Netherlands Emails: (17/a zillion)
Bosch, Football, and Beer
Friday was quite the day, because a bunch of us headed to 's Hertogenbosch, where we would be spending the night after we returned from the football game we had bought tickets for. Sarah and I traveled together, and ended up wandering the town a bit (unfortunately, since it was rather hot and we were still carrying our overnight bags) before finding the center of town and the Hieronymus Bosch center, which doesn't actually have any original work of his. (Ironic? Yes.) It was still a good place to go learn about him and his work - they even had a replica of the kind of place he probably worked. Very educational, even if the giant sculptures of some of Bosch's more imaginative demons were rather creepy and the live-action video interpretation of his work was just weird. We made it back to the hotel to meet our fellow football fans and finally put our stuff in our rooms. We left for the game at six, but not before donning every single scrap of orange we could get our hands on (I packed my orange shirt just for this occasion). We took the train to Eindhoven, and followed the sea of orange to the stadium, where we picked up our tickets and headed to our seats. I paid for the middling tickets - up high but not in the nosebleeds. We were in the good section - the fans on the sideline right in front of us were the diehard ones who threw orange confetti and had a drum to start claps and cheers with. There was even a guy in full military dress, except it was dyed bright orange. The game wasn't exactly tense, except for the first few moments before the Oranje scored three goals in as many minutes. After that the atmosphere was much more convivial - we had a wave circle the stadium three times before dying out. It got quiet towards the middle, but our men just kept scoring, and once the score started creeping toward ten you could hear the excitement of the crowd increasing. Soon, chants of "tien! tien! tien!" could be heard: the dutch had never scored more than nine points in a single game, so ten points would make history. There was a conga line when the tenth point was finally scored, and the eleventh was just for kicks. I did start feeling rather bad for San Marino: they haven't scored a goal, much less won a game, all season, though they've got decent defense and aren't usually trounced like they were that night. After the game we wandered in another sea of orange back to the train station (stopping on the way to pick up commemorative jerseys or scarves), only to squish into the next train to 's Hertogenbosch in a muddle of orange. We returned to the pub beneath our hotel as victorious witnesses who had to relay the game to the locals hanging out there.
Friday was quite the day, because a bunch of us headed to 's Hertogenbosch, where we would be spending the night after we returned from the football game we had bought tickets for. Sarah and I traveled together, and ended up wandering the town a bit (unfortunately, since it was rather hot and we were still carrying our overnight bags) before finding the center of town and the Hieronymus Bosch center, which doesn't actually have any original work of his. (Ironic? Yes.) It was still a good place to go learn about him and his work - they even had a replica of the kind of place he probably worked. Very educational, even if the giant sculptures of some of Bosch's more imaginative demons were rather creepy and the live-action video interpretation of his work was just weird. We made it back to the hotel to meet our fellow football fans and finally put our stuff in our rooms. We left for the game at six, but not before donning every single scrap of orange we could get our hands on (I packed my orange shirt just for this occasion). We took the train to Eindhoven, and followed the sea of orange to the stadium, where we picked up our tickets and headed to our seats. I paid for the middling tickets - up high but not in the nosebleeds. We were in the good section - the fans on the sideline right in front of us were the diehard ones who threw orange confetti and had a drum to start claps and cheers with. There was even a guy in full military dress, except it was dyed bright orange. The game wasn't exactly tense, except for the first few moments before the Oranje scored three goals in as many minutes. After that the atmosphere was much more convivial - we had a wave circle the stadium three times before dying out. It got quiet towards the middle, but our men just kept scoring, and once the score started creeping toward ten you could hear the excitement of the crowd increasing. Soon, chants of "tien! tien! tien!" could be heard: the dutch had never scored more than nine points in a single game, so ten points would make history. There was a conga line when the tenth point was finally scored, and the eleventh was just for kicks. I did start feeling rather bad for San Marino: they haven't scored a goal, much less won a game, all season, though they've got decent defense and aren't usually trounced like they were that night. After the game we wandered in another sea of orange back to the train station (stopping on the way to pick up commemorative jerseys or scarves), only to squish into the next train to 's Hertogenbosch in a muddle of orange. We returned to the pub beneath our hotel as victorious witnesses who had to relay the game to the locals hanging out there.