Back to School

It must be time to go back to school, because kermis is in town. I would say the carnival, because that's what it is, but then since we also have Carnaval just before Lent, I wouldn't want to confuse anybody. But anyway, this is the summer travelling carnival which is in many ways the same all over the western world. Tilt-a-whirls and knock down the cans and cotton candy and throw the ball through the hoop and merry go rounds and a fun house and so on. It began Friday at 7 pm and goes on until Wednesday.

It is always, I am told, the weekend before and the first week of school in this town. That's how you know it is time to go to school in these parts, kermis is in town. There are worse ways, I imagine. I have it on good authority that people save money the entire year for kermis, sort of like a Christmas Club account. Which would be sensible, as you find that a lot of money goes out in "6 rides for 3 euros" repeated for every ride you pass. Oh, well, Kerstmis, whoops, sorry, Kermis comes but once a year.

Kermis is set up right through the center of town, not on its outskirts which is the setup I am more familiar with in the States. If you need a loaf of bread after 2 pm, your shopping trip is enhanced by the music of the carousel and the squeals of little children trying to grab the bouncing ball. The ball is suspended over a moving ride on a pulley which is bounced around by the carnival workers -- if you grab the ball and hold it you win another ride for free. The Dutch version of the brass ring, I think. The workers are very good at preventing the same child getting it more than once.

The hip tweens and early teens spend all their time in the fun house -- in fact, you can buy a card which gets you unlimited entree for 5 hours at a time and most of them have one. The bad boys and girls, the ones in the denimn jackets and multiple piercings who tell their parents they are going "out" (oh, how I longed to do that as a teen; no chance I am afraid, I think my mother would have pulled me back into the house by my long and silky hair had I tried it) spend all their time working out their adolescent angst on the bumper cars. Luckily for my own offspring, who have not yet attained that age or attitude, there is a seperate bumper cars ride for little kids.

There is no Tunnel of Love, unless you count the benches outside the bumper cars, lol. There are indeed very few sedate rides of any kind; this kermis runs heavily to the "stuff that spins around and goes upside down very fast while making lots of noise" kind of ride. Many rides have a musical sound track, and the people who work the rides can slow them down or speed them up and often do so in synchronization with the music, which is a new experience for me.

A week ago at a fair in a nearby town, my elder child had to work up the courage to go on an attraction where you jump on a trampoline with bungee cords attached to a belt at your waist which enables you to jump very high and turn flips and so on. By the end of today there were no further misty eyed mommy moments watching him work up his courage I am afraid. He is now all in and gung ho for all things which go very fast in circles and bounce a lot -- the approximate turning point is in the photo above, actually.

By the end of that ride, Nel was terrified, Paul was terrified (becasue it turns out Douwe is barely over the weight limit for the ride and so kept sort of tending upward with the centrifugal force, a fact I am very glad I did not know while watching the ride), and Douwe was game for the next "spin me around until I nearly barf" ride. I shall have to save my tristesse for Daan, who wants to go on the barf rides but is not nearly heavy enough to keep him in the seat. He did, however, enjoy the haunted house ride which sent Douwe bolting for the exit -- which Daan pointed out repeatedly.

My, that sibling thing starts early, does it not?

They went in the Hall of Mirrors with their father yesterday, which is a sort of mirror maze with one way glass so that onlookers can stand outside and watch you be hopelessly lost. This is good, becasue Nel took them in today, and well, Nel's sense of direction is indeed better than my lost-in-a-paper-bag one, but not by much. So they went in in this order: Nel, Daan, Douwe. They came out in this order: Douwe, Daan, Nel.

And I even made the ultimate sacrifice and went on one of the make-you-barf rides with Douwe. Which is how I knew they coordinate with the music. I got to be spun around and raised up and down and otherwise moved around at high rates of speed in three dimensions to the sound of dance music today and all I have to say is this: he enjoyed it very much, but I should have held off on eating until afterwards.