Kaarsjesavond

Yesterday was the tradiotional kaarsjesavond in Gouda. The main programme is the lighting of the christmas tree in the marketsquare for the first time. And all around the market square all electrical light is doused and the houses and the city hall are lighted by candles. It is a huge tree given by our sistertown in Norway every year. It is a very popular event drawing a huge crowd each year. The last couple of years they have added a lot to it with a whole day programme.

This year I went along for the first time in ages, us gouwenaars tend to stay away on the evening itself because of the crowds. But this year I had friends coming over. Marjon and Susan came in the afternoon and Susan's husband Jaap joined us for the evening programme.

We had a stroll over the market square, seeing everything in the daytime and taking some pictures of the old houses and of course cityhall and the old weigh building. They had some people out in period dress and dresses up as father christmas and of course there was the visit to the stroopwafel winkel.

We went on to visit inside the St. Jan's curch, the longest in the country. Today it was free because of the festivities and pretty crowded. Still it is a huge place and so beautifull. I am proud of our church inside and out. It is huge and that build on marshland. The glass stained windows are spectacular and I can keep coming back to watch them many times. We all enjoyed it, there was music in the background as there was a concert going on.

Going through the Catherina gasthuis museum was less of a treat for me. This used to be a really good museum with a nice collection of old artefacts beautifull displayed. But recently they have wrecked the museum bringing in a lot of modern art and worse putting that in the place of the old stuff. I saw that since I had been here last it has even got worse. It is coming to a point were I am embarressed to bring people here. And it really makes me want to cry. If they want a modern museum let them open up something else but not destroy our city museum!!!!Oh yeah, high horse. :)

We walked back to my house to have some food and open small packages we had bought for each other. That was a great deal of fun. There wasn't much time though before we had to walk back to the city for the evening events. We missed most of the formal programme, hearing the mayor speak and some carrolling. But it was not so crowded when we got back to the market, which was not a bad thing to me. And the electric lights were still out so the cityhall and the surrounding houses looked very pretty. It was bloody cold though so the others had some gluhwein and cocoa.

Afterwards it was on to the St. Jan again. Since a few years they light the church windows from the inside out around christmas and it is so beautifull to see. hard to capture on camera but breathtaking to be around. We could go into the church again as there was another concert. And it was so great to see it at night, with all the bright lights on the window it gave a new and different atmosphere to the church then I am used to seeing.

At the end of the tour was going into the hofje at the Willem Vroezenhuis. Which was decorated with lights and looked marvellous as well. Afterthat we walked back to my house for the third time that day and by now we were all pretty pretty tired and could just about make it. I had a low grade headache all day but thankfully it allowed me to keep walking. I can't complain about the last four weeks for which I am very gratefull. The others went home and I went to bed after another great day.