Day 1: Arrival and Exploration – Managing Death and Dying

Today is the day! We have finally arrived in the Netherlands. After a delayed flight from Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. for some of us, and a turbulent flight out of Newark, we landed in Amsterdam around 7:15am. We saw a beautiful sunset flying into the airport, as well as some interesting windmills in the ocean.

We collected our baggage and caught a train to Breda, transferring to our second train to Etten-Leur. After a short walk to our hotel, Het Witte Paard, we checked in and settled down to recuperate after the long flights. From then on, we were free to explore Etten-Leur in small groups – some of us went to the mall, some went to eat lunch, and others walked around to explore the area more.

We met back up at 4pm to go on a small tour with Jan de Waard leading us on a walk. We saw a Catholic chapel named ‘t Kapelleke and carried on through a short outdoor exhibit of Van Gogh related art. After that, we walked around a cemetery, looking at the differences in gravestones and plots compared to the United States. Many gravestones indicated a family that was interred there, similar to the United States. However, the gravestones tended to be a bit thinner and the cemetery was particularly small.

This tree is over 345 years old. It is called the Moeierboom (the Mother Tree) and is a lime tree.

After a nice walk we finished our small tour at a pub called Café Bar ‘t Klompke. After casual drinks, we headed over to a Greek restaurant, Grieks Restaurant Orestis, where we gorged ourselves on delicious pork, eggplant lasagna, tzatziki, fries, orzo rice, salad and more! Although we were stuffed from dinner, we couldn’t resist the allure of Prego Gelato. Our favorite flavor was strawberry cheesecake! We finished off the night with a recap of our itinerary. We were so exhausted, I’m sure most of us fell asleep before 10.

by Sophia Perry