Netherlands: Day 1 and 2

Day One

We made it! 

For the next 6 weeks the Netherlands will be home for my friend Annie and I. It took a total of 9 hours, 8 minutes and 57 seconds of flying time to get from Canada to the Netherlands. (I had a stopwatch going on my phone the entire time just for this piece of info). That's not counting going through security, customs or collecting baggage. Luckily we were blessed by the airline gods and the whole trip here was ~drama free~.

 After we landed in Amsterdam yesterday, we took a train to Utrecht, aka home base. Once we met the wonderful people organizing our trip and got unpacked, it was time to walk around and explore for a few hours. This may or may not have involved catching a few pokemon. 

Annie realizing that this mug plays the Dutch national anthem when you pick it up. Next level mug technology.

Our first experience with trying to translate on the fly happened when we went out with my dad to go get some groceries. It honestly took Annie and I a solid 15 minutes to try and buy milk because all of the labels were in Dutch. Once we were completely confident that we had found the skim milk we were looking for, a final-check of the label on google translate told us it was actually buttermilk. Yikes. But don't worry! We did find the right milk in the end. Cereal saved.

We spent the evening exploring the city with my dad. We found some cute cafés, shops and an ice cream shop (!) By then it was pretty late and time to get ready for the next day.

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Day Two

Today Annie, dad and I got back on the train and went to Amsterdam. First stop: Van Gogh Museum. 

WORDS OF ADVICE: if you're going to the Van Gogh museum, always buy your tickets online. The museum is always busy, so you'll save yourself a loooong time of waiting in line in the sun if you get them in advance. Unfortunately, we didn't know about this until our cab driver mentioned it en route. This led to me doing the fastest online shopping of my life on the museum's Dutch-only website to get those tickets before we arrived. Luckily we figured out enough Dutch between the three of us that  we got the email with the tickets right as we pulled up. Not bad.

The museum itself was incredible. There was so much amazing artwork and information on Van Gogh's life. While he was in an asylum for the last year or so of his life he made an average of one painting per day and around 900 paintings in ten years. It's also nice to know that one of the world's most famous artists didn't start painting or drawing until he was 29.

After the museum we spent the day exploring the city of Amsterdam. 

We wandered the city, shopped a bit and found the Amsterdam Cheese Store. I have never eaten or bought so much cheese in my entire life. It was amazing.

Then it was back to the streets and the floating flower markets (gallery up soooon) and time to take the train home. One last stop before we left was at Waterstones to pick up some books and little gifts for our siblings.

By the end of the day everyone was very tired and ready to sleep.

- Tiana Daniella