Flying Grape Soda

So for once this is coming online hot off the press so to speak. Having working electricity in my room is doing wonders for my productivity at night. Tonight a group of us UC kids signed up for a canoe trip through the canals of Utrecht. The price included boats, guides, a snack, and a drink. The description said we would be stopping at a cafe...key word stop. When we arrived we met another Californian but also people from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and England. There were about 100 people there, or at least far too many for a kayaking trip. When they said canoes apparently they meant kayaks. I partnered up with a girl named Alana who goes to Berkeley. We were at the front of the pack and floated around for a while in a huge floatila waiting for everyone to get in boats. Then we all set off. Once we started to get into residential neighborhoods it was gorgeous, but on the way in there were many willow tress that Alana and I got pretty excited about. While we were first setting out a moth decided to fly down my shirt, which was very amusing for the boys in the next kayak over while I freaked out trying to get it out of my shirt. After it was gone we returned to the tricky business of paddling in a giant group. About an hour after setting out we came to the promised cafe, where women were handing sodas to people in kayaks who had pulled to the side of the canal. We along with most of the group didn't get the memo soon enough and floated by too fast so they threw us our drinks. My boatmate had not realized what was going on and was hit in the face by a grape soda, she hates grape soda. After the initial pain it was fairly amusing to joke about. They were also throwing us packs of stroopwafels but the general inertia of the group had pushed us too far away. Some of our apartment mates shared their stroopwafels with us, a kind of very popular Dutch dessert. After that we kayaked through the canals in the city center passing by gardens of homes along the canal as well as houses and cafes along the canal. The farther we went the more the group spread out which was much nicer. It was an amazing way to see the city, especially because I am just getting my bearings there. I am really enjoying exploring and finding out how to get around because I really did not have that experience in Santa Cruz since I had already spent so much time there. As twilight set in we went deeper into the city, passing under bridges lit by blue light or from below the water. We could also see bikes that had fallen on the wrong side of the fence along the canal and were hanging by their chain. However by the time it was actually dark I was ready to go home. We were pretty soaked and in the end kayaked for about 3 hours. The night overall was ridiculously amusing between the bug, the grape soda, and the general bumper boats that went on. After we got back on shore we walked back home and all warmed up with some delicious tea, all in all a fantastic night. I didn't bring my camera along because I was worried about it getting soaked so I posted a better picture of my bike. The other one is the entrance to Wilhelmina park, named for the Queen of the Netherlands during WWII and part of my bike ride to school. Other people had cameras so when I get ahold of canal pictures I will share them.