Season's tales-Part 1

So its summer.Its quite unusual for me to normally get so delighted about the sun, as I've had 21 Indian summers and lets say I'm not a big fan of 42 degrees and 70pc humidity . But after I decided to experience the European summer for a change( Mum wasn't too happy, had to deal with a great amount of cajoling and convincing her to let me stay here) , I'm quite thrilled at the sweet surprises , planned and unplanned activities that are making my vacation so eventful and a plethora of adjectives. For the first time, I like the summer sun and for the rest I'm having such a wonderful time. Netherlands being in the world cup final , and the fact that I can watch the game here in Holland being the cherry on the topping.

I did plan a lot to do this summer, but sometimes some of the most spontaneous things turn out be awesome. When Felix, invited me to join him to sail on a Saturday with a group of friends , it sounded like a good idea. I'm a sailing dummy, so I wasn't too keen on embarrassing myself with the sails, but I thought at least I could swim or get towed if I choose not to be on the boat. And also it was with a great group of people so was something fun to look forward to. But now, I can assure you that all the adjectives in this piece are seriously understated, and the scaling factor to elevate their meaning is too high to decide.

I wasn't complaining too much when I woke up at 7 to get to Apeldoorn at around 10.30am , as proposed by the host. Pierre and I took the train at 9 , and as soon as the train moved dear Pierre happily dozed off for the rest of the journey, but it wasn't so bad to stare at the window and enjoy the surroundings on a bright sunny day

The boat was at Zwartsluis, which is about 65 kms from Apeldoorn, and a good hour's drive. We were received by Felix, Jelle and Sander at the Apeldoorn station with sunglasses and shorts , and Jelle was so nice to drive us back and forth. When we reached the dock of Felix's boat , it was such a pretty site with beautiful boats of all sorts neatly lined up, personifying the spirit of summer vacation.

The wind wasn't too strong so Captain Felix decided to turn the engine on , so before we set into the main water body, we waterproofed our electronics, put a big thermos basket filled with food and ice-cold drinks for a hot summer day, just like the way it should be. After a few minutes into the water, the sun was perfectly hot for a quick dip. So we anchored and started enjoying refreshing jumps into the lake. We were having so much fun as normal(read crazy) as a buncha of 22 year olds can have. I was refusing to get on the boat and preferred being towed, which can be quite tricky when you don't wanna lose your clothes to the current . I was quite lucky in that aspect. After a long swim , I was beginning to feel a little tired and my soaked hands and feet were getting slightly uncomfortable,so I got on the boat. Luckily after that the wind was getting stronger to open the sails, and I was watching uselessly, enjoying nevertheless, when the boys were working with the sails and maneuvering the boat. Chilling on the boat with a cold drink in the hand , waving at all the other happy people on the other boats, jumping into the water after the sun quickly dried the clothes, playing funny games with friends, getting thrown off into the water when one least expects, cooling down the warmed up beers underwater by tying a rope to the crate,and when the bottles get washed away, diving in to find them, and rejoicing after finding all of them in the bed, talking a great deal and laughing all the time without checking the watch, and playing titanic, annoying the ones happily asleep , trying to fish in absolute vain, were just a few things to sum up the whole boat experience. Its been a while a long time I experienced such a kind of child-like glee.. Just way too happy to bother about anything else.

The day was getter better and better. We were invited by Felix's family for a barbecue in their garden later that evening. After drying ourselves and bringing the boat back to the dock, we set off to Felix's place. His family house is really beautiful, and his family even more beautiful. We were greeted warmly by his parents and we sat in their lush green backyard, with inviting smell of charcoal with succulent meat ready to be served. I was the only non-Dutch among the 12 people there and they were so considerate and were trying to speak in English all along and constantly checking on me if I was comfortable . I was slightly embarrassed that it never occurred to me that Dutch people can be so polite and caring. I had such a good time, and was a great feeling to have dinner with a family. But after it started raining it occurred to me that I need to get home, they insisted on me staying over but I wanted to get back to Delft and Pierre like always was polite , din't let me go alone, accompanied me though he wanted to stay over.After dessert and goodbyes, we were dropped off at the station, and we took a train back to Rotterdam to get back to Delft, and if that happened it would've been a perfect story.

But whats the fun if things happen the way we want them to happen. Ten minutes after the train left Apeldoorn, it was halted because the cable were stuck by a thunderstorm. We were stranded for 1.5 hrs in the train, during which Pierre was enduring my endless chatter, only to be sent back to Apeldoorn. We made a call to Felix, to accommodate us and we took a cab and went back the house. The parents went to sleep and we joined the kids and friends who were happily talking in the garage. We finally set to rest for a few hours, and woke up quite early to get back to Delft. As expected the parents were pretty surprised to see me in the morning. They dint let us go without breakfast and Felix's dad, who has this reassuring wise doctor tone, drove us kids back to the station. It was so obvious that nobody was working on a day when Netherlands was in the final, so it was exceedingly uncomfortable to take a rail detour to get back to Delft.

I've had many holidays that I had great fun and many that had a very nice feel-good touch to them. This Saturday was the perfect mix of both and was one of the most amazing days for me in the last 11 months in Holland. I really saw a new face of Netherlands-with respect to people and places and I loved it. I'm so glad I have such fantastic house mates and I'm overjoyed about the fact that we are becoming such good friends, and also I can actually perceive the amount of fun we are going to have in the coming days. We can be such kids and I like it!!

For now, Hup Holland Hup!