Trip to Texel

Saturday morning, I dashed out of my flat and caught a train to Den Helder. Course the train doesn’t go all the way to Den Helder, so I had to take a bus part of the way. Then a boat ride to Texel.

For most of you, these names probably mean nothing and look strange. Well, Texel is an island on the northern most section of the Netherlands. The landscape of Texel is flat, like the whole of the Netherlands. The island is beautiful, with large nature reserves and charming Dutch cottages.

In retrospect, the trip was more about people than places. Yes, the beach was great. The rain bitter, and the scenery a luscious green world of moss and leaves. But the people matter more.

I went with eight other exchange students. There’s Eric and I from the United States; Peter of Hungary; Julie (think Yooleea), a beautiful Czech girl; the dry humored German Karen; our wild Australian chick Shelly (I haven’t met a non-crazy Australian yet); Melek from Turkey; tiny Ivy, hailing from Taiwan; and Zoey of Taiwan as well. Nine in all.

Upon docking, we rented bikes. You can’t try to be Dutch without a bike. We cranked our pedals and headed towards the capital town of Den Burg. A short 15 or so kilometer trip landed us in a tiny tourist village. The shops were clearly geared towards tourism. Chocolate, cheese and clogs filled the elegant shops. I picked up two bottles of beer so the two bottles of cheap wine in my bag would have some company.

After exploring the quainter sections of Den Burg, we hopped back on our bikes and steered in the direction of the hostel we made reservations at. I believe it was about 10 kilometers away. Five minutes into the ride, the fabled Dutch rain dropped by for a visit.

My pants were soaked in no time, but the rest of me remained dry. Others didn’t fair so well. Peter’s umbrella was torn to shreds almost immediately. His jacket wasn’t waterproof. Most people became drenched in just a few minutes. I think Julie and I were the only ones with proper rain jackets. Yes, I’m working on cultural duality.

Well, we made it to the hostel and dried off. Had a quick dinner and with rain still dumping outside, pushed the cork in the first bottle of wine. Karen, Shelly, Julie and I downed the bottle, then joined the rest in the bar. We played a few rounds of pool. Met a guy who was some sort of skydiving guru. He’d been part of a crew that set some Dutch record. Ordered a round of beers, engaged in conversation and enjoyed ourselves.

We all made our way back into the dorm area and drank the three other bottles of wine. At this point, six of us were fairly drunk. Eric doesn’t drink, Zoey and Ivy weight less than 100 pounds, so we’d had a fair amount of wine. Melek and I were talking about some gibberish when she mentioned she wanted to go to the sea. Bold from wine, I agreed and arranged a trip to the beach. Really this amounted to saying, “hey, let’s go to the beach.” Everyone besides Zoey and Julie thought this to be a splendid idea, so we mounted our bikes once again and pedaled hard.

The night was beautiful. The sky was almost clear even. Not clear enough to see the stars, but clear enough for the moon to illuminate our path. We eventually found the beach, but that wasn’t enough. We wanted to go to a lighthouse now. One seemed close, really close. So we turned towards it.

Despite the lighthouse’s location being several kilometers farther away than we anticipated, we made it without problem.

Needless to say, we didn’t actually make it right next to the lighthouse. A security guard hopped out of his goofy car and stopped us. He told us we couldn’t go to the lighthouse, because they were shooting a movie there tomorrow. The guy was pretty ridiculous, trying to seem cool and do his job at the same time. Oh well, he spoke nice English. We made our way to the beach and wandered around, touched the fence. The security guard even drove down to make sure we weren’t getting into trouble. So much for our irresponsible drunken trip.

Ok, so the next day, we get up and have a traditional Dutch breakfast. Which means that it was alright, but not great. Bread, butter, chocolate sprinkles. Cheeses, sliced meat and plenty of coffee were in order. I nicked some bread with raisins for later. This turned out to be a good idea, since we didn’t eat another meal for ten hours.

Well we rode down the entire coast of Texel, saw a nice nature reserve. Unfortunately, Dutch nature reserves can’t really be compared to American nature reserves. The size of my country allows for huge amounts of space to be set aside, the Dutch don’t have that luxury. We passed quaint little house, villages even. Perfectly trimmed bushes, perfect flowers in the windows. A charming cottage. Lovely village atmosphere from another era.

And hey, I met my first rude Dutch person. See, Zoey’s front tire went completely flat, so we attempted to put her on a bus. Well, the bus driver would have nothing of that, and was quite rude. He actually told us it wasn’t his problem. Honestly though, he’s the first rude Dutch person I’ve met.

I’m told the Dutch are nice to foreigners mainly because they get to speak English when talking to them. I’m not sure of the legitimacy of this claim, but the Dutch have been exceptionally nice to me.

Ok, so after a few hours at the beach, a long bike ride, a ferry to the mainland, a bus to a train, a train to Utrecht Centraal Station, and a brisk walk home, our flatmates had dinner waiting. Fantastic. They made macaroni with a spinach, cheese sauce. A fitting end to a fittingly wonderful day.

I can’t say I saw numerous tourist sites on this trip. Didn’t visit a museum. But it doesn’t matter. This trip wasn’t about cramming sites into my overfull brain. No, it was about people. The bonds strengthened on this trip will last a lifetime.