Domtoren Utrecht, Netherlands

We were waiting for this long weekend from quite some time and finally it came with a bang. It was quite an event full weekend and will stay in our memories for a long long time.

The trip started with a little trouble as we boarded the wrong train from Brussels. The tickets that we had were for a normal train but we boarded the super fast (Thalys) train instead. Luckily the train manager was kind enough to let us go without charging us anything for boarding that train. He could have charged us around 50 Euros for this but he didn’t want to spoil our Christmas and allowed us to continue our journey. I love Christmas, god exists :-).

Since it was a thalys train it hardly took us any time to reach Rotterdam and eventually to our final destination Utrecht where Arun was already waiting for us with his Italian umbrella as it was raining. It was around 11 AM of the Christmas day.

After the delicious lunch prepared by Anagha (Spicy Dum Aalu) we went out to see the tallest church Dom “Domtoren” in Netherlands. It was hardly a few yards from Arun’s house. It was very windy and slippery outside the church but we still managed to click some snaps for our album. Thanks to Rajni’s Swiss umbrella.

After we saw the church Arun suggested to walk around the city a bit and showed us a few interesting places in Utrecht. On the way he told about how Greg and he used to roam around till 4 Am in that area after they were refused entry in the pubs.

Arun also told about why Nederland people are best water management experts in the word and how it is still rising to prosperity in spite of having a lot of area under the sea levels. In the back of my mind I started thinking about our Indian states like Orisa and Bihar where every year we suffer huge losses of lives and property due to floods. Why can’t we learn and implement the solutions that have been implemented successfully in Netherlands.

Ranit was also having a wonderful time on the streets. Just then it started drizzling and we decided to move back to Arun’s luxurious :-) apartment.

Arun had already planned for a daaru party on Christmas and he had to do certain arrangements for that. Ranit wanted to see his favorite movie “Hanuman Returns” for the thousandth time so we all joined him for that on you tube. Actually, I also like that movie and can watch it again and again. Overall it was an excellent start and we all were very happy and excited and were looking forward for the next event which was “The daaru party”.