Happy Easter, dear bloggers!
My first Easter at Humanitas, and prolly my last. Cause there's only 9 months permitted, but some people here get longer. My guess is that I will have found something for myself then after 9 months, and I hope something nice and good. I woke up early this morning, there was much sunlight in my room, so I thought it would be already late. But it was only 6:30 am, I went back to bed to wake up properly, and afterwards I took a shower. I wont have to tell you that Sunday's are boring here at Humanitas, cause I told it before. Now we have two Sunday's, two Easter Sundays.
I have nothing planned, I will just let it come over me. I might check the internet for something to do these days, but it's only two days, I will survive. I wish the staff here would have organized something, but no, it would have been so nice. The weather again is good today, sunshine and 22 degrees. It's dry though, all the windows and car roofs are filled with green polls, hasjooe! not so good for my hay fever, the weather forecast forspelled rain this evening, I hope it will! A little bit of rain will do us good. Now what do those Dutch people actually do with Easter? What are Dutch traditions with Easter? Well....
Easter in the Netherlands.
Easter in Netherlands is very much like the rest of the western countries. On the Easter Sunday the city is very quiet and people are busy with the Church service (paasvuren) right from the early morning. Late in the noon, the Easter lunch is organized in the church that include boiled, poached or fried eggs, paasstol (a rich loaf of bread filled with raisins, nuts and marzipan, damn I forgot to buy this paasstol!!) butter flavored with herbs, ham, shrimps, smoked fish, particularly salmon or eel and sweets or chocolates in the shape of eggs or hares. Lamb is an exclusive Easter dish as it is symbolic of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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| Paasstol! | | |
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| Palmpaas. |
On Palm Zondag or Palm Sunday children scour the neighboring farms to collect eggs for the Easter sports. While setting out for the task, kids carry a decorated stick known as a Palmpaas or Easter "palm". This stick is attached to a hoop which is covered with boxwood and adorned with colored paper flags, egg shells, sugar rings, oranges, raisins, figs and baked dough figures or swans or cocks. They also participate in the coloring of real eggs which are hidden by the Easter Bunny. Hunting for that was then carried out with great vigor. Eiertikken, is also a popular Easter game in Netherland in which people knock eggs together to see which breaks first.
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| Easter bonfire before... |
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| Easter bonfire After... |
In the eastern regions of the Netherlands,(where I am) village folks light an Easter bonfire on some hill or high point. In order to gain a head start, people start collecting wood for the fires weeks in advance as each area tries to outdo each other by building the biggest bonfire. On Easter Sunday, families gather for the traditional Easter meal. The table is decorated with colored eggs and spring flowers and Paasbrood, which is sweet bread with raisins and currants, is one of the special foods traditionally served at Easter.
Now, today I am secretly happy for some friends of mine today, and I'm not going to tell more about it. Just that I'm happy for them! Oh,I'm so mean... sorry about that!
