April 9, 2011- As you may or may not know, Konyndyk is a very Dutch name. This means that I have a lot of Dutch heritage and for the weekend of April 9 and 10, I went and visited some distant relatives. I began my journey traveling to Utrecht where I met Sascha, my second cousin. While in Utrecht, we walked around the city looking at all the cool architecture and sights to see.
Utrecht is an older city and definitely has an old city feel to it. The church is in the center of the city with a huge tower rising above the city. The canals are much lower than the road in Utrecht with plenty of room on the side to walk around.
These are much different from the canals in Amsterdam or anywhere else for that matter.
While in Utrecht, we visited the Spoorwegmuseum which is the railway museum.
This museum focuses on the history of Utrecht’s railroad system as Utrecht is the center of train transportation in the Netherlands. It also showed the different types of trains throughout the past ranging from steam powered to coal to electricity. For lunch we ate at a nice restaurant that was outside. A big difference I noticed about the Netherlands and Europe as a whole compared to the United States is how many restaurants sit the customers outside. I really enjoy this style of restaurants especially on a nice day where the sun is shining with warm weather. You also get an excellent view of the city and occasionally get front row seats to a bagpipe show! As you may have guessed, that is exactly what happened to me.
The Beatrix Pipe Band began playing there bagpipes only a couple feet away from where I was seated. Another difference I noticed since living in the Netherlands is that there are many random occurrences such as a bagpipe band or street performers that cannot be found anywhere in the United States. Also while in Utrecht, we climbed the Dom Tower, the tallest church tower in the Netherlands with a total of 465 steps with no elevator.
While on the tour, I learned that the tower was actually the first part of the Dom church to be built. The church was built in three sections. But in 1674 the middle section of the church collapsed during a huge storm while the tower itself remained standing. The tower has a large collection of 50 bells with one weighing 8,200 kg!
These bells can play various songs and melodies depending on the desired song. People can also pay to have a song played and one person even played a song by Metallica! Once on top of the tower, I could see for many miles and could also see Amsterdam and Rotterdam!
This gave an excellent view of the city and also the countryside. After climbing down the tower and walking out, we found a group of Swedish? people dancing around hitting wooden sticks with each other.
This was a very odd dance but they made it all flow together. As we were watching them, a group of women all dressed in bright pink walked by. I asked Sascha what they were doing and she said it was a bachelorette party. Typically in the Netherlands, for bachelorette parties, everyone has to dress up in the same ridiculous costume such as monkeys or bright pink clothing. The point of this is to all look similar so that people walking by know that a woman is getting married. Utrecht is a very interesting city with a lot of different culture I have never experienced anywhere else. After all of this, we boarded a train and started heading for Sascha’s home located in Goor, 25 km away from the German border.
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