Friday, June 25, 2004

HOLLAND TRIP PART 3: Fun, Fantasy and Farewell

A.k.a Venlo, Veghel and Very Nice Jumpers!; Games, Gollum and Goodbye; etc On the morning of Day 6, we were set to wake ourselves up at about half six in the morning. Which basically meant that I set my alarm and tried to haul everyone out of bed. This seems like a plan with no drawbacks… except when you take into account the fact that male drama students are harder to rouse than people in comas. Actually, waking up Tim was no problem. Next, I came to Steve, who said emphatically that he wanted to be woken up at 6:30. I sat on his bed and poked him on the shoulder. Nothing happened. I poked harder, and more voraciously. Nothing happened. I poked even harder, faster, and more voraciously, and on his face. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and rolled over. “Bastard.” I grab his shoulder and shake it. Very. Hard. Steve leans up and looks at me with bleary eyes. “It’s 6:30.” “I was really drunk last night.” “Er… yes.” “What is it?” “You wanted me to wake you up at six-thirty, remember?” “Robbie-” “I’m Hugo.” “Oh… I’d rather sleep in, thanks.” “Right. Okay.” The showers in the Youth hostel were awkward, to say the least. There’s nowhere to put your clothes, so you have to hang them over the doorframe. Thankfully, my trousers had lots of pockets, so I could shove most of my stuff inside them and sling them over without much fear of them slipping into the poorly-drained cubicle. The water temperature was incredibly erratic, controlled by two taps. And the temperature’s boiling hot until you use any little bit of the cold tap, at which point it still stays boiling hot until you actually let go of the tap, whereby it freezes your various appendages off. After a brief chorus of seething, yelping and shivering, I struck a balance. With my fist. Shower had (more or less), I went off to rearrange my bags so that everything I needed in the right ones were in the right ones and so on, then made my way down to get my takeaway breakfast, which I found out we didn’t need because we were actually leaving an hour later than I thought we were. But we managed to scab a second breakfast off them too ^_~ Their bread rolls and jam are very very nice. But after the fifth day you do start hankering for something with a little more… something-that-isn’t-bread-and-jam-ish. We arrived at the Central Station by tram, my squeaky wheels squeaky-wheeling their way all the way to the echoey depths of the Metro station, where I got fed up and picked up the bloody thing. We then went back to the school we had coffee at on Friday for… more coffee. We were then due to head to Zwolle. I can’t remember much of Zwolle, but since we had no accommodation there we didn’t have to stay long. Or, more appropriately, we couldn’t stay long as we had to get all the way up to Venlo before the evening. I think the workshops went alright; I honestly can’t remember. Venlo Ho! Venlo is a lovely little-ish town in Holland. The end we came through to get to the college/school thingummy isn’t amazing, but once you get into the centre it looks really nice. I think this was the nicer bit of Holland that John was telling me about. It’s worlds apart from Amsterdam- I actually felt safe here. But then, nobody had warned me about there being pickpockets in Venlo, so maybe I wasn’t conscious of it. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose… I’d stayed on my own with a host family once before, but I was still a little apprehensive about doing it again. When there’s someone else with you, you feel that much less isolated. I suppose… on my own, I almost felt like a burden at times with the way that they so kindly went out of their way for me ^_^; I know they probably didn’t see it that way, but I hate treading on people’s toes. Anyway, we were split up, shovelled around the room and asked to sit with out host family partner, which we did. I think it made everybody tense for a while. I was on a table with Lucinda and Robbie and their partners, so it’s not like we were taken away from each other completely. It’s just being throw straight off the coach into it that got rather disorientating. And I’m generally shy with people anyway… I was actually really worried about that night at first- I didn’t seem to have anything in common with the girl I was staying with, and she didn’t know as much English as a lot of the others I was used to talking to. So communication started off difficulty, heh. But it got better ^_^ Later on, we went for a walk into Venlo itself, where we were trying to look for an Irish pub. So we sat outside a Spanish bar for a while. O_o; I bought myself an Irish Coffee (from the Spanish bar) and Lieke (my host family partner, as it were) some Sangria. I had no idea whether she’d be allowed to drink or not, but I figured it’d help break down barriers. Some fun with Steve’s cigarettes ensued when he turned around to talk to someone- I discreetly hid them underneath my hand. When he noticed my smirking, I gave them back. I don’t normally do things like that; I just feel compelled to act a little silly from time to time. It was at this point that I was properly introduced to Maddie (and Emmelie as well, I think- I know she and Laura came along at some point), who were sat with Jez. The Irish Pub was, in fact, very similar to the Spanish bar, but it had a massive ‘Guinness’ beer sign outside it. And it looked much darker inside. Lord of the Shops: The Gawper of the Shop Jez arrived at the Irish pub about half a minute or so behind everyone else, and told me that I had to see this shop that he’d looked at. Maddie, Emmelie and Laura took me, and... It is amazing! They sell hundreds of Alchemy Gothic items- so many I can’t even begin to list what they were. Dragon/Crystal statues, chess sets, pendants, rings (including one huge one that goes over your entire finger in a fantastic gothic style… that was expensive, but very very cool), and they had Lord of the Rings swords, LotR-style clothes, board games, figures, statues… everything you could want, heh. I could easily have spent so much money in there… …were it not closed. We went back to the Irish Pub and talked for ages about anime, music and all sorts of things, and I gave them Art of Life to listen to. We didn’t have enough time to get to the best bit, though- just after the extensive piano solo, heh. That single verse is my favourite bit in the entire song. Damn, I want to listen to it now >.> Alas, eventually we had to part and go off to our host families. In the car, on the way ot the house, I was relieved to hear that Lucinda would be staying nearby, and that we’d be going out together in the evening. My host family didn’t know a huge amount of English (mind you, it’s infinitely better than my Dutch), which added to a slight feeling of isolation I was getting. But with the parents and aunt there I relaxed a bit more. Once conversation’s started and the ball’s rolling, I’m generally in. It’s getting started that’s the hard part. The host house was very cool. They have chickens and a really big treehouse. It’s got camouflage netting over the top, heh ^_^. And their rooms are so big! The house probably has less floor space than ours, yet has rooms that seem so much bigger. I guess it’s economic design. But there was another spiral staircase, heh ^_^; I’m a veteran of lugging huge suitcases up them, now. Still not very good at it, but a veteran nonetheless. AISU CREMU! Yes, ice-cream! The place we went to had been voted as having the best ice-cream in Holland two years in a row, and with bloody good reason. Simply amazing. Even Carte d’Or could learn a thing or two from these guys. I had two scoops of strawberry and yoghurt flavour- lovely. After choosing we went out onto the patio at the back where we met Lucinda’s host family. It was a lovely evening. The patio overlooks a wide river, down which a ferry service helps people commute to and from work across the area. Otherwise they’d have to drive fifteen kilometres to get somewhere that’s only really 1km away from their house. My bed for that night was a modified sun-bed. I was rather wary about sleeping only twelve inches away from a set of UV light bulbs. But I didn’t smash it ^_^ Early start next morning: We had to present certificates, do two workshops, then it was on to our penultimate performance. Away With Words Away With Words was the name of our cabaret-style show, and comprised of many different things. This was the runing order: -Kicking the whole thing off was Tim, reciting ‘Oh to be in England’ -Then the company sings three songs about London: Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner, Lambeth Walk, Any Old Iron. -Celia takes Westminster Bridge, by Wordsworth -The company starts again with Oom-Pah-Pah -After that comes my ‘Shall I compare thee…’ -Lawrence, Camilla, Steve and Ceila sing ‘Tea for Two’ -Robbie, Tamar and Steve act out a poem called ‘To those I shall never meet’ -Tamar and Steve sing ‘Can’t Take That Away From Me’ -Celia recites Rhubarb Ted -The whole company performs ‘Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners’ -Jason and Steve perform a poem about a reflection (can’t remember its name) -The two of them then sing ‘Me and My Shadow’ -Holly recites ‘Sunflakes’ -Short verse of a song from Blood Brothers, performed by whole company, moving into: -‘First Day At School’, where we all have to pretend to be schoolchildren. This is where the thumb-sucking came from, heh. -Huge Musical Number (performed by everyone except Robbie): Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! After the performance, we had half an hour to spare. Jez and I ran off with Emmelie, Maddie and some of their friends to the fantasy shop, which was gloriously open. I managed to buy a ring, and very nice it is, too. It’s a dragon skull with one beaded eye. Lovely, but you have to be careful put it on after jumpers and whatnot, otherwise the horns rip all the way down the inside of your sleeve >_<; Football Frenzy The town we stopped off in to do shopping I can’t remember the name of, but I went off with John and we walked around the city looking in shops and buying clothes. I found a lovely blue and grey slim-fitting jumper for €9.50! Great value, hehe. And the town itself was a beautiful place. Somewhere I wouldn’t mind being if I were to live in Holland, I think. It has a relatively large shopping centre and a trading card shop- the first I’ve ever seen. It was PACKED with people trying to trde Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Unfortunately I didn’t bring mine with me, so I couldn’t scab an End of Anubis or Ghost Knight of Jackal -_-; Veghel was the next stop, where we would watch the Holland-Germany match of Euro 2004 with gusto… or beer. Or a trampoline, if you didn’t fancy drinking or football. We had to watch out for the dog, though. A little terrier thing (dubbed ‘Schwinehund!’ by Tamar) would try and jump on or bite you from the underneath. Not a particularly nice dog, but has good comedy value. I’m not lending another shirt to Jason again if he’s wearing face paint. I couldn’t get the damn stuff off. Thankfully, the host family I was staying with soaked it in some soapy stuff for me ^_^ I was very appreciative, heh. The barbecue wasn’t awe-inspiring, but there were some nice chicken and pineapple kebabs there, and the burgers were nice. A lot of us spent the last portion of the night lying on the trampoline serenely, all of us slowly sinking towards the middle to end up in a big huggy mess. And ‘Huggy’ is now my pet name, courtesy of John. The host family we were with this time had not one but two spiral staircases for me to lug my suitcase up (oh yes, I loved this place), with Lawrence in tow. He and I were up talking for hours in the attic-like area of the house, with a small door right next to Lawrence’s bed. We assumed it was just an airing cupboard. Thank god we didn’t look inside… The next morning, we’d just woken up, and were about to get out of bed when the ‘airing cupboard’ door opened, revealing a 14-year old girl. She smiled, said “Good Morning” and went downstairs. Apparently the looks on our faces were priceless. It was hard to imagine going home. Once we were in Holland, it seemed like we’d been doing it forever, almost as if it was all we’d ever known. And for a while, it was nice almost letting yourself believe that it wouldn’t end, because you had another day or so to relax and not worry about anything. We all connected so much; I don’t regret going one bit. There was really only one thing that soured the memory, and that happened on the very last day. I won’t go into it now- it was nothing to do with me and was fairly personal, but the fact that it happened shocked and dismayed all of us. Well, almost all of us. The flight home was almost as terrifying as the flight there, but this time I had John to distract me, and we had turbulence coming back into Gatwick. Sunny skies- there were just clouds on our flight path. Bastard things. I’ve never read the Daily Mail so intently in all my life. But I did look out of the window all throughout take-off, and I looked out whenever someone saw something interesting out of the window. So I’m getting there, step by step. I loved going to Holland. There were times I might have liked to avoid, and times where I might have liked to do more, but it was a great trip. And there’s no reason why I couldn’t go back with someone. Or go somewhere else with someone, on a similar adventure. It’s put a taste in my mouth, I must say. I was always thinking about going somewhere away from the UK for a while, and now I believe I can actually do it. Going on my own would be a bigger step still; I don’t know if I’m quite ready for a plane flight without someone to grasp hold of, but I’d be more willing to give it a try. Anyone want to fly with me?

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