Wednesday, April 27

Today, April 27th, is King’s Day in the Netherlands – and since Tammy was feeling a bit under the weather, we decided on a whim to take a day trip from our hostel in Rotterdam to both Utrecht and Gouda. The biggest takeaway from the day, besides more affirmation that I love this country, is that different places celebrate King’s Day differently, and we were lucky to experience three versions of it.

First, in Rotterdam we actually saw very little festivities, other than businesses being closed and some orange clothes. We learned later that Rotterdam mostly celebrates away from the city center where we’re staying, which seems to fit Rotterdam’s outlier design and lifestyles compared to every place else we’ve seen. We ended up at Rotterdam Centraal, where we bought tickets to Gouda.

On the train, Noah sat next to a twentysomething guy that we eventually ended up talking to – and he helped convince us to go to Utrecht instead of Gouda! He was very nice and seemed to enjoy talking to Americans, and we were sad afterward that we didn’t get his contact info.

Utrecht impressed us from the train station to its main cathedral, and the atmosphere was definitely more palpable and oranger than we saw in Rotterdam. We were there late morning and it was clear that the city was just getting started on its King’s Day partying. The party vibe leaned more college, including boats with 10-20 partiers slowly floating along Utrecht’s main canal. Definitely happy we left Rotterdam!

But it got better for us. We were on the fence about stopping in Gouda on the way back, and we made the right choice by stopping. Gouda’s celebration felt far more local and family-based, with kids (and free kids games) everywhere, centered around Gouda’s cathedral. Noah did a few games, we had a nice lunch there, and we got some great pics of the scene. Gouda was my favorite for sure, and we almost didn’t go – a theme of our flexible trip.

We had another grocery-based dinner back at the hostel, and after Tammy went to the room to recover from her cold, Noah and I spent a couple hours in the hostel’s common area and bar, talking to the bartender (Gaston) and the teachers of a French high school group – and Noah was brave enough to engage a table of the French students for a few minutes to practice his French (and their English). The whole experience was very reminiscent for me and cultural for both of us, and I hope Noah’s cultural worldview is expanding in the process.

Tammy is still under the weather at the end of our long day, so hopefully things are better when we take the train (and our bikes) to Brussels in the morning.