Call it year end FOMO, but every time we start closing in on yet another fiscal year we start getting the itch to explore or do something totally spontaneous and different. I don't know what it is about spending New Years Eve in a random new place that acts like an instant salve for this feeling, be it a country or the home of a newfound friend, but chucking ourselves out of our comfort zone and into a big pile of warm, gooey, foreignness always feels so right and we never regret it. That's why we were so grateful that when we asked our good friends, Wes and Janey, to let us crash their New Years 2015 festivities, they said yes. It was the perfect combination of spending time with two friends we didn't see too often and a lesson in Dutch holiday hospitality. It seemed like we met all the people of Noordeloos as they filed in and out of our friends' open house during the hours leading up to midnight to wish each other all the best. Like every small town, Noordeloos was in actuality one big happy family, a family that was quick to immediately include us in their holiday routines and rituals and presented us with all the Oliebollen we could eat, all the Heineken we could drink. They proved the old adages wrong by showing us that "going Dutch" was in actuality generosity in every respect that exceeded all our expectations, and perhaps more than these two curious wandering Americans deserved.
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| Street in Noordeloos where our friends live. |
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| Everybody in town wants a look inside the pop-up party tent for New Years Eve. |
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| Downtown Noordeloos, population approx. 1800. |
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| Our good friend Wes showing us the town. |
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| I am a huge fan of Dutch style brick houses with black shutters and well trimmed greenery. |
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| Flying south for the winter. |
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| Just found my dream house. |
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| The "country chic" look is really in here. |
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| Wes and Janey's place all decked out for the holidays. |
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| The charming hutch on the right was Janey's grandmother's that she inherited and is a beloved piece of furniture in the house. |
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| Oliebollen and the traditional Dutch radio program on tv where they play a countdown of favorite tunes until midnight voted on by listeners. |
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| The perfect example of Gezelligheid, or the equivalent of Germany's Gemütlichkeit, which means "comfortability" or "coziness." |
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| New Years spread of meats and traditional side dishes for the grills in the middle. |
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| A popular passionfruit liqueur our friends introduced us to that you mix with orange juice and other liquids--so goooood. Who doesn't like passionfruit?? |
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| Working up an appetite while the grill heats up. |
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| Happy New Year!!! That has to be all the stereotypical elements of Holland in one frame. |
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| Just like Germany, fireworks are sold everywhere and are legal New Years Eve. You are allowed to set them off practically anywhere. See the video on my YouTube page for a sample of the night's pyromania. |
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| Our new extended Dutch family. |
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| The New Years party tent up close and personal. We danced and mingled with locals to pop hits and Dutch music until the wee hours of the morning. |
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| New Years Day was spent at Janey's family's place. What our friends failed to mention to us was that Janey's from a family of badass bikers. They welcomed us into their awesome garage-turned-bar with homemade cured salmon, a traditional potato salad with pearl onions, and cooked chicken with a delicious peanut sauce, the latter dish being a distant echo from the previous Dutch rule of Indonesia. Again, all the Heineken we could drink. |
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| The beautiful Janey de Vos and her cool father, Mr. de Vos himself. |
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| I must have offered Wes something other than a Heineken for him to make such a face. |
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| Janey's family is just lovely and we sang and danced into the night. At some point, I was lifted and spun around by Janey's brother-in-law. After we devoured two rounds of pizzas ordered from the local pizzeria after midnight, it was time to hit the hay. |
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| The next morning, I was introduced to something truly magical--the drive-by butcher who makes his rounds to small towns like Noordeloos just like the ice-cream man would in the U.S.!! |
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| Every tasty meat product you can imagine in one truck! These are local bologna type wursts that you slice and eat on bread for breakfast, or whenever, that we came to love. |
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| A fridge full of meat spreads for bread or crackers, one of them being a spread called "filet" made from creamy spiced raw meat that I LOVED and that pregnant women apparently need to avoid eating. |
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| The butcher laughed at my wonderment and photo taking, but what New Years 2015 taught us is that sometimes you don't know what you're missing until you cross to the other side of the gracht. |
