Giethoorn

Giethoorn is a wonderful village located in Overijssel province, Netherlands. Giethoorn used to be a pedestrian precinct, but nowadays exceptions are made. It became locally famous, especially after 1958, when the Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra made his famous comedy Fanfare there. In the old part of the village, there were no roads and all transport was done by water over one of the many canals. The lakes in Giethoorn were formed by peat unearthing. The village became nationally famous in 1958 when Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra shot his famous comedy Fanfare here.

The village is small and has only 2,620 inhabitants. There are no roads in the centre, all transport is done by water over one of the many canals (but nowadays there is a cycling path). Venice has gondolas, Giethoorn has punters, traditional flatbottom boats that are used for transport over the canals. Giethorn has a long shape and is separated in three tiny settlements: Noordeinde, Middenbuurt and Zuideinde. The Dorpsgracht is the central canal that connects these separate settlements. The farms and houses are separated from each other by small canals. The bultrugboerderij is a common type of farm in Giethoorn. It seems to have a large bump because the barn is larger than the house in front.

This place is really a traditional village of Netherland. The houses in this village are very typical such as windmolens, Zaanse huisjes, Stolpboerderijen, etc.

Windmolens or windmills are the most eye-catching buildings in the Netherlands and draw millions of tourists every year. In the past, these were not just used to pump water or grain, but also to provide a cosy home. Zaanse huisjes or zaanse houses are usually made from wood. These are still commonly constructed and widely lived in, particularly in the Zaanse area. Stolpboerderijen or Dutch farmshouses are square-shaped Dutch houses with a pyramidal roof.

Giethoorn have many tourism attraction. There are a lot of people come to this village because of its beauty. There, you can go around the village by a boat. In the boat, there is a guider who explains the history and the lifes in this village. And also, you can drive the boat by yourselve. There are many kind of boat for rent.  Beside that, there is a place for taking a photo of you wearing traditional dutch clothes. But it is different from other photobooth in the netherland, it is more unique. There are also some restaurant and caffe for the tourism in the modern part of the village.

The mayority of people in this village are fisher. This is happened because at the end of the canals there is a big lake so people can easily fishing. Almost each houses have their own garage, but the garage is for the boat. There are also people who work as a farmer. in the winter, the canals will freeze. It is usually used for ice skating area. Beside that, you can find some museum such as Old Earth, Olde Maat Uus, and Histomobil. In the museum of Old Earth, you can find an exhibition of precious stones, ornamental stones and minerals, and a terrarium . The Olde Maat Uus is a Giethoornse farmhouse from ± 1800 with an exhibition live 100 years and working in Giethoorn. The farmhouse is furnished in period style, 





Source:
http://www.accessibletravelnl.com/blogs/Accessibility-in-Giethoorn
http://www.tourismontheedge.com/hidden-places/europe/giethoorn-holland-the-small-venice-of-the-north
http://www.tourist-destinations.net/2013/08/giethoorn-holland.html
http://www.holland.com/global/tourism/interests/traditional/windmills/vakantiepark-giethoorn-en.htm


 

My Experience at MEGANTARA

Megantara is a cultural festival held by SMAN 3 Bandung. This festival was held on 10th September 2016 at Lapangan Bali. The open gate was actually at 11:35 AM, but for all grade 10 should come at 07:30 AM to participate a parade. We were told to wear sundanese traditional clothes, pangsi for the male and kebaya for the female. It wasn't just grade 10 who participated the parade, there were also children from many kindergarten. Actually the parade was one of Megantara event. The parade started from Bali Street to Belitung Street, Sumatera Street, Merdeka Street, Jawa Street, and then back to Bali street. The seniors told us to sing a song or saying our yell yell while walking. We didn't know what song to sing and we don't have any yell yell, so my friends and I got an idea to sing a song for promoting Megantara. We yelled like mad until our throat sore. Then, a senior followed to sing. He commanded all of students to sing.

