My twenty first birthday was the longest
birthday I’ve ever had. Don’t get me wrong it was very fun, just not the part
where we had to get up at 3:00 am to catch our flight to Amsterdam. We were
lucky to be able to check into our hostel right when we got there because most
of the time we had to wait until the afternoon, but on this travel day we
arrived, checked in, and took a 3 hour nap. We really didn’t want to start a 3
½ week trip tired. After waking up we freshened up and headed to the Van Gogh
Museum. The line was rather long so we waited about forty-five minutes just to
get in, but it was worth it. My favourite pieces of Van Gogh’s are his
sunflowers. The way he makes this vase of dying flowers look beautiful is
phenomenal. That night Grace and Liz treated me to a wonderful birthday dinner,
but we were exhausted so we went to bed on the early side.
Amsterdam has many beautiful canals.
The
city is also known for its vast number of flower markets.
One tasty food we ate quite a few of, which
I hadn’t tried before, was stroop waffles. Stroop means syrup in Dutch. They
are made out of syrup sandwiched between these very thin, crunchy wafers, which
look like waffles. They made great travel snacks so we bought a bunch and ate
them throughout the trip.
We were only in Amsterdam a couple of days
before travelling to Brugge. That was an extremely stressful travel day because
we found out that the tickets for the overnight train from Paris to Nice were
sold out for Eurail Pass holders, that was us. So we scrambled trying to figure
out how to make that trip. We already had bought the passes which are not cheap
so paying full price for that train ticket was going to be slightly painful. We
looked into flights, and even thought about renting a car and driving across
France! Those two options seemed more expensive than buying a ticket at regular
price, so we ended up taking the night train anyway. But getting to that
decision was a bit crazy.
It was rather sunny and quite nice for most
of our time in Brugge. The city is pretty small so the time we allotted to
explore was a great amount. It had a river running through it like all of these
major cities we visited. We mostly just wandered around the city and took in
the beautiful architecture.
There was a little cute market we walked through
which had lots of jewellery and even a booth with wooden toys which were
adorable. I would have taken a picture but people selling things at markets
usually don’t allow it.
Being in Belgium we also, of course, had to
eat some Belgian chocolate! Every piece I tried was absolutely delicious! I desperately
wanted to bring some back as gifts, especially for my grandmum who I’m pretty
sure it’s her favourite food, but it would have been too difficult to carry. So
I had to eat a piece for everyone instead!
Have a wonderfully marvellous day, cheers!
~Laura
