This Tuesday night was the final Dutch cafe. A couple of other students from my class came as well, to say good-by to our teacher whom everyone liked a lot. There was also one of the ladies who is in charge of the Language Training Center. She said that although the LTC won't be doing the Dutch Cafe anymore (at least for students) there is some talk of the Erasmus Student Network taking over and starting up a Dutch Cafe instead. Since ESN is the author of such events as "Cafe BED" (which runs from 10pm-4am every Tuesday, offers 1 euro drinks--the cheapest booze in the Netherlands, as far as I have heard--plus the occasional free shot, featured the delightful ad campaign "Will you go to BED with me?", and which is known for having inebriated students littering the floor in piles of vomit) I am guessing that the new Dutch Cafe might have a little different flavor from the old one. But I guess we will just have to see. Maybe I will have to see if I can weasel my way into the faculty and staff Dutch Cafe.
I asked about "Haave" (which was I word I couldn't translate from one of the windows of the Pilgremvaderskerk). They said that they weren't familiar with that word. However, there is a word "have" which means "creatures", as in all kinds of animals/living things. So it could possibly be translated as "Salvation for His creatures comes only from God in Zion" or something similar, which would fit with the creation of the Dutch State/reliance on God's providence/etc. in a Matthew 10:29 type way ("Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.")
Also, the cafe was nice enough to bring us authentic Dutch hors d'oeuvres/snacks, on the house, since we had been showing up every week. Everyone thought that was pretty nice, although since that was the last night, now it will look like we just grabbed the free food and ran. There were three kinds of snacks, all deep-fried, so you have to know they started out right. There were chicken nuggets that were just like McDonald's chicken nuggets (people seem to really like McDonald's around here). There were also small fried meatballs that tasted kind of like a slightly spicy curried chicken, but I don't know what the actual name of them is. The other thing was Bitterballen. I do not know what the name exactly means but it is kind of like a thick, white, sausage gravy, deep fried in a crumb coating. This makes it a little difficult to eat neatly. It also means that there is a MASSIVE quality difference if you get one when it is fresh and hot or if you get it when it is cooler and has started nastily congealing. However, Bitterballen (they are sometimes called croquettes) are ubiquitous. You can get larger versions of them in hamburger or brat shapes and then you eat them in a bun. They are pretty tasty but I don't think I could eat a whole sandwich made out of them. I saw some one eating one of the sandwiches and the inside gooey stuff was oozing everywhere and was not a very pretty picture.
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