Day 13, Saturday May 22, 2016

Julia Johnson

Overview

• Catholic church service
• Castle tour
• Free time in Giethoorn

Today was the rainiest day we have had on our trip.  Most of the group decided to head to church in Bant.  The service was in Dutch and we couldn’t understand everything the priest was saying, but we tried to follow along as best we cold.  Everyone was very friendly and welcoming to us, and the priest even gave us a shout out during his homely.  After we left mass, Hans dropped the guys in the group off at the train station so they could go to a soccer game.

Those of us who didn’t go to the game met back up at our hostel in Bant and we all left to go to Han’s friend’s house.  Han’s friend, Gregory, has a castle on his property.  Unlike many of the castles we have seen on this trip, this castle was relatively modern.  Gregory started building the castle himself in 1990, and is still doing additions today.  He based the castle off of his fantasy world that he envisioned as a child.  He worked selling and renting costumes to fund his dream, and convinced local officials to give him the licenses to begin building.  Expectedly, city officials were not readily willing to approve his plans since he didn’t come to them with blueprints, costs, etcetera.  However, after having many “dialogs”, they finally decided to let him pursue his dream.  He thinks that the did not expect him to even lay a single brick, but today the castle stands at 3 stories tall with a basement dungeon, and he is currently building a fourth level.  To continue funding his dream, he periodically gives tours of his castle.  The castle was not as extravagant as some of the others we have seen on this trip, but considering this man built ever square inch of it by himself, it was pretty remarkable.  The lesson learned here was to always continue dreaming and never give up on pursuing those dreams.

After the castle we went to the tourist town of Giethoorn.  There was a 1958 Dutch movie filmed there, and that is what made the town so popular.  At the town the group split up and we all did a variety of activities.  Some got lunch and went souvenir shopping, others went for a carriage ride, and those who remained went for private or group boat tours!  After several hours there, we loaded back into the vans and headed to our hostel in Bant.

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to touring a potato farm and working windmill!

Key Takeaways

• Always have a dream and constantly work towards achieving that dream