Voice of the 13th Generation: Afternoon in Zwolle

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Afternoon in Zwolle

Yesterday afternoon, Roxi and I made the short trip to Zwolle to finally pick up our residence cards. Roxi's has actually been available for about two months, but I only received my notice of issuance about a week ago. It came in the mail the day before Roxi left for her trip to Italy and she has been pretty busy with work since she returned. So yesterday was finally the first chance we had to make the trip to pick up our permits.

The train ride was only a little more than an hour and finding the immigration office was pretty easy. We were expecting a long wait but they called us in quickly and we were done within five minutes. We could have gone right back to Enschede, but decided to have a beer at an outdoor cafe and enjoy the warm sunny day. While we were there, a local guy asked us where we were from and told us that we should go to the older part of the city before we left for the day. With nothing really urgent to return to, we decided to take a walk to the north side of the train station and see the historic city.

Zwolle was indeed beautiful and very different from what we are accustomed to in Enschede. The city architecture is magnificent and much older than that of Enschede. We took a walk through the old city gate and then around the city center. What started as a somewhat annoying errand ended up being a very relaxing afternoon of souvenir shopping and sightseeing.