Remember how I was saying that Europe is really beautiful at Christmas? Well, tonight it was really, REALLY beautiful!! My friends Leslie and Kristin and I trained it on out to Gouda (about an hour away) for the tree-lighting ceremony there. It was a really fun time, full of singing (same tunes as we know, just in Dutch!), gluwine, and frozen toes. The most beautiful thing was that all the families around the main square put real candles in their front windows, so the whole place is illuminated by candlelight. I know, I know, the alarm bells are going off in all of our safety-conscious American minds. But, maybe, just maybe, the Europeans have something figured out. There was just something so traditional about the whole thing that I just loved it (okay, and, yes, the whole time I was thinking, "Is anyone watching those candles??? What if one falls down? AHHH!) In the weigh building (where they weigh cheese to be sold at the market), they had a ton of candles in all of the windows. It was absolutely breath-taking:
The Weigh Building - which, unfortunately in my picture, appears to be on fire! This was not the case, just beautiful! :)
The tree was finally lit after about 2 hours of standing in the cold... you can kind of see the candles in the windows behind it. This has been one of my very favorite "dutch" experiences so far... while there are definitely a lot of things that are a major pain in the @$$ here, there is plenty to like and to learn from. I'm definitely ready for Christmas after tonight! :)
3 comments:
This is my favorite entry so far! I love the photos of the beautiful lights. Nothing gives as warm a glow as real candlelight. Isn't it funny that we even qualify it as "real?"
so beautiful! hope you sampled some delicious christmas cheese? probably not- still beautiful
Wish I had been there with you guys...have always wanted to see that! Instead, it felt like my skin was on fire with blistering 86 degree weather (but trust me, I'm not complaining!!). :)
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