The Netherlands

A week ago today I wrote my last post in the airport. It feels like so much longer than one week! I arrived in Amsterdam bright and early (6:30am) on Tuesday morning. The city was incredibly quiet and peaceful (it was very early in the morning!) and the exit I took out of the train station led me to a beautiful, serene canal instead of the more touristy Damrak street. It was a lot busier at other times during the few days I was there, especially on the more touristy streets and in the Red Light district, but a lot of the streets maintained that quiet and pleasant feeling (especially smaller canal streets like "de negen straatjes", or "the nine little streets"). While in Amsterdam, I visited the Rijksmuseum (a museum with a variety of Dutch items, from Rembrants and Vermeers to Delft tulip vases and beautiful old dollhouses), FOAM (a photography museum), and Rembrandt's House. I spent a lot of time just walking along the canals - the architecture of the houses is so pretty and the canals are just beautiful.





I had great food while in the Netherlands, apparently the Dutch take their sandwiches very seriously and even at small little cafes I found delicious things to eat (like goat cheese and sautéd bell peppers on farmers's bread with mango chutney, rocket and almond slivers). Restaurant de Belhamel (which Anne told me means "Rascals" in Dutch) was my favorite, with this lovely view:


I had a great time staying with my friend Anne and her fiancé. I've only known Anne since the beginning of July and we were only in London together for 3 weeks, but we (along with Betty, a girl from Austria) had a great time exploring London, trying out new restaurants together, and planning Anne's proposal, which she did on the London Eye the weekend after our class ended. So we became much closer than most people after only three weeks! Their house was wonderful and only a 2 minute walk from the Amsterdam Muiderpoort train station, from which it is only a 5-minute ride to Amsterdam Centraal. I took the train a lot while staying with them and was very proud when I figured out the Dutch words for express vs local trains - "Sprinter" trains are of course the fastest while "Sneltrein" means it goes more slowly (like a snail? Dutch is full of English cognates) - only to find out from Anne that it's the exact opposite! Anne was also extremely helpful in correcting my atrocious pronunciation of Dutch (the only phrase I really got down was "dank je vel", or "thank you very much") but everyone in the Netherlands spoke almost perfect English, so except for picking the slower trains, everything went very well. Except the one time I tried to buy wet wipes (always very useful for traveling) and found out from Anne that I had purchased "wet toilet paper" - who knew such a thing existed?

On Thursday I took the train out to Delft and then Leiden. Delft (where the blue/white pottery originally came from) is a picturesque old town with 2 large churches, the Old Church and the New Church ("new" being a relative term, as the church was built between 1396 - 1496). You can climb the 365 steps up an extremely small spiral staircase in the tower of the New Church (which I did) and walk around the top of the tower 109 meters above the main square (which I did not do).


Luckily there were a few levels before the very top, so I got to enjoy some spectacular views of Delft and the surrounding areas.





I also visited the Old Church, which was lovely inside, but didn't climb up that tower as it leans over 2m from the vertical.




I hopped on the train to Leiden in the afternoon and enjoyed seeing my first Dutch windmill and views of the town from a ruined circular fort called the Burcht. Had dinner on a lovely canal boat terrace with some delicious Old Amsterdam cheese for dessert and an amazing sunset.












I flew out of Amsterdam on Saturday morning after a truly wonderful 4 days in the Netherlands. I am in Madrid now, enjoying the sunshine, stately Spanish architecture (some of it reminds me of home!) and cheap wine (I stopped in a grocery store and bought M&Ms for €2.25 and a liter of wine for €0.55). I'll write more about Spain soon - I'm off now to have tapas with two friends I played water polo with at Michigan.

Up next on my itinerary: Barcelona, Granada, Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fes, Meknes (+ Moulay Idriss and Volubilis) and Marrakech before I head beck to London to start Orientation for UCL!

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