Fun in Ameland
Ameland, you ask? Okay, so you’re not Dutch 
It’s one of the small islands north of the Netherlands. To be honest, I’d never been there before but I was there last weekend. Once a year, all the seminarians celebrate the seminary’s ‘birthday’ in one way or another. Last year, it being the 20th year the seminary had been re-opened, we all went to Rome for about a week. This year was a bit more modest, although I really consider it a luxury (!): we all went to Ameland for the weekend.
After a four hour drive (and, of course, a trip by boat) we arrived on Ameland. The hotel we stayed at was really quite nice, with spacious rooms, private washrooms/showers and your own TV. This in itself is a luxury unknown to the seminarian :p We only have a common TV room here, and it was actually quite amusing to find out that half the seminary had watched program X, until someone remarked ‘wasn’t that on at 01:30?’ Heh. I guess we figured out the reason we don’t have our own TVs…
The first part of the weekend (Friday – Saturday noon) was a silent day, where we could spend some time in reflection, preparing for Advent. The rest of the Saturday turned out to be wonderful as well: we all went on a bike trip around the island in two teams. En route we were supposed to answer a question here and there, as well as perform several assignments such as an obstacle course (blindfolded!), building a tower out of bamboo and building a sand castle (or in our case: cathedral). Evil tongues rumour that I was even seen sabotaging the one of the opponent team’s bike. Heh.
After the tiring, beautiful, cold and exciting bike tour/competition (which our group won, of course 
) we retired for a hot shower, followed by a warm meal. It was a wonderful three course dinner, after which a few of us found the energy to entertain ourselves in the amusement hall next door with air hockey and some arcade games. My knuckles still hurt from all the air hockey I played and, sad to say, mostly lost.
On our way back home on Sunday we stopped for an amazing meal at one of the seminarian’s parents’ place. I was surprised to find out they could cook as well, if not better, as the restaurant people could and I think few of us needed supper that night at home.
While we all had a fantastic time, something not-so-great happened, about which I will make another post. Keep on checking back and leave me some comments, will ya?
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