Day 10
Grou ➝ Zwolle
Today, while jam-packed, wasn’t too eventful and this post will consequentially be pretty short. First thing is that we stayed the night last night at the hostel in Grou. There was a festival happening, like Friday night, so there was loud music (three stages of music all at once in this tiny town) which kept us up, and not to mention the hoards of drunk Dutch people we had to shove out of the way to get to our much longed-for beds.
We woke up the next morning so tired, physically, from our dancing last night and somehow made ourselves presentable for the post-wedding brunch happening at the hostel. It was a chance for Ouren and Anette to say goodbye to all the Norwegian family leaving and we took advantage of the opportunity to say goodbye to our new friends.
After the brunch we had to decide if we wanted to A) stay in Grou for another couple hours until Ouren and Anette could pick us up, 2) Go with them and wait for a couple hours while they did some things they needed to do, or D) make our own way back to Zwolle. We opted for D. We got a ride from Anette’s mom, Mette, to the train station where she dropped us off. However, when we went to get tickets we were unable to pay because we 1) didn’t have the money in coins (about $40) or 2) don’t have a Maestro card (the debit cards around here).
Since we didn’t have either of those we needed to find a way to do that, and FAST because the train that would take us to Zwolle was departing in about a half hour. So we hiked down the road to a gas station hoping they could help us, they couldn’t. So we walked further to a supermarket, they couldn’t either. We finally walked even further back to the center of town and found ATM machine to get some cash. Then we had to get it broken into smaller bills. THEN we had to find somewhere to break it even further into coins. We were finally ready to pay for the tickets, but we were VERY short on time. With only 10 minutes to get to the station and get our tickets, we literally RAN to the station, totally exhausting ourselves, and got our tickets with two, TWO, minutes to spare before the train’s arrival. We boarded and were back in Zwolle an hour later.
We got back to Ouren and Anette’s house, flopped on the couch, and watched The Da Vinci Code until everyone else got home a little later. When they returned we put on Monster’s University instead and watched most of it until we realized how hungry we were.
For dinner we walked a short distance, passing an old Dutch windmill along the way, to the football stadium to a restauraunt like Benihana’s where you gather your ingredients and they cook them for you. It was very good and we definitely ate more than we needed to.
After dinner we walked back home and hung out until we decided to go to bed!
