Off to catch at 8:55 am train into Amsterdam. Oh, how I love holidays that need to start being celebrated as the sun starts rising.....

Orange it is... (yes, thats a crown on my head trimmed in orange feathers)

Tomorrow is Queens Day in the Netherlands. It is the biggest holiday of the year-- often compared to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Everyone dresses in orange and parties in the street, and the canals-- in a boat, hopefully--, all day long to celebrate the Queens birthday. The story goes that Queen Beatrix's (the current Queen of the Netherlands) birthday is actually on January 31st, but April 30 was her mother's birthday, Queen Juliana, and Queen Beatrix decided to keep the celebrations on the same day. Pictures of the celebrations to come!


Happy Queen's Day!

Windy Utrecht. Week 1.

Windy Barcelona. Week ??? (too many to count).

GUESS WHICH PICTURE I AM HAPPIER IN... 

I will give you a hint, it is NOT the one where I am fully bundled, still freezing, being blown away by what I am convinced was tornado like winds. 

Amsterdaaam

Bikes. Beer. Canals. Clogs. Flowers.

Amsterdam at its finest.

Just your typical house in Amsterdam. Flowers and bike included. 

On the first day in Amsterdam we walked around the Red Light District. On the last day we took a tour of the Heineken factory and all had beers together. Guess which one made me feel less awkward