Only in Holland: River, barbecue and ....cows?

So today I will tell you about the craziest barbecue I've ever been to (and I'm Brazilian so I've been to a lot of them). I already knew today was going to be weird because it was 32 degrees here in the Netherlands, which is very rare and unusual here (if you read my post about spring in Holland, you will know why). Only I didn't know HOW weird.

I live in Deventer, a kind of medium-sized town in the East of the Netherlands, so I don't have a beach near by. However, we have the Ijssel (big river) passing by the city and being the saving grace if it happens to be super warm and we want to tan or just relax by the water. My friends decided to have a barbecue there then.

The thing is, from one side of the river we have houses and in 5 minutes walk we are in the city center. On the other side, we are basically in the countryside (as you can imagine there is where we went)!

So my friends were barbecuing and I was sitting on the towel eating my grilled corn cob (I'm a vegetarian but I'm not complaining, cause I love corn and at least I was invited, right?) when we see some cows walking around far away from us. At first it was just like "oh look, animals, ok whatever". But they kept coming closer and closer, when out of nowhere one of my friends just screams "oh my god, there are cows everywhere around us!" (Yes, that was only when I noticed what was happening around me... call me distracted lol) and started to run away.

What happened was, apparently these cows were free and no was was there to "claim them". They smell of food probably attracted them, because one of them was so close to us and the actual barbecue I could see its nose moving when it was smelling the food. And of course, what would be the 1st instinct of a millennial that happens to be surrounded by cows out of nowhere?
a) run for your life
b) pretend you are playing "statue"and stay still until they leave
c) take selfies with them

Probably not the last one, but of course that was what I did. I mean, it is not everyday that this happens, specially when you don't live in the countryside. Luckily the boyfriend of one of my friends went after them, using my Brazilian beach towel as a torero cape, so they would move away from "our area".

After that, they were still nearby, just sitting and chilling by the water near us. Still all alone with anyone looking after them. I guess they must know how to get back home by themselves... At least I hope so, since about 1h later they just left. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I will totally add this episode to my "list of things that only happen in Holland".

I hope you had fun reading it, like I had with the cows today. What was the weirdest thing that has happened to you? Let me know!

PS: The cows did not eat any of our food, because it would be very wrong to let them eat barbecue.
PS2: I will leave you with one more cowselfie, because the occasion deserves it and this time the cow is also kind of smiling to the camera.