After the parade, I changed my clothes. Then, I went to Takolada with Dhea and Fathya. We ate and talked about remedial and many other things, waiting for the open gate. At around 12:00 AM after pray dzuhur, we went to Megantara. At the entrance, we got a free drink. There weren't so much people yet, but the show had already started. There were many performance, especially traditional performance such as angklung from Keluarga Paduan Angklung 3, Wayang Golek Putra Giri Harja 3, rampak kendang from Darul Hikam, traditional dance, traditional song from Kelompok Vokal 3 and many more. The most excited show was the traditional fashion show. Each class of grade 10 should send 4 representative to participate the fashion show. So there were 34 students who participated the fashion show because each student represented traditional cloth from one province. The jury who rate the fashion show was Ridwan Kamil. The winner of this fashion show was the one who represented Papua. There, I met a lot of my friends, especially friends when I was in junior high school. We talked a lot of story. Then, we bought some foods and drinks. We sat on the ground while watching the performance. And we didn't forget to take our picture at batik background that was prepared by the organizer.


At around 4:00 PM, the people started to fill this place. They knew that the most exciting performance would be showed at the night, especially The Changcuters and RAN. Those band was performing at the night. It was around 08:00 PM until 10:00 PM. I went home around 09:30 PM, after watched some performance from RAN.

My Crazy Experience at QURTILAS

So now I'm gonna tell you about one of my favorite experience. But before that, let me tell you a little bit about Qurtilas. So Qurtilas or Qurban Tiga 2016 is an event that was held by SMAN 3 Bandung. All of the member of this event was student from grade ten. So actually this is the first event for grade ten to be the workers. The main aim of this event was for sosial service by involving the qurban. The event was held a day after Eid al-Adha, it was the 13th September. But this event was already planned quite long before that day. This should be hapenned because we need a lot of money to buy the animals for qurban. We got the money by collecting it from all the students of SMAN 3 Bandung who wanted to donate their money for the qurban. We also got the money by selling food to every class in SMAN 3 Bandung. Beside that,we also had a qurban service for parents who want to fulfill their qurban. In the end, we got money that was much enough to buy 11 goat and 7 cow. I chose to participate this event. My job was to chop the flesh. Well, I was not really good at it but I should try it.

At the day, there were just not more than 50 members who worked even though there were actually 116 members but most of them couldn't come and some of them were too lazy to work. Well, it would be a really hard work because the number of our member were too little to do all these jobs. The location for our jobs was at the corridor. There, I was with my friends. Some of them were my new friends. We started to work after the animals were slaughtered and flushed by boiling water. At first, our job was just chopping the flesh and the lard into small pieces. I was really bad at it but later I found some tricks to make it easy. What I hate from this job is when I chopped the lard. It was really hard to chop because the lard is too chewy even though I've already sharpened my knife repeatedly. Sometimes, I needed some help to chop it. In that time, I was with my friend Alya Dyah from grade 10 science 1. So, Lya and I decided to work together. Lya held the lard while I was chopping it, or sometimes we turned our job.

The time went really fast, I didn't believe that we had already chopped all the flesh and the lard. I felt relieved because I thought that our jobs were done until some people came brought a ton of inner organs of the cow and goat. It smelled very bad. I couldn't stand it anymore. Mrs. Aan said that we should chopped all of it. And we were like "Oh my god". I don't know what organ it was because it shaped really abstract. Then, we started to chop it. But before that, we wore our scarf covering our mouth and nose, so that we would not smell it. At first, I wear plastic gloves because I felt really disgusted to touch it. I don't know what I chopped but it shaped like wrinkled towel. But I didn't really feel disgusted when chopping it because it was not wet. Then I chopped something like digestive tract of cow. When I pressed it, it ejected brown liquid. I said "Eww Lyy, what is this?". "Don't think, just chop!" she answered with her regsined expression. Well I think she felt my the same as me. But I decided to chop other organ. I felt like my plastic gloves disturb my job. I didn't care anymore, so I took off my gloves. Lya was right "Don't think, just chop!".

After struggled for a long time, we decided to take a break.We walked around the school with bare feet. Then we passed my class, 10 science 2. I saw there were heads of cow lined in my class and it was full of blood. I was like "Oh nooo, why my class?". Then we decided to have lunch. We ate beside the little fish pond while chilling and we talked each other about many things. After finishing our lunch, we went back to job. But there were already enough people to do the chopping job. So at that time our job was to put in the flesh into a plastic bag. Yayy, at least not chopping anymore. The job was finished really fast because there were some teachers who helped us. After that we took a picture of all the members.

Even it was really tired, I was happy because I got new experience. Beside that, I have new friends. There were many problem that we made when do the job, but we solved it together so it will strengthen our friendship.