As we waited we enjoyed a pair of stroopwaffels (a Dutch specialty, delicious thin waffle-pancak-like-things filled with sweet thick syrup) as well the Netherlands’ liberated public drinking laws that allowed us to wash them down with a few Albrecht Heijn (a Dutch supermarket chain) Witbiers.

Eric and Diane arrived and we removed ourselves to one of the patio areas of the square, where we had some actual GOOD beer for a change (note the smoking jacket making its belated photographic appearance) before decamping and heading to a restaurant alongside one of the canals for dinner.

After dinner Diane decided to head home and left her new husband to the mercies of his former co-habitants. We had a very entertaining evening on the town, though I won’t go into to many details. We spent a good chunk of the time playing penny hockey at a typical Dutch establishment (typical, of course, save for the young Canadian men playing penny hockey) and then playing darts at an Irish pub (Bill looks MUCH more sober in this photo than he actually was.) Somewhere near the end of the evening Bill disappeared, only to re-join us as we arrived at our hotel and found him sitting on the ground outside being questioned by the police who apparently refused to believe that he was staying there but didn’t have a key. I have a feeling that the officers were relieved to let us take him inside and thus not have to deal with him themselves.

The next morning Bill and I weren’t a pretty sight. I was happy enough though, having found a slice of pizza in my pocket from dinner the previous night.

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed, and out into Delft’s lovely central square (the hotel that we stayed at was located right on the square, and was still reasonably priced, despite having doubled its rates since I stayed there a few years back.) From the square we headed to the tram station and thence to Eric and Diane’s apartment. We found the happy couple in the process of making smoothies for breakfast, an absolutely delightful discovery in that we were invited to come in and join them.

After a bit of a visit, and the unpacking of some luggage (I planned to be back, and thus took the opportunity to store some of my less useful items at there place) it was time for Bill and I to head out. We’d made plans to head down to the southern Dutch town of Maastricht, and then on to Belgium, and it was already getting late in the day.

Eric very kindly drove us to the train station, even stopping at a grocery store on the way, giving us the chance to pick up some refreshments for the upcoming journey (just for the record, this is a posed photo. Our refreshments included neither the Scotch nor any of the obscure Dutch liqeurs offered for sale at this vending machine.)

We arrived at the train station just after noon, where Bill and I said our (temporary) goodbyes to our former roomy, leaving him an understandably very happy man, and leaving us feeling very lucky to have such a wonderful friend, AND such a wonderful and understanding friend-in-law.

Thanks to.. Oh.. Um… How about Eric and Diane Quinlan. It’s not every day you get to see one of your best friends get married, and I’m really really happy that they chose to share their special day with Bill and I, especially since they certainly knew what sharing it with us would entail 🙂

Tags: Netherlands & Belgium

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2005 at 11:33 am and is filed under Netherlands & Belgium. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.