Travel & Hotspots

The 6 important things I learned from my holiday romances

So there was a time when I was drowning in holiday romances. Not literally of course, that would be something, you wouldn't wish that on your worst enemy, being crushed by holiday romances, but I really had a ton of them. Every vacation I had one. Or better said: I had to have one. And sometimes even two. Or three. As soon as I arrived at the campsite (we always went camping in England or France) I scanned the campsite with my overly made-up hawk eye in search of a nice specimen to devour. And man oh man, there were some nice guys among them. And remarkable. And stupid. And terrifyingly handsome. And clingy. Anyway, I learned a whole lot from them. They shaped me. Taught me to laugh and shiver. Tremble and quake. Long for and desire. Disgust and thrill. Cry and tremble. Okay, I'll stop now. Here come the lessons.

1. My very first boyfriend was Dirk. I was twelve and he gave me my first kiss. In the water of Lac des Settons, behind a sailboat. Very romantic, except that splashing around and kissing isn't exactly a super relaxed combination, but when you're in love, you do everything, even drink water from a lake while kissing, but I'm digressing again. It has to stop sometime with my digressions! Good. What did I learn from this boy? That the basic principle of holiday romances is that they are basically temporary. They end at the end of the vacation. You definitely shouldn't go to the local jeweler when you get home, buy a necklace with the letter R on it, and actually send that necklace to Dirk. Because you never hear from dear Dirk again and you're left with your expensive necklace. A necklace that would have been very trendy now, I mean!

”You understand, from that moment on I was also obsessed with Metallica.”

2. My second holiday romance was named Thijs and I consumed it in the Jura. He had medium-length hair and was obsessed with Metallica. You understand, from that moment on I was also obsessed with Metallica. I'm not lying, I love metal ever since. Furthermore, I learned from Thijs how to French kiss on a swing, and that's a very important thing to learn in life, and besides that, I dared to shower with a boy for the first time. With my swimsuit on, that much was true, but it was super exciting to stand together in a shower stall and he really touched me everywhere and I thought I was going crazy and he SAW ALL MY FAT, I think.

3. I'm not going to go through the entire list of holiday romances, I know you would like that, but it has to stop at some point. Still, I want to mention Gerke, from whom I learned that some boys can be quite clingy and don't adhere to the rule that a holiday romance is temporary. This boy – with whom I had quite a nice week in the Auvergne – sent such an annoyingly strange postcard when I was back home, seriously, I was almost stuck on it. It was a photo of a naked horny lady in the shower. I stared at it a million times, hoping I could interpret the card in another way. Maybe I was seeing it wrong and this lady wasn't horny at all. Maybe it was more of a health-related card and she was undergoing some beauty treatment that you had to look at very strangely. Something like that? For God's sake? But no, there was no way to make it into a beauty treatment situation with the best will in the world. To top it off, there was already another boy in my life. Long story short: I called Gerke to discuss things, but that was a highly remarkable conversation, no man has ever been so angry with me, he thought I was a dirty deceiver and so on. Then I just hung up, beep beep beep.

4. And then there is an honorable mention for Phil, whom I met at the campsite in Cornwall. Phil was hysterically handsome, could dance impressively well, and talked like Hugh Grant. Oh, and he turned out to be my first really Bad Boy. I once arranged to meet him at the campsite bar. I came all dressed up and almost throwing up from nerves to that sticky bar, and there he was casually hanging over another chick?! Literally. I mean, she was standing with her back against a pinball machine and Phil was just completely over her, wtf. Still, he managed to convince me that same evening with all sorts of stories that I was his one true love. He half-sobbed that I was so special, and that I really had to look at the stars every night in the Netherlands. Then he would do that too, and in that way, we would still be together. After this profound conversation, he of course urgently wanted to shag me. That's sex in English. I didn't let it go that far, because I wasn't crazy, there were only hand and service duties, but still: the bad boy had me caught. Once but never again.

”And I tell you, everyone wants a tall, broad Frenchman with a band.”

5. I also had the pleasure of meeting the divine Julien: an enormously broad, tall Frenchman with a band called Noise. And I tell you, everyone wants a tall, broad Frenchman with a band. Let there be no misunderstandings about that! We rolled around in the grass for nights on end. Once home, however, to my great shock, he kept sending beautifully written letters with a historically sounding wax seal on the back of the envelope. At first, I was completely smitten, but after sixteen letters, I became a bit anxious and short of breath. I found it too much pressure and besides, I didn't have any wax seals at home to send interesting letters back, so in the end, I just let it fizzle out. Sorry Julien, I hope you're not famous now.

6. The most important and beautiful lesson I learned from my current love: friend L. Who I managed to checkmate at camping Bakkum. I already knew him from high school (!!) so I'm a bit cheating, but he taught me that a love that is first consumed in all lightness at a campsite can indeed be a keeper. How beautiful is that? It all started in a tiny De Waard tent that was leaking because it was a thousand years old, but now we have two stunningly beautiful (logical, logical) children and even our own permanent spot at Bakkum (just read here). With a caravan that doesn't leak, how good is that. I say: holiday romances rule. The circle is complete again. Damn! What a sappy ending! I need a bucket soon!