First Impression

This is not my first visit to the Netherlands. I had been here before, years ago.... during my student time. Brief as it was the visit then, the Netherlands, or commonly referred to as Holland, striked me as a friendly country. I remember when the four of us were in The Hague at the central station, trying to get to Madurodam, the miniature city. We approached an old man asking him how to go there. Unfortunately, the old man couldn't speak English, and we had problems communicating to him. Our pronounciation of Madurodam must have been wrong because it took him a long while to understand it. When he finally did understand where we wanted to go, he launched into an explanation, his hands waving here and there. When he finished, he looked expectantly at us, his gaze landed on each of our faces, only to be met with blank stare from us. He started explaining again... and again... What must he thought of us... In the end we gave up and decided that we had to ask someone else. But then, the old man waved to us, indicating that we should follow him. So, we got on a tram with him all the way to Madurodam. When we reached there, he also got of the tram and after saying goodbye to us, he went to the other side of the road to wait for the next tram back to the central station. What a sweet old man, he went out of his way to help these 4 stupid students who should have known better to at least learn a few phrases before they went travelling to foreign country.


I will never forget him. Because of him, I had a good impression of Holland.