Hiking around Arnhem

Now it’s finally so far: We have an official Instagram account. It is still not perfectly done, but I’m sure that we are going to use it more often in the future.

Anyway, since the weather was starting to look a lot better, I suggested to go to Arnhem this weekend, because for me Arnhem is a place we would like to visit only in winter, since there’s practically no mountain in that area, while the city itself is nice to visit.

Ah maybe it’s worth mentioning that we got a new admin of our Meetup group recently. The original guy abandoned it a few weeks ago, which I could totally understand, since he was paying the fee all alone without getting anything. I was ready to let it go, but then somehow there was a lady who offered us to take it over. I don’t really understand why, but there was also no reason for me to say no.

Apparently the fact that we got a new owner had a huge impact today, because probably she logs in more often, and therefore approves more members, which makes it easier for new people to join events. There were more than 10 people joining over Meetup today, which doesn’t wound like a lot, but compared to only 1 or 2 until last time, it’s a huge jump.

Still I think we lost quite a lot of people in the morning, as the train was fairly early, and it was also quite long. At least it was only one train, and somehow it didn’t have much delay either. What a luck.

We got this ticket for the train station, which allows you to get out of the gate. This system doesn’t exist in Germany, while in the Netherlands it’s at every train station. It really makes sense, but obviously not if you can travel across countries and the systems are different. I just don’t really understand why we cannot get out with the German railway ticket.

I had kind of promised to the people that we would be the biggest group at the platform. That was indeed true, with more than 30 people today. We immediately started walking.

The nature in this area is honestly not particularly beautiful. It’s very sandy, and not so green. If it was not in the Netherlands, I’m sure that no one would have wanted to join. On top of this, it was just flat everywhere. It didn’t really feel like a hike.

But the weather was totally different all at once. It was basically spring today, with around 20 degrees. Some people apparently missed it and came with thick jackets. What did they expect.

Apparently we had a famous YouTuber last week, and today we got allegedly another one. To be honest I don’t particularly care, but since we are now on Instagram we should maybe start thinking about making connections to the famous people as well.

There was a place at the middle point where we could have had a break, but it was just so easy that we didn’t really feel like having a break there. We kept going and had a break right next to a river. It was such a great day that we decided to stay there longer. Some people were having a nap.

There were some sloped in the second half, but we can definitely not compare it with the usual hikes. At least I had some great conversations with new participants.

After the hike, we stayed in the city for some time. We got an ice cream, a super fat one. Some other people went to a bar, and stayed there for more than an hour. We then went to the river, which is basically the Rhine, although it looked somehow a lot better than in Düsseldorf. Anyway, in the end it was a nice sightseeing trip. Besides spring is here. Who can complain?