Back again 20 years later

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I caught the train down to Nijmegen today. It's about an hour and a half train ride from Amsterdam. This is The Netherland's oldest city and is where my mum's parents (my oma and opa), and my mum were all born. A lot of my relatives have passed away here, but Els and Gerard, 2 of my opa's brother's children still live here and I met them last time I was here, 20 years ago. Obviously I don't remember too much, including what people look like, so waiting to meet Els at the train station had a bit of a blind date type feel to it. This quickly vanished when I saw Els. She had one of the biggest and happiest smiles I've ever seen, and almost instantly she and Jaap, made me feel right at home.

I met Michael, one of Mary's (Els sister's) children who Els was looking after that day. We headed into the city centre to have a look around. Nijmegen is a lot bigger and newer than I thought. I could easily imagine I was walking around a shopping centre back home. There were a few differences of course, one of which was the massive old church taking centre stage in the heart of the city, another was seeing an Australian Ice-cream shop. Pretty funny to see...I saw more in Amsterdam too. I mean when you think of fine chocalate and ice-cream, Australia never really comes to mind does it? What marketing can do hey Morts...

We sat down for a quick bite to eat. Els found a place that served poffertjes. They are hard to describe, but I guess you could say they're small pancake-like balls, covered in icing sugar and butter. This was something I had to eat while in Holland. I used to have them every year at the Dutch festival back home so I couldn't wait to try the real thing. I was almost too keen. Haha, with the amount of icing sugar that was on them, I had a massive 'milo coughing' episode with my first bite. I think Els did well not to laugh. It lived up to expectations though. Yum.

Later that night, I met Gerard and wife Marya + 11 year-old daughter Esther. They'd cooked up one of the biggest meals I've ever seen. After living off take-away food for the last 2 months my eyes grew to about the same size as when I saw the Eiffel Tower! The food really was unbelievable. And after 20 years, there were plenty of stories to catch up on! We continued the night at a local cafe style bar in Nijmegen. There must have been about 200 or so beers to choose from! And apparently there's a place nearby that has about 500 beers on the menu! Sounds like a great city to me!

I got treated to taste several beers, including a white beer which tasted and looked completely different to anything I've had back home. I think it's a Summer beer. I finished with a Moeder Overste (a Belgium beer). I liked the flavour but with an 8% alchohol content I'm glad I didn't start on them! The name 'Moeder Overste' Jaap tells me means something like 'mother of the nuns', and refers to how a lot of Belgium beers actually start out being brewed in monasteries. Weird but true!

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Photos

Poffertjes
Beware of icing sugar!