Weekend at Texel, Oct. 6-8

On Friday I headed off for a weekend trip to Texel, the largest of the Wadden Islands on the north coast of Noord Holland (the province of which Amsterdam is the capital). It's funny that it took us 2 hours by bus and 20 minutes by ferry to get to the north end of the country. Since we left on Friday, I missed Casiotone for the Painfully Alone opening for the Veils in Amsterdam, as well as Al Gore at the Conference on Sustainability. This made me very sad.

When we got to Texel we got our rental bikes (back pedal brakes) and had to cycle to our hostel in the cold rain and wind. It felt more like bootcamp than a trip we willingly paid for. The highligh for many people was the all you can drink beer. This helped alot during the first night's Dutch games, which included games like shitting nails, eating stale gingerbread dangling from a string, and eating black licorice "Lady and the Tramp style".

Texel Island as seen from the ferry. It was rainy and grey, but the scene was very beautiful. I've seen many blue skys, green forests, and blue lakes, but I've never seen this many shades of grey.










When we arrived at Texel we were put up in a hostel, which felt more like camp. We got a room with bunk beds, so Jacqui, Brendan, Zim and I shared a room, along with Kyle. The rooms were supposed to be seperate sex, but we figured we're roommates back in Amsterdam, let's take our relationship one step further and share a room. Big mistake. Each night I was kept awake until 4am by very very very drunk boys, who did silly things and refused to listen to my sober voice of reason.

The next day we cycled around the country, which was brutal! The landscape is incredibly flat, so the wind makes it very difficult. I was blown off the path a few times and seriously considered pulling over and dropping dead. I did discover first hand that cycling along another person makes a huge difference, because they do all the work fighting the wind. Those pro-cyclists know their shit.


On Saturday we headed off to town to catch a boat and see some shrimp fishing (or "shrimping" as I called it). It rained all night, and when we got to the boat the entire town/dock was flooded!






























And when we came back from the boat trip a few hours later the water was gone!





























Shrimping on the boat. Who knew the Dutch had an industry based on shrimp?










After the boat trip we cycled through the trecherous, flat landscape...










To a sheep and goat farm. We were allowed to go in and play with the baby goats, who nibbled on everything. One even took a bite at my kneecap! There's nothing fleshy or delicious about that! I gave Brendan my camera and asked him to take a picture of me and the goats. I didn't know when he was taking these pics. I look like a seriously crazy person. The goats don't help.










On Saturday night a few of us brave souls cycled out to the beach for a midnight swim in the North Sea. The water was really cold, but after getting out the air seemed much warmer, making for a great beach night walk. I felt like I was in a Coldplay video.

The Dutch love golf; during orientation we played urban golf, and on Sunday we played field golf. The putters had little clogs on the end. Note again the flatness.













I wasn't exagerating when I said I had to put up with very very very drunk boys. When we got back to Pad22 Brendan and Zim were still drunk. Jacqui and I left them at the bus stop and walked home. They got home half an hour later, and took a nap on our hallway floor.