Holland Heineken House

On Tuesday I was in a meeting for 8 hours going over documentation with my research group at school. Progress through our agenda was slow but I think we learned a lot. Anyways, after this finished I went out to Richmond to meet up with some people that I work with at the hospital.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera! One of my coworkers took this photo.

At the Holland Heineken House, HHH for short, there was not too long of a line. It was about 10 minutes to get in. In the line I found out that the Dutch skater who was supposed to get the gold that day had been messed up by his coach and disqualified....so that's why the place was not as busy as expected. They did however get bronze in the event with another Dutch athlete, Bob de Jong.

Inside there were some simulation games. I tried out bobsledding and then speed skating. I wasn't really that great at both but I think I could do a lot better the second time at the skating if I went back. To buy food or alcohol you need to use a Heineken card so I loaded some cash on one of those and then we all went into the arena part where the food and drinks were.

They have some food you would usually expect to find sold in the lobby of an arena such as hamburgers and fries but then they also had Dutch food so I had a little of both. The Dutch food I had was stamppot with bacon bits and a piece of sausage. It was tasty.

The Holland house is cool in that everyone working there is from the Netherlands. Sure they all speak English but the writing on the walls in the games area was all in Dutch and not translated and the announcer guy talking from the stage was speaking Dutch and not being translated. There seemed to be a lot of people in the crowd there who understood him too. One of my coworkers from the hospital is from the Netherlands so he translated a bit. I just think its cool that they brought so much of their culture with them in its true form.

So this mascot came out on stage that basically had a flame with a smilie face on it for a head. He was an olympic torch or cauldron. He/she/it really got the crowd pumped up and jumping up and down and waving their arms to some Dutch music. Then the flame went away and the bronze medalist Bob de Jong came out on stage. He was interviewed by the host guy (all in just Dutch) and then he too was jumping up and down on the stage and getting the crowd all pumped up. It was fun times.

After this a band setup and started playing Dutch music. They were Guus Meeuwis and Vagant. The music was alright...for not being able to understand the lyrics. At this point I had had a few Heineken and hadn't really drank much of anything else all day so I was getting a bit of a headache. So I started off for home around 10pm even though Armin van Buuren, the number 1 DJ in the world played there later in the night. Oh well, it was still a fun time. The Dutch know how to have a good time.

The bus I took on my way home had a Canada flag plastered across the front of it. Inside there were a number of flags around the driver and above the rear view mirror was stuck a paper with Canada's medal count. I love it when people display such pride in the country and I love how everyone gets into the spirit so easily. It's Olympic fever.