Nicole Goes To Germany: The Netherlands

As previously mentioned, the city of Aachen is positioned almost exactly on the borders of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. This means that there is very little differentiation between the three in this area. My host Mom, for instance, goes shopping in the Netherlands -- the closest grocery store is in another country.
This also means that it is very easy to go new places for vacation. As my host parents explained, a huge amount of Germans flood into the Netherlands on certain vacation times and holidays. Apparently the two are different enough to make for an exciting trip while still being just around the corner.
We decided to join the rush this year, so my host parents, one of my friends and I piled into the car last Friday and began our three-hour journey to an apartment we had rented on the North Sea. As a Californian, it struck me as bizarre that people would willingly choose to go somewhere colder, windier, and wetter for vacation. My idea of an ideal trip is to somewhere pleasantly warm and calm. However, the trip turned out much better than I could have envisioned.
The apartment itself was the epitome of Dutch architecture -- the first floor was only accessible by a flight of narrow stairs that began at the front door and ended directly at the door of the apartment itself. When you left the house, you had to stand above the door on one of the narrow steps and lean down to the lock, as there was absolutely no room in the stairwell save for the stairs themselves. All the rooms were small, which didn't seem too odd as -as my host parents aptly pointed out- everything in the Netherlands is small. The counters were low, the fridge was minuscule, the steps were too small for normal feet, the ceilings were low... and so on. The room my friend and I shared was built all the way up into the sloping roof, meaning that one of the beds had only a foot or so of headroom while the other was a little safer (it's rather unpleasant to crack your head on a roof beam after accidentally sitting up on your bed.) Apart from that, it was the usual vacation rental; many of the appliances either did not exist or refused to work. My host parents spent around an hour trying to fix the old-fashioned pull-style toilet, and ended up sticking a cooking pot on top of the mechanism. I didn't ask how that helped.

It was relatively cold, but much warmer than we had anticipated. I bought my winter coat early to aid in my North Sea survival, only to end up lugging it around for most of the trip. The beaches we visited were only as cold as those in Northern California, if not a tad warmer. Although the others thought it was too cold for a beach, I felt perfectly at home.

Besides going to the beach and generally exploring, we also went shopping a lot as well as trying the local restaurants and food. I don't think I have ever complained about the presence of fried food, but this vacation brought me close. Every single piece of food I ate, apart from our meals at home, was fried. I had fried kibbeling (a local favorite, and rather good for fish and chips), french fries, fried mussels, fried calamari, a fried bratwurst, a fried rice patty, and even a fried banana. By the end of our stay I could have sworn the grease was leaking out of my pores. At home we ate more normally, with the exceptions being local foods that we decided to try. We bought a box of Dutch chocolate sprinkles (to eat on a buttered piece of bread,) lime-flavored yogurt drink (surprisingly good,) and even fat-free chocolate and vanilla swirl-flavored pudding in a carton. I could have sworn it was milk until my host mother glooped some into a bowl for me. We all agreed that, for a fat-free dessert, the pudding was a remarkable success.
And that's about it. We had a nice, relaxed vacation full of beach-going and fried food-eating, and went home early Halloween morning.