Utrecht was recommended to us by one of our recent friends we made in
Madrid, a native Dutch girl whose English is unbelievably excellent.
(Hi Lis) It is a small city, but it is extremely charming and a good
glimpse into what I imagine most of the Netherlands to be like. Just
as you can't say New York City is representative of the United States,
I didn't want to base my entire impression of Holland on Amsterdam.
We had a fairly leisurely time in Utrecht, climbed up a church bell
tower and walked around the city. I have been fighting a fairly nasty
cold (no doubt given to me by the little darling children I taught
before we left for our trip), so it was a good pace to start with.
Since they have fairly cool summers here (in the 60s - maybe low 70s
for highs) they commonly serve soup in most restaurants. I was able
to eat a vegetarian soup often or get veggies and we have even found
bagels. What a novelty. So, I've been eating well since we arrived.
One other thing that was nice about our time in Utrecht is that there
were no tourists. Very, very few at the most. They get so few
tourists that they have no menus in English, which is great and
astonishing - since they all speak English so well here, you would
think it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But again, it speaks of how
few tourists visit there, so Andy and I were happy with that. At
least we knew we were seeing authentic Dutch life in action instead of
a way of life forced for tourists.
On Tuesday afternoon, we took a very short train ride to Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, there is major construction going on at the Central
Station and all around it, so the memorable entrance into the city was
not really possible. It was still cool though. Within minutes of
being in Amsterdam, I had already seen more nationalities than I've
seen in my entire time in Spain so far.
We made our way to our hotel, which is located very centrally, and
then hit the streets walking. We walked here and there and tried to
get a lay of the land. It's much more touristy than Utrecht (of
course). In our attempt to avoid touristy areas, we quickly walked
through some, less pretty and all commercial areas and got to be
better parts of the city. We had very, very good apple strudel
yesterday, ate a veggie restaurant today. We went to the Anne Frank
house museum here today and the Rijksmuseum (which houses a variety of
Dutch painters works). We ate pancakes for dinner tonight. They were
the thickness of swedish pancakes/crepes but very large. It was one
huge pancake with stuff on top.
I've also seen something I never see happen in Madrid - wait staff
actually wiping down tables after people are finished eating there.
In Madrid they look at you like "what is your problem, you can't eat
off of a dirty table?" like it's an absolutely ridiculous standard.
Here, it seems to be the norm, as it should be. Amsterdam is much
cleaner than Madrid (not that that is too difficult) and the people
seem much more normal. Being a pedestrian is not a full contact sport
here - people avoid running into each other and say excuse me!!!! You
can go into a restaurant and not catch lung cancer. It's sooooo nice
to be back into civilization. Overall, our visit to the Netherlands
has been great. The people are nice, it's über-charming, there are
flowers everywhere, and it's totally veggie friendly!!!!
We have half a day left in Amsterdam tomorrow and fly to Oslo tomorrow
afternoon!!!
More soon for sure.
ps. I don't like fries with Mayonnaise.
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