Leiden

Before last year, I don't think I would have come-up with Leiden if someone asked me to name cities in the Netherlands. As we had friends in M*'s program that were from there and we visited it during our post-Cambridge travels, we are now familiar with this Dutch town.

A first experienced in Leiden was trying a mild, creamy textured and colored cheese flavored with cumin seeds. M* and I loved it, and we asked our friends what the cheese was called. They didn't know it by a specific name—it was just a regularly available cheese. M* and I weren't hopeful of finding the cheese in the States. However, when we visited Eastern Market a few weeks ago, my sister took us to the cheese vendor so that she could buy cheeses for Thanksgiving. One cheese that she wanted to get was Leiden cheese. When she said that, I didn't make the connection. Instead I described to her the tasty, cumin-seeded cheese that we had in Leiden. She looked at me and said, "It's called Leiden cheese." M* and I immediately bought some for ourselves—and it was delicious. It's definitely one of my favorite cheese at the moment—I love the depth and pungency of the the cumin seeds coupled with the creamy, yet firm texture of the cheese.

Me with my Leiden cheese at Eastern Market

Another thing about Leiden that surprised us is the fact that the Mayflower Pilgrims spent a dozen years in Leiden after fleeing England and before leaving on the Mayflower (from England) to America. I recently came across a brochure from Plimouth Plantation ("Plymouth as it was in the 17th century"), which I visited as a young'un, and even it doesn't mention a stay in The Netherlands.

"In the autumn of 1620, a small band of immigrants left England aboard the ship Mayflower, seeking economic opportunity and religious freedom in the New World."

Our time abroad was an edifying and humbling experience—we didn't realize how much we didn't know.