Holland: Feb 20-21 (Carnival!!)

Here is the first of the Holland updates!

After getting back from Prague on Sunday night, Tiny and I organized our stuff and hopped on a plane the next morning to the Netherlands! Everything went pretty smoothly, except that our Graz to Munich plane was late, so we had to run to catch our connecting flight to Amsterdam. Nothing like speed-walking from one end of the terminal to the other to get your dose of daily exercise!

Once in Amsterdam, we caught a train to Roermond, a small city in the south of Holland. It took us a couple of hours, but we had lovely views of the countryside flashing by. Tried to get some decent pictures, but the train speed gave me some unexpected effects…

Tiny & Teddy! Click to enlarge.

The seats were so comfy...:-D

Leaving Amsterdam.

Tiny was in Holland 2 ½ years ago, and stayed with a number of host families over 6 weeks. We stayed with two of them on this trip, and they really made us feel at home. Thank you! The first night, we had a big dinner with the S family. Their two kids had friends over and it was so nice to get to know everyone.

The following morning, we got ready to celebrate Carnival! Carnival is a crazy celebration that occurs in the three days in February. People dress up and go to parties, celebrating the last few days before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Catholic season of Lent. We got access to a whole collection of different facepaints, and I was given permission to do whatever I wanted with Tiny’s face! (Well, she is my roommate, so there were some limitations on the creative license…;-) This was the finished product (I did my own face too):

Purple is her colour!

Any kids in Calgary willing to
sit still when I get back??? :-D

 Our faces, however, were nothing compared to our host’s:

Our host getting her face done.

Her daughter had fun spraying the glitter on their faces!

Just Tiny & me...again. :-D

In Roermond, we saw some really crazy costumes! And awesome face paint. I think some people sprayed it on, it was so smoothly applied. At the end of the afternoon we watched them drop the “prince” into the water, signifying the end of Carnival. (The prince is actually just a dummy – nobody got wet!)

In the streets of Roermond.

The church.

Interesting wall we passed by.

Carnival bar! Crazy streamers.

 

 

 

 

 

The prince was thrown off this bridge.
It would be pretty cold for a real prince!