Bant, National Parks, Museums, work and on to the next adventure!
Well the time has passed so quickly, I’m
having a hard time remembering what day of the week it is, month and how long I
have been here for – which must be a sign that I am enjoying life (I hope I’m
too young to start forgetting things, ha ha!).
I enjoyed all my moments in the Northern
part of Holland, apparently I was almost there for 8 weeks; can you believe
that? Tineke and Herma’s farm was an amazing place to spend 8 weeks enjoying
the Dutch life, weather, work and all around everything. These are two amazing
women that I have come to know and have a lot of respect for the way of life
they choose; Enjoy Life! Sure you can spend hours, days and long periods of
time working hard from sunrise to sunset, or you could slow things down and do
what you haft to do and then have time to do the things you want to do and love
to do. I hope to keep these life lessons and continue them through the
days. Also the food was really, really
good – don’t think I lost any weight, ha ha!
I also met an amazing volunteer at the farm
from Switzerland, Barbara. We got along great and she was quiet the character,
it was nice to talk freely with someone and have another women to talk to. She had come to the farm partly to get out of
the office for a bit, but also to improve her Dutch so that she could
communicate with her boyfriend and his kids in their mother tongue. We had a
lot of great laughs together and I hope to visit her one day in Switzerland.
When I wasn’t volunteering with these two
lovely ladies at their farm, I was working for a little extra coin on the side
at a Biological vegetable farm in Ens called Bio Romeo. Most of the time we
found ourselves walking rows, upon rows weeding between the vegetables.
Occasionally we were harvesting when large orders came in and packaging them
up! They also had some of the best tasting beets I have ever had!!
Here I met a large group of kids from 12-20
who were spending some of their summer vacation working to save some pennies
themselves. Most of them spoke English, although a lot didn’t let me know as I
think they were a bit shy, but some one on one time and they got a bit more
comfortable around this old Canadian girl. Then questions of what I do, where I
am from and why I am here all came out and the curiosity they had been having
finally answered.
This little extra cash on the side let me
get away and spend a bit more money on my downtime exploring what Holland has
to offer; I even went back to Leusden to visit the Bamboo farm on their “Open
Day.” It was really cool to see how green and big things had gotten since I had
left only weeks before and how the things I had helped plant were healthy and
growing, including the vegetable farm which was in full swing! But it also was
really nice to see Kyra, Erwin, Muuse, Lova and Jared again and to hear about
their spring.
Another weekend found me partying it up
with Tineke and Herma at a friend’s annual music and campout bash down my
Zwolle (was mentioned in the last blog), which was a great time!
For my birthday weekend I headed off to the
National Park De Hoge Veluwe for some camping, walking and biking. It was a
really lovely park, there were trails throughout it that went everywhere from
marshlands to forests to meadows and sandpits. Me and Mocha explored and
wondered around through the park, she even got a bike ride in the back of my
pack! It was really nice to be back in the forest and among the trees; I think
it brings me a bit of calm and peace when I am in these surroundings.
I
even got to explore the Kroller Muller museum, which is inside the park. This
holds the second largest collection of Van Gogh works in Holland. First you
weave your way through the sculpture gardens (and the rain), till you finally
find the museum (it took be a bit, I was doubting it was there!). Here are
collections of a variety of past artists in different styles that have been
collected and some truly amazing works! But to actually see Van Gogh’s works
right up close and personal was truly amazing. He was a talented artist that
went unrecognized during his time, barley scraping by and being almost fully
supported by his brother. Now he is one of the most recognized painters of that
time and I can see why.
The museum and park was actually bought by
a couple and set aside to both enjoy what the truly loved – nature and art!
Another weekend my friend Paula joined me
in Bant for the day and we were off to Emmerloord to enjoy the music festival.
A little rain on the bike ride there and some heavy rain while there, but
moments later the sun came out and you had to pull off some layers. There was a
variety of stands with crafts and what not and as you weaved your way around the
park more stands with food and crafts emerged and a variety of stages hosting
all kinds of musicians.
We even got to sit down and enjoy some
typical Dutch music, which is a bit hard to come by as you mostly hear English
(American) pop music. It was really nice.
But my time at Buiten Bant with Tineke and
Herma has come to end and I am off on my next journey to do some Biological
fruit farming for two companies in two different locations from August till the
end of October. But first a few weeks of
camping in Holland and a long weekend camp trip in Belgium with Paula, more to
come on that next time…..
(Veluwe National Park)
Go to the website below to see the farm and people I was working with in Bant and all of us harvesting the Kale. (Video is on the right hand side)
