Friends, New and Newer, with a Night to Forget
My roommate at the hostel has been a perfect addition to the stay in Arnhem. He is Jos Walters, a previous resident. He grew up here during WWII and was ten years old by the end. Jos remembers the planes, the bombings ahead of the attack, seeing the sky “white with parachutes”, and still wonders “why did they land 10 kilometers away, when there is a perfectly suitable landing place just one kilometer away?”
I should have asked Jos if he felt that the botched Market Garden battle was worth the effort. In principle, I’m sure that the Dutch appreciated the idea of being freed of the Nazi presence. Given the choice of another year of relatively decent occupation vs. having three towns leveled in retaliation and facing a winter of starvation as refugees, I wonder if the local residents would have freely chosen the later?
In our conversation he gave the attempted excuse of "bad information", for the British landing site, but echoed the bewilderment that the British thought they could “take on” German tanks armed only with rifles and a few small cannons.
Walking from the hostel to the bus, winter was in the air. A crisp frost was on the ground, which didn’t seem to bother this draft horse.
Taking the train to Bruges, Brugge in Dutch, I realized that after several days in Holland there wasn’t a single picture of a windmill. So, with the first cluster sighted in the distance these few were captured.
These ended up being the only Dutch windmills for the entire journey.
The ultimate destination was Bruges, with a stop over in Den Hague. While climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, I met two great guys, full of spirit and energy. Barry van Jaarsveld is a South African lawyer working in Den Hague while Stefan is from Holland and works in Brussels. Barry met me at the main train station and took me to his home where his wife had prepared lunch.
They are both very warm and inviting. The roughly two and a half hours spent together flew by over Kilimanjaro stories and a great lunch. It was really fun to see Barry’s slide show of the Kilimanjaro climb. To see the experience through his lens reminded me of many experiences previously lost because I hadn’t captured that perspective.
The lunch went too fast and I left with the feeling of wishing we had a longer time to share. Barry and his wife are so generous with their honest warmth that it was like leaving family.
After arriving in Bruges, the first impressions were good ones and heading to bed anticipation of exploring in the morning was on my mind. This historic town seemed to promise a great day of exploring. However, meeting the morning would be a long act of patience, staying at the Bauhaus Hostel.
The locals complained to me that everything in town closes at 11:30pm and that there are no good bars or clubs for late night partying. (I’m thinking tourist thoughts of “perfect for sleep.”) Unfortunately, this was Halloween night so the hostel bar would be the exception. I was game until about mid-night, enjoying the Belgian version of their interpretation of an “American Halloween.”
Heading upstairs to my room, unfortunately the party followed. My bed was directly over this speaker and vibrated with each thundering bass beat. The building was old so a crack along the wall went right through the floor, providing direct access for smoke and noise to my bunk. I thought, “No worries, it will end soon.” At 5:30am I went down stairs to see what the party was all about. There were five people remaining, all employees of the hostel. I guess this was their excuse to blast music all night, for a change. The bar tender promised only about fifteen minutes more and the thumping continued for another two hours until the end of their shift. In the morning, at breakfast, there were many tired faces, fed up with the hostel. With a rotating, never to return, clientele the staff could have cared less.
The idea of walking away from another "pre-paid" night at Bauhaus Hostel crossed my mind, as Barry and his wife had made a suggestion for other accommodations, but given that I had already paid for two nights I opted to stay the course.
My roommate at the hostel has been a perfect addition to the stay in Arnhem. He is Jos Walters, a previous resident. He grew up here during WWII and was ten years old by the end. Jos remembers the planes, the bombings ahead of the attack, seeing the sky “white with parachutes”, and still wonders “why did they land 10 kilometers away, when there is a perfectly suitable landing place just one kilometer away?”
I should have asked Jos if he felt that the botched Market Garden battle was worth the effort. In principle, I’m sure that the Dutch appreciated the idea of being freed of the Nazi presence. Given the choice of another year of relatively decent occupation vs. having three towns leveled in retaliation and facing a winter of starvation as refugees, I wonder if the local residents would have freely chosen the later?
In our conversation he gave the attempted excuse of "bad information", for the British landing site, but echoed the bewilderment that the British thought they could “take on” German tanks armed only with rifles and a few small cannons.
Walking from the hostel to the bus, winter was in the air. A crisp frost was on the ground, which didn’t seem to bother this draft horse.
Taking the train to Bruges, Brugge in Dutch, I realized that after several days in Holland there wasn’t a single picture of a windmill. So, with the first cluster sighted in the distance these few were captured.
These ended up being the only Dutch windmills for the entire journey.
The ultimate destination was Bruges, with a stop over in Den Hague. While climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, I met two great guys, full of spirit and energy. Barry van Jaarsveld is a South African lawyer working in Den Hague while Stefan is from Holland and works in Brussels. Barry met me at the main train station and took me to his home where his wife had prepared lunch.
They are both very warm and inviting. The roughly two and a half hours spent together flew by over Kilimanjaro stories and a great lunch. It was really fun to see Barry’s slide show of the Kilimanjaro climb. To see the experience through his lens reminded me of many experiences previously lost because I hadn’t captured that perspective.
The lunch went too fast and I left with the feeling of wishing we had a longer time to share. Barry and his wife are so generous with their honest warmth that it was like leaving family.
After arriving in Bruges, the first impressions were good ones and heading to bed anticipation of exploring in the morning was on my mind. This historic town seemed to promise a great day of exploring. However, meeting the morning would be a long act of patience, staying at the Bauhaus Hostel.
The locals complained to me that everything in town closes at 11:30pm and that there are no good bars or clubs for late night partying. (I’m thinking tourist thoughts of “perfect for sleep.”) Unfortunately, this was Halloween night so the hostel bar would be the exception. I was game until about mid-night, enjoying the Belgian version of their interpretation of an “American Halloween.”
Heading upstairs to my room, unfortunately the party followed. My bed was directly over this speaker and vibrated with each thundering bass beat. The building was old so a crack along the wall went right through the floor, providing direct access for smoke and noise to my bunk. I thought, “No worries, it will end soon.” At 5:30am I went down stairs to see what the party was all about. There were five people remaining, all employees of the hostel. I guess this was their excuse to blast music all night, for a change. The bar tender promised only about fifteen minutes more and the thumping continued for another two hours until the end of their shift. In the morning, at breakfast, there were many tired faces, fed up with the hostel. With a rotating, never to return, clientele the staff could have cared less.
The idea of walking away from another "pre-paid" night at Bauhaus Hostel crossed my mind, as Barry and his wife had made a suggestion for other accommodations, but given that I had already paid for two nights I opted to stay the course.
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