{"id":151,"date":"2019-03-11T13:41:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T13:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nether-netherland.com\/?p=151"},"modified":"2019-09-05T10:01:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T09:01:08","slug":"and-the-winner-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nether-netherland.com\/wordpress\/2019\/03\/11\/and-the-winner-is\/","title":{"rendered":"And the winner is…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I won a competition. It was almost out of the blue, if I\nhadn\u2019t, y\u2019know, entered it. But, as everyone always says in these situations: \u201cI\nwasn\u2019t expecting it!\u201d, and honestly, I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you all know, International Women\u2019s Day swooped down upon\nus and whisked us all away in her horn-tooting grip on the 8th<\/sup> March.\nJust a day earlier, I noticed a little competition happening over on Royaal\nBelegd\u2019s Instagram page, crying out for its followers to name drop their\nultimate woman to potentially win a little coffee date on the 8th<\/sup>;\npresumably to while away the hours talking about world domination, how to get\nthe ultimate messy topknot and why our periods still hurt so damn much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously I entered my best friend, who, like the rest of\nus, battles those demons day in, day out and kicks ass raising two kids whilst\nshe does so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I honestly didn\u2019t expect to win. Who does? Usually my name\ngets lost amidst the Lucky Lucies of the world, and furthermore, I\u2019d written my\nanswer in English –  on a Dutch Instagram\npage, so I expected to be tossed aside like the dunce I am. But no. We won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We fled to the super hip caf\u00e9 two days later, and one day\ntoo late for our actual winnings (why would someone who doesn\u2019t expect to win\nmake sure she\u2019s free the day of the competition winner\u2019s prize?!) in the midst\nof a rain shower that dimmed the lights of the kermis that had just come into\ntown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI hope they don\u2019t want to take any pictures of us\u201d, we both\ngiggled nervously, expecting our hair, sopping wet and frizzing all over the\nplace to be spread akimbo on the front page of Instagram a few hours later. We\nneedn\u2019t have worried, as we were not asked for a photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The inside was cosy, and the exact replica of a shit-on-dream\nthat my same friend and I had for our future in the Netherlands a long, long\ntime ago. We gave each other the forlorn smile that you see between two people\nwho know what they could have had, had they been richer and more business\nminded, as we ordered our fancy coffees: \u201ctwee koffie specials alsjeblieft\u201d\n(and a hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows for the little one,\nwho had joined us on a girls day out). I sat in the back corner, which had a\nwonderful view out onto Sneek\u2019s Waterpoort, and took in the view. An inky blue\nstatement wall, emblazoned with \u201cSmile, there\u2019s coffee!\u201d, hanging plants\ndelicately strung up from the ceiling, in that BDSM style that\u2019s all the range\nin garden centres nowadays; fancy chocolate that you actually can\u2019t buy in the\nAlbert Heijn (I checked a day later), and, as is regular nowadays, an\nassortment of funky postcards by the cashier\u2019s desk (my favourite postcard being,\nnaturally, \u2018Exercise? I thought you said \u2018extra fries\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our coffees came in glasses that resembled whisky(?)\ntumblers. All fancy on the upper rim, with indentations and everything. I for\none felt very elegant seeing as I do not drink coffee ever. I actually can\u2019t\nstand the stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe said you could have any drink\u201d hissed my best friend. I\nmust have missed that part, along with every other important piece of\ninformation that I miss when it\u2019s spoken in Dutch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter!\u201d I chirped as I notived a tiny Daim bar\nsticking out of the top of my whipped cream. To be honest, I didn\u2019t want anyone\nto take it away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is it with coffees nowadays that the best part is the\nwhipped cream and little chocolate you get on the side? I\u2019m sure there are many\ncoffee connoisseurs out there right now absolutely disgusted in me for daring\nto think that a REAL coffee comes served with whipped cream and a mini Daim bar,\nbut I\u2019m totally here for the new caf\u00e9 culture that surrounds us. If I\u2019m going\nto (usually) pay over 3 Euros for a drink, there better be something exciting\nto keep me coming back for more. Please note that some of my recommendations\nfor this would be: <\/p>\n\n\n\n