Month 4....Really Late
Trip Start
Unknown
1
5
Trip End
Ongoing
Emmen, Drenthe, Netherlands
Sunday, September 12, 2010
I'm just going to expand of the little skeleton I had written out.
I went to Hamlen, which is a town maybe 2 hours south of Bremen. One of my friends grew up there, and he invited us to stay at his home. It was a really cool trip; his family was very hospitable, and Hamlen itself it beautiful. It didn't get hit so heavily during the war, so a lot of the architecture has a more classic German wooden house kind of feel. Hamlen is also the town from which the "Pied Piper" folktale originates. I'd heard the expression "it's time to pay the piper" before, but never understood the whole story until my visit.
I also was lucky enough to be able to attend the Netherlands first ever Huising (my mother's maiden name) family reunion. As the only Canadian representative, I was treated with a sort of VIP status, and the whole thing was a lot of fun. I saw a bit of Emmen, but spent most of the trip at a sort of camp ground outside of town. We ate, drank, swam, played games, and just genuinely relaxed all weekend. We also visited a sort of Historical Reservation of an old Dutch town. Think Heritage Park. It was really interesting, especially since it's very likely that my direct ancestors grew up and raised their families in a place just like it.
Thirdly, one of the Professors managed to get me a tour of the Fallturm (Fall Tower) as a thank you for helping to edit one of his papers. The Fallturm is sort of a campus landmark, it's a 120 meter tall tower in which they conduct microgravity experiments. They took me through the whole operation, from the top of the tower to the control room to the operation deck, I was one of the best tours I've had.
Finally, the IWT threw it's annual barbeque at the end of August. Beforehand, though, they split us into groups and send us out on a sort "geo hashing" competition in the city park. It was a pretty cool idea, and a great chance to mingle with coworkers I wasn't so familiar with....even though "Team" Kreuz didn't place very well in the end.
So..yah. That's what I had down for August. It'll be a little easier remembering September, and I'll try to get that up soon aswell.
Hope everything is well back in Canada!
Ian
