The End of an Era.

Here I sit, on a couch, in a living room, in a moderately sized white house, in a small state in a fairly large country known to many as America. 

This is home, and yet... this is no castle. 

The last 2 weeks in Europe were spent, for the most part, at the castle in Well. My Eurail pass had run out, so it was much less expensive to simply stay put. We traveled into Amsterdam for a day trip, but other than that it was a very local experience. Many others had the same idea, so the castle was far from lonely. 

Its funny how when you're left with nowhere else to go, you really get a chance to explore your environment. It's a shame that it took us 3 months to discover the magical hiding spots in Well. To be brief, many of us wished we had known sooner about the 50's style diner, the playground with an AWESOME zip line and of course, the ever amazing sand dunes. 

Sand dunes? in HOLLAND? you must be kidding me. 

Folks... I kid you not. 

The sand dunes are tucked away, about a 10 minutes walk from the castle. We were lucky enough to hear about them, but few of us actually visited until these last couple weeks. On our last weekend at the Castle, after exams were all finished we went out to the Dunes and had a bonfire, a mini-farewell for the castle students. We ran around the blazing glory, drinking our last dutch beers, and burning the papers we never again will need to read. 

It was nothing short of amazing.