Apeldoorn (At Long Last)

We finally made it to Apeldoorn and the Mennonite Church (or Doopsgezind as they're called over here... which literally means "double dunked" from what I can gather). We both slept through our alarms though, so it made for quite the speedy getaway from the conference centre. But one thing became very clear at around nine o'clock that morning... cycling uphill is not something that will motivate you when it comes to getting to church... especially not 10 straight kilometers of uphill bright and sunshiny in the morning (although had it not been bright and sunshiny it may have been an even bigger deterrent). Luckily we made to Apeldoorn just in time for church... Unfortunately we still hadn't found that place and with ten minutes to spare, our chances were becoming doubtful. However, I did discover that my iPhone can figure out exactly where I am even if I don't have Wifi or a cellular plan... Don't ask how as I still don't know myself, all I know is that when I checked the map I loaded up the night before the little blue dot that I assumed was us was slowly moving away from the purple line which was the route we were supposed to take... who knows how far in the wrong direction we'd have travelled without this little marvel of technology. So we made our way to the church and after the first song was finished we found some seats near the back and snuck in without too much trouble. It had a very familiar Mennonite atmosphere to it, even though we couldn't understand a word of the service. But it seemed very community based and very welcoming and in love with their hymns (which are all things I tend to associate with Menno's). So we got talking to some of the people from the congregation afterwards and after about 20 minutes of trying to explain who we were and what we were doing in the Netherlands we figured out that while we had indeed found the Mennonite Church that they were not Mennonite. Apparently the Mennonites let this group use their facilities on the first Sunday of every month, and we just happened to pick that Sunday, the only Sunday that the Mennonites aren't at church, to go to church. So I still have to find my way back there when the Mennonites are actually around.

In the afternoon we walked around the Market as it was shopping Sunday (everything is generally closed on Sunday even though the Netherlands isn't the strictest on religious teachings... I guess they just thought the sabbath was a good idea... or by chance chose the same day to kick back and relax). But we wandered around none the less. Saw some shops, nothing particularly special. Went into the supermarket and bought some beer that was vaguely familiar although still just unfamiliar enough to be kind of exciting (I got Grolsch with Lemon). Maybe it's the Canadian in me, but I did not realize that beer's containing less than 2.5% alcohol actually existed. Don't get me wrong, it tasted quite good... I just had trouble seeing it as a beer (which is what I wanted).

After that we went to the palace in Apeldoorn where the princess (or someone along those lines) still lives, and got in nice and free with our handy dandy museum cards. For the most part it was just a lot of fancy looking rooms with lots of interesting history and factoids that I was too tired to pay any actual attention to. But then we went out to the garden and wandered through the Orange garden (a garden containing all sorts of differing varieties of Orange). We both really wanted to try them and with a quick glance noticed that there was no one guarding this particular area of the park (although on our way out we noticed a camera which we hadn't noticed earlier, but no one came hunting us down so our sneaky skills are clearly superior to their guarding skills)... So we grabbed a few that looked interesting... The first one we tried was about the size of a cherry and tasted pretty non-descript. The next one was probably closer to the size of a chestnut and was incredibly sour (like as sour as an Orange flavoured Warhead might be if such a flavour exists). So with my energy tanks refuelled from our sneaky little snack we continued on our way out to the less edible and more fancy/fountainy/well groomed portion of the garden. There were two Globe fountains on either end, one with the constellations on it and the other with the land masses on it (I'm not sure how accurate they are... but if at all then there used to be a heck of a lot more land off the coast of the U.S.A. than just Hawaii way back when)... I also danced with a peacock... Not literally, but to a casual onlooker it sure might have looked like that as I was side-stepping stride for stride with the peacock in an attempt to get closer to it.

At long last we decided to head home only to have my iPhone come in handy one more time as we biked through town with the map in front of me as I yelled to Taliah every time the blue dot left the route highlighted in purple. I'm sure we made a few old couples day as they watched these two whippersnappers go through the same intersection several times within 10 minutes. But we eventually found our way back onto the path home and let me tell you, the 3-4KM of uphill on the Apeldoorn side of things was a welcome change to the ten we conquered that morning before the downhill showed up (although, as welcome of a change as it was, I could keep up with Taliah pedalling on her bike while I was walking mine for portions of the uphill... So clearly our bodies had reached their limits after a day of walking and cycling). After a long day we were almost ecstatic to be home and quickly got to work chilling our beverages to enjoy with some, always humorous, "Arrested Development." Quite the appropriately climactic end to such a tiring day of cycling if you ask me.