Zeeland, or the place that makes New Zealand new, is a profoundly quirky province. The similarities to Kiwi country stop there. Here, the homeless are bilingual, mussels are cheap and the bridges will actively try to kill you... but more on that later.
Like much of the Netherlands, about 1/3 of Middelburg, Zeeland's capital, was destroyed during WWII. To this day, however, it is still unknown whether German bombs or French artillery caused the devastation. I posit the Dutch thought, "well it's flattened anyway; no use pointing fingers" and quietly–yet efficiently–started rebuilding.
Despite the destruction, the Middelburg of today overflows with history; you can see at least one massive tower from every point in the city. There is so much history, in fact, that a humongous church was presumably the best location for a carnival. This was a jarring contrast to the empty, malodorous grass fields that host American festivals.
The cage nearly caught the wall a few times
I couldn't help but grin at the thought of the seedy, unorganized fairs in America secretly hiding a massive international carnival empire.
A Dutch scam, probably
After wandering around aimlessly for a bit, we decided to go on a boat tour. Honestly, this decision was made because we had no idea what else to do in Zeeland. We squeezed into a boat and started debating where the boat would go. The canal only went about 30 meters in each direction before a three-foot-high bridge spanned the gap. There's no way they would risk decapitating everyone, we thought.
Eend! (Translate that)
Since the instructions were in Dutch and the scenery was eye-catching, this was actually a very real possibility. Even my Dutch-speaking father zoned out and nearly face-planted a bridge.
All-in-all a successful day trip, especially given neither one of us had a clue what there was in Zeeland. That is not an understatement. We actually only went because of the name.
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