On Friday the 13th of June Joe and I arrived early evening in Eindhoven the Netherlands for an extended stay...Joe for two weeks me for about 10 days. After checking into our hotel we headed downtown for dinner about 8p local time. To say we were overrun by literally thousands of people in orange was an understatement.
Orange shirts, pants, hats, toys, boas, wigs, shoes...you name it, if it was orange they were wearing it. What we hadn't realized was that Holland was playing France in the Euro 2008 games at 8:45p that night. Before settling on a spot for dinner we wondered around and just watched the phenomenon. By 9p the streets were empty and all the sidewalk eateries were abandoned as people crowded inside to watch the game.
No need to bother to join the packed crowds as every move of interest literally echoed throughout the entire downtown area. Thousands of people booing or cheering in unison. It was amazing. And, in case you haven't heard, Holland unexpectedly won that night. The city went crazy. Horns honking, screaming, cheering that went on for hours.
As Joe and I emerged from dinner...we had settled on a Chinese restaurant with one other occupied table and a small staff otherwise huddled around a TV (it was too A Christmas Story surreal not to)...listening to the horns and the cheers, you were overcome with happiness. It was amazingly contangious and then we realized, not only was the city of Eindhoven cheering like this, the entire country of the Netherlands in cities, towns and hamlets were cheering and honking their horns and celebrating.
The next day in Delft I would get the biggest smiles from waiters and waitresses, hotel staff, etc., when I would offer my "congratulations on the game last night." They beamed with such pride and hope.
Later in the week, Holland beat Romania, but that was expected, so it wasn't so exciting. Then on Friday, Turkey beat Croatia and the Turks went crazy-mad like the Nederlanders had the previous Friday. Unfortunately for Holland they lost to Russia on Saturday in an intense game decided in overtime. It was still incredible to hear the entire city roar for the one goal that Holland did score. No matter where you were, you knew what had happened and that it was a good thing.
I'll never forget that Friday the 13th though. It was one of those unanticipated magic moments you know you'll remember for the rest of your life.
