The Vecht

Vecht is a river that flows in the center of Ommen, or, should I first say Ommen and then the river? _ maybe like this: Ommen is a town, which is situated around the river Vecht. Well, probably, that is a better option.

Now, many people can be confused, as there might be two river Vechts in the Netherlands! Okay, so, you got interested? That’s really interesting thing. On this planet of approximately 7 billion people with the languages spoken of about 7000 (these are some rough numbers), where things can be called different names in different languages, and they can be called different names in the same language(! ) (take, for example, medicine. There are so many names for just a tiny organ, or a bone, or a disease, that one gets really upset and confused _ “why so many names? ” _ well, you should try saying this in Heath Ledger’s voice acting as the Joker in The Dark Knight when he’s saying “why so serious” during crashing that party he was not invited explaining how he got his scars), why would these people be so monotone, that from all the possibilities of choosing or thinking up a name, they just named these two completely different rivers the same names! So, I will tell you now, that there are two Vechts _ one is in Utrecht and one is in Overijssel, and so, to distinguish these two from each other, they call them Utrechtse Vecht and Overijsselse Vecht. And here’s another thing, I know, that somewhere in the middle ages Overijssel was part of Oversticht (it was called Oversitcht, you may say) and this Oversitcht included Utrecht territories, too. This is pretty complicated, if you ask me. But the rivers’ issue is more complicated and I have some unanswered questions about it.

Anyways, the river Vecht flows across two countries: the Netherlands and Germany. Well, it starts in Germany and then goes west _ in the Netherlands. So, it originates in the Baumberge hills near the city of Münster _ that is in Westphalia. Its total length is 167 km, of which 107 km are on German soil. Now, I don’t know about you, but I clearly remember my school days, especially history lessons, where we studied the history of Europe and there were so many times that we mentioned Westphalia. It had a pretty much of a historical meaning, I can say, and you can make sure of it with just googling it or whatever. So that was some series of treaties and according to its name _ The Peace of Westphalia_ you could state, that it was a great deal of a treaty for that period of Europe and for the Dutch, too.

Every day of my stay in Ommen, I would look outside and I would see the river Vecht flowing slowly nearby our house. It was very calm and would make me feel calm, too. It was kind of beautiful, because the rivers I've seen mainly have many rocks in them and flow like crazy or just have a narrow path and stuff like that. This river was nothing like them. In fact, it was November and it was kind of freezing already and the Vecht had this ice on top of it in the mornings. It was amazing. It had a greenish look and it was really beautiful. And the other part was like crystal transparent!

There were doves floating on the water and there were boats on the river. You could go on a small trip or punting or something like that and enjoy your trip on the river Vecht. Although I didn't really have time to go on a trip across the river Vecht, but I admired its beauty from the bridge on it that I crossed almost every day to get to the center of Ommen. And the river looked even more beautiful from it, than from my window.

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