Holland Part 2: Why Holland has so many canals

The outing with the Amsterdam Vineyard church plant allowed me to meet an awesome Dutch girl named Dieuwke (pronounced "Du-ka"). She invited me to spend the day with her in the town she attends university (their school system is VERY different here) to be a journalist. So, I took the train from Amsterdam Centraal half an hour south to Utrecht (pronounced something like U-tre-CKK, the CKKK is a cross between trying to hack up a lung and clearing one's throat). She met me at the train station and we walked around the beautiful, modest little town of Utrecht. We had lunch by the outergracht (the outer canal). We climbed the Dom Tower - a tower built as part of a church (which is the oldest Reformed church in Holland: St. Martin's) in the 1300s with 465 steps. The tour guide (who climbs up and down this thing three times a day) spoke to us first in Dutch and then in near perfect English, telling us all about the history of the church, how the middle part of it (that connect the Tower to the main church building that they still use for services today) was blown down by a hurricane in 1674, how the heaviest bell in the Tower weighs 8 tons (and was made in 1501), and the total bell collection (of 14 bells) takes 25 people to ring (they only ring this particular set of bells on special occassions such as a baby born in the Royal Family, New Years, or an anniversary pertinent to the church or the tower. The "museum" level was where the bell ringer used to live with his family and every hour on the hour he would have to pull a rope to ring the bells. The staircase was spirally and wind-y and narrowed as it rose, so it was a bit claustrophic at the top, but the view was definitely worth it.After this, we walked around Utrecht and Dieuwke informed me of a lot of things I didn't know about Holland: like how they have the best water management engineers in the world because most of the country (besides Utrecht and another part farther East) is 5 meters below sea level and if they didn't know how to manage that, most of the country would be underwater. Global warming is really threatening this country, apparently. She also told me how her father and grandfather, to make a living, sell flowers in the marketplaces. They've been doing this for their entire lives; it is a huge industry out here - people want fresh flowers for their homes on a weekly basis, and there are many, many other occasions - not that you'd even need one here to buy some flowers. The sellers get their flowers at auctions and take them to these huge flower markets they have nearly every day to sell them.
Then, of course, we went shopping. Well, we went looking, I should say. It was so refreshing to hang out in an earring store with someone who likes earrings as much as I do! We went to a store called "Six" that orangizes it's merchandise by color, and lists the price of each item on its tag in several different currencies (Euro, CHF [swiss francs], PLN [??] and a few others that I didn't recongize. Diewke suggested that the reason those particular currencies are listed is because that might indicate what other countries this particular store is in.
Afterward, we went to a traditional Italian ice cream shop - "traditional Italian" here in Europe is WAY different than "traditional Italian" in the States (better here, in my opinion and it's probably because things are much more easily imported from Italy here!). We talked for about 3 hours on the existence of hell, eternal suffering and eternal life, free will and self-acceptance. We also debated whether it was better that drugs be legal or not (there are obvious issues with both); we marveled at the complete lack of natural limit on people's appetites. Legalizing drugs can either make them safer because they can be regulated and people won't feel like they've got to take their hobbies "underground," but it sends a confusing moral message to people, as well as basically abandon people to their addictions and cravings. It's a messy subject and I LOVED that I had a from-a-whole-other-culture companion to discuss things like this with! Dieuwke was such a blessing to me and I really do hope we can stay connected!
I took the train back around 10 (it was still light) but I got a bit lost trying to find my way back to the hostel. Amsterdam is a relatively easy to figure out and I actually felt safer there than I did in any of the cities in the States I've had to walk around by myself at night in - not that I made a habit out of doing this (and everything turned out fine). I got back to my hostel around 11 and fell asleep thanking God for a wonderful day and a chance to discuss some of the difficult things I've been wrestling with lately to another live human being!