Delft // Dinner en Blanc

It was our first few nights of being back in Delft after traveling throughout Switzerland and after dinner we decided to go for a walk to grab a bottle of wine. We wandered down our street towards the market when we heard music and chatter coming from the main square. As we rounded the corner we were shocked to find hundreds of people dressed all in white dining on long farm tables. We wandered around the event for a while, in a dazed confusion and wondering what was going on.

As we were taking pictures and staring at the unbelievable party before our eyes, a man came up to us and asked "Do you know what this is? Do you have any questions?" We immediately said no, and that yes we had a ton of questions, and he spent the next hour hosting us, inviting us to his table to sit with his friends and drink their wine, to hear all about who we are and what we're doing here, and to tell us all about what it's like living in the Netherlands. As he explained it, we had stumbled upon a Dinner En Blanc party, an event that was started in France and has been adopted by the Netherlands. It involves getting a group of people together and there is only one person that knows where the even will be held. Every year on the day of the event, the group meets at a location dressed all in white and with picnics to share, gets on a bus, and is driven to a random location anywhere in the Netherlands. They then set up shop at farm tables (provided by the event) and feast, make friends, and celebrate "life, light, and the summer" with friends old and new. At the end of the evening we witnessed the sparkler lighting, where very person was handed a sparkler and they toasted the end of the dinner in a sparkling glow. It was such a surreal, beautiful event to witness and partake in, and such an amazing introduction to the hospitality of the dutch and our lively little new home.