Via Gladiola

It's a madhouse outside our front door at the moment!! Our street has been renamed Via Gladiola for the day, and I have NEVER seen soooooo many gladiolas in my life! Yep, it's the intocht of the 4daagse (the last few hundred metres of the 4 days walk) for tens of thousands of walkers. They all finish their 4 days by walking down our street and receiving bunches of gladiolas (and a medal) for their efforts :-)

There are 101 brass marching bands, walkers from every corner of the globe, people in crazy costumes and lots & lots of beer! Basically it is one gi-normous street party :-D

Right in the middle of it all (around 1.15pm this afternoon) it absolutely bucketed down for about 2 hours non stop. Thunder and lightning and flash flooding were all happening - just what you want when you are limping home on the last leg of 200 kms hey?! But that was then, this is now - the rain has gone and the sun is shining!

Now I can almost say I am a true Nijmegenar ;-)) having experienced my first 4daagse. I say "almost" because I think I have to actually DO the walk to be truly integrated. Who knows, maybe next year!

Alli xxx