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Fail Week
I have dubbed this "Fail Week", primarily because of how often things didn't go quite our way. It all seems to have started when Taliah pressured me to take something from the buffet that was wrapped in tin foil with no label. As a general rule I usually don't take things I cannot see (for what I would assume were obvious reasons), but I figured I'm here for the Dutch experience... what's the worse that could happen? So I grabbed it and much to my surprise it was a whole fish! Head, Eyes and all. And as if that wasn't enough, upon my recoil the gentleman who was eating with us offered to get the meat off the fish for me as I had clearly never received a fish presented in this fashion before. So while Taliah made here distance so she wouldn't have to see this things face, I was forced to watch because I thought it might be a little rude to slowly sulk away while he was "helping" me access my food. While I have witnessed fish being filleted before, there is usually a bit of a gap between fish carcase and dinner time for my stomach to regain it's composure. So needless to say, the fish did not make for the most appealing meal I've had this trip.
But I got over it pretty fast, and before I knew it the weekend was upon us with nothing to do (due to our lack of a train pass). So we decided to go looking for the Waterweg (which one can only assume means Water Way). When we got into Nunspeet we decided to stretch our legs for a bit before making our way out to the water (because we really had no idea how far of a bike it was from there on). Much to our surprise, there was a little carnival taking place in the town square... But unfortunately for us, it was clearly meant for children quite a bit younger than us. So for fear of the parents judging eyes being upon us while we rode the rides next to their offspring, we decided to opt out of getting on any of the rides. Instead we followed my nose to what I assume was a fritter stand and bought what I assume was an apple fritter. Which was quite a bit different than what I was expecting because instead of having chunks of apple mixed in with the batter, they just throw an inch thick slice of apple in the middle of the fritter (although it did not turn out to be a bad different). But being as neither of us brought much money with us, there wasn't really much to do in the city, so we soon decided to continue on our way to the Waterweg.
Not much later we found our way to a harbor, although it lacked any way for us to get in... So we had clearly stumbled upon a private area. But we had found water none-the-less, so instead of desperately trying to find a nice touristy beach we just sat by the boat launch for a while before trying to make our way back. We brought along some snacks that we swiped from the coffee bar, but being as I was still full from the fritter we had earlier, I decided to make friends with a Duck instead of refuelling my engines for the bike ride home (this might have been a mistake). So on our way home we couldn't help but notice a sign that said "Elspeet 10", which we found quite interesting because Elspeet was 10km from Nunspeet (the town we biked through to get here in the first place). So we decided to try and follow the sign to fancy little short cut... only the next sign no longer told us anything about how long it was to Elspeet. Assuming that it was just sparing us useless information we continued going straight... and continued noticing that Elspeet was still not being mentioned on any of the signs. Finally we hit a road and say a sign saying "Nunspeet 4" and realized we had missed our short-cut somewhere. We had probably already been biking for about 3km, which probably added a solid 7km to what was supposed to be a 10km ride home (for a sum total of 17km). My legs were sore to say the least.
This was not at all helpful the next morning. For starters it looked deceptively nice considering how cold it really was. Taliah also failed to wake up which meant if I wanted to go to church that I would be on my own. So I loaded up my backpack, hopped on my bike, and hit the road... After about ten minutes of trying to unlock the bike shed I finally got fed up and wound up jimmying the lock open with a nice thick twig I found (after a couple thinner ones failed to grant me access). It wasn't until about ten minutes into my bike ride that my muscles spoke up and began cursing me out for putting them through such torment. I had forgotten just how much of the ride to church was uphill, and that coupled with the utterly damp cold, sore legs and no companion was just enough for me to justify turning around and crawling back into bed. The next time I awoke the Sun had warmed the world around us and the day was looking much better. We probably sat out in the sun just reading, writing and rocking the ukulele for a solid hour or two. Eventually it got to the point where I was hiding behind the shade of my umbrella while pouring water on my jeans to help keep em cool. It was around this point that we decided to cool off inside for a bit before biking out to a field to grab us some corn for thanksgiving. But as was that theme this weekend, something was not quite right. The corn was hard and somewhat disgusting. I could barely finish half a cob before my stomach made it very clear that it wanted me to stop eating this corn-like substance at once. So we popped in a movie and let our stomachs settle. We decided on "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as Taliah had somehow never seen that movie (and because of all the falling leaves and Halloween being right around the bend, it had been on my mind for a little while now). So in a moment of sheer genius, we found a projector that wasn't being used and some computer speakers from the supply closet, and we made a nice big screen on my bedroom wall to enjoy our movie on. Hopefully this successful act is the start of a new trend that will continue into the weeks to come.
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