The Farmer Goes Dutch

It is now something like 11:30am local time. I just woke up and my body has no idea what is going on. The last 24 hours (or so?) have been a real whirlwind and I really have very little concept of how much time has elapsed since we started out journey to transfer from the enclave of family & friends in Plano, TX to a new group of family (and hopefully soon to be friends too) in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands. We were greeted at the airport by Jessica’s family. Her dad had borrowed a big (by Dutch standards) van which really helped with getting our huge amount of luggage (that’s another story)transported to our new home.

Our new home – wow! What can I say? Jessica and her dad coordinated on getting the rental agreement completed while we were still in TX and then he proceeded to coordinate with the local clan to collect various cast-off bits of furniture and furnishings for it. I figured that we would get here to find flea bitten couches, lumpy mattresses and a TV-table in the kitchen. To the contrary, we walked into a fully furnished, clean and ready to live in apartment furnished with some very nice, gently used furniture. I was literally amazed at the generosity of our friends and family here.

We lugged all the luggage up a couple flights of stairs to dump it in our room for later, crashed for a few hours of sleep and then woke ourselves up to start the new year’s eve festivities. Wow! What a welcome to Holland! Jessica had always complained about how lame our New Year’s celebrations have been in the past, but I don’t think anything in the US compares to the way they do it over here. When we arrived (something like 10am local time,) there was what sounded like sporadic gunfire all around us. I thought they were shooting ducks or something, but it turns out, the explosions were premature revelers lighting off gigantic firecrackers. That was nothing compared to what was to come. Throughout the night (as we hung out at Jessica’s cousin’s house) the general roar (punctuated by alarmingly potent explosions – apparently illegal bombs from Denmark) grew and grew as the hour approached. At midnight, we toasted to a new year in Holland and to friends then stepped outside to light off a few fireworks and enjoy the spectacle. It was like nothing I had ever seen. All around us, revelers were doing the same, but with significantly larger fireworks. It was like being in the center of a hundred fourth of July celebrations. We videotaped the din for probably something like 20 or 30 minutes before my hands were frozen and there was no sign that the fireworks were going to stop. The entire town was literally engulfed with fireworks and we could turn 360 degrees and see them going off in every direction (aside from the ones being set off right next to us that probably were damaging our eardrums.)The walk home was like what I imagine it would be to walk home through a Baghdad firefight and we retired to the sound of fireworks and explosions. By the way, I just have to say something about those Danish fireworks…they had to be HUGE. There were explosions that I literally felt in my chest (even though they were lit at some distance away and out of my range of vision.) These bombs had to have been somewhat similar to real bombs and make the “pop” of the explosions of the biggest US fireworks seem like a needle drop. In fact, I hear that every year, kids end up getting body parts blown off by these things. Wow. Now that is a celebration - and what a welcome to Holland!