This weekend has been a bit different than what I intend most weekends to be like. That is, I spent a majority of my time in the house, relaxing, and eating. I don't have a problem with that, but generally speaking, I assumed most weekends I'd be taking on Europe, one country at a time. This weekend pretty much the whole group decided to stay in the Zwolle area. Saturday a bunch of girls got together to watch the Harry Potter movies. It seemed like a great idea to try to watch them all, but alas, we only made it through about 2 and a half. Here's the deal: we intended to start at 10am, but didn't get to Lauren's until a bit after 10, and then waited for Katrina to show up with the movies. We waited, and waited, and waited. We called Katrina, and she said she was on her way, about a kilometer away. So we waited, and waited...
and still waited. Apparently Katrina's kilometers are a lot further away than the average person's.
Finally, we called her again, got the name of the street she was on, and after over an hour of waiting, Katrina arrived to Lauren's with the assistance of Lauren's host dad coming to rescue her. The plan was to watch the movies, eat some pizza, and chill in sweatpants (bright yellow, mind you). That all went down the tubes as we impatiently tried to change the language to English, realized we had the "kill yourself extended version" of the movies, and that pizza places didn't deliver, or even open, until after 4pm. Most people would just accept their pizza-less fate and make a sandwich. Not us. No, LaRae and I decided it was worth the 5 minute bike ride in the snow in our slippers and sweats to find pizza at the grocery store. Let me tell you, nothing screams American like bright yellow slippers and sweats frantically searching the grocery store for frozen pizzas.
But alas, we achieved our goal, watched some Harry Potter, ate some pizza, and chilled all day. Then we decided to take on the grocery store again to get ingredients for dinner and puppy chow. Apparently people don't eat chex mix, chocolate chips, powdered sugar, or more than 5 chicken nuggets here, because we couldn't find anything we needed. Maybe it was just the grocery store, but seriously-- no powdered sugar or chocolate chips!? We decided on making brownies with oreos in them and had fries and fish sticks for dinner. We then proceeded to go out on the town. You quickly learn that socializing trumps cold bike rides, that is, when you have a close bike ride. For some, even a slow clap, bribery, and peer pressure are not enough... sadly.
Sunday arrived and after a week-long battle, my immune system gave in and the cold virus took control of my body. After church, all I wanted to do was sleep, but of course I wanted coffee time, too. So, I sat and had coffee and appletaart with the family, and suddenly the door opened and in walked my oldest host brother, his wife, and their adorable baby. All sickness, tiredness, and bad mood left instantly as I watched the precious baby interact with the rest of the family. After some socializing and broodjes, I went upstairs and took a nap until dinner time.
At 12:29am (yes, midnight thirty) our time the Superbowl would be online and available to watch (that was what we had made the brownies for), but I arrived to the conclusion that socializing was not enough for me to bike 30 minutes at that time of morning and then back again afterwards. So instead, I wrote some more, drank some coffee, ate a brownie, let my roommate cut my hair, and went to bed.
That is not a typical weekend-- for American travelers or Dutch folk, but still, it was a good one.
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