Last week, Bruce and I went on a 3-day driving business trip, north of us, to Holland, Belgium, and then driving down through Luxenburgh, into France.
Our first destination was Hellendoorn, a little quaint town in the Netherlands. To get there, we drove mostly through Germany. The Fall scenery was gorgeous everywhere we drove. We saw vast forests of evergreens in groups on either side of the highway, alternating with groups of hard wood forests with their green color of the summer giving its way to different shades of browns , yellows and reds of the Fall.
In Holland, one cannot miss noticing that most of the Dutch, (at least in this little town we stayed), of any age, and under any weather conditions, ride their bikes to get to school, work or to the shops in town. Of course, mind you that Holland is very flat. For example, if you happen to see a little hill springing out of the flat fields, not even reaching the height of a 3-4 storey building, it can be considered ....to be...a "mountain".
Driving along the highway, we saw a number of very extensive "green house" compounds, where they heavily grow tulips which as we've heard, are exported to the rest of the world. Tulip carries a long history from the past, when there were times that one tulip would be sold for astronomical amounts of money or traded for high value objects. this way, the tulip became over the years the trade mark flower of Holland.
Being in Holland felt so much like home...English (as well as German) is being spoken everywhere, by almost everybody, and I could say that the Dutch are very nice, hospitable and people with a great sense of communication, friendship and proffessionalism, whenever applicable. And Dutch as a language, can be easily picked up and understood, as a great number of words are and sound very similar to the English ones, as Dutch is almost a combination of English and German with a few differences in spelling.
I am not sure what the story is in regards to celebrating Halloween in this part of the world. We've seen Halloween decorations everywhere, whether in France, Holland or Belgium. Specifically in France, it's associated with the All Saints Day, marked on October 24th, when an almost 2 week school vacation (which varies from one school zone to another) starts. In some places, depending on local traditions, Halloween is on November 1st when the kids go around wearing just masks, and singing songs about candy, and they are given candy. In general, Halloween is a relatively "new tradition " for France, that was introduced to the French a few years ago, and it's believed that it's going to start gradually to fade away.
Our trip ended with our arrival back at our French home..our Home..Sweet...French Home !!!!
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Sounds like a fabulous trip!!!!
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