Veenendaal

The city of Veenendaal is a small city, a suburb of Utrecht. There are approximately 60,000 residents, a large majority are older people during the day, but at night all the young people come crawling out of hiding to the bar scene. (Which was the case on Saturday evening, when the bars were packed and spilling out onto the street). It’s an interesting place, but after awhile it can become easy to get bored. My friend Timo, has lived here his whole life. It’s like me living in Langley my whole life. Veenendaal, has all the major shops and a shopping district and a bar scene, but it only has pockets of city life- the atmosphere of a big city, cafés, a multitude of things to do, and endless walking, unique shops, and a variety of food venues. But, Veenendaal does have charm. It’s quaint, charming, and cozy in places. You can ride your bike to connecting bike corridors through the countryside, past all the farms of cows (moo-moos- what I call them), sheep, a handful of bird varieties – ducks, geese, swans and herons. The windmills are in the North, but there are small ones (really small ones) along the irrigation canals. It's cool because the animals roam free, and drink from the irrigation canals, they seem to live a generally pleasant life. There are small canals here, lots of nice homes. It seems that everyone makes an effort to maintain their windows- in the sense that they are always so nicely decorated and presented. I guess it is a glimpse into a person’s life through their window.

I went bar hopping on Saturday night, there is a basically a plaza with a selection of bars and you just walk in and out. Because it has been such nice weather, there has been patio furniture set up outside, the patio drinking atmosphere is huge in Europe. I love it.

I left Veenendaal today and headed to my new home in Utrecht. But, I will visit Veenendaal a lot, and I am sure it might become like a second home in the country... who knows, but the thing is Veenendaal is ok for the weekends. I'll just have to bring my bike along so I can go for proper bike rides into the country, and end up at a pannekoek house. Pannekoeks - which are pancakes for us- are a bit bigger than crepes for us, and but they but a variety of toppings etc on them. Yum :)

Anyways, I am tucked away into my new place. I will write shortly about it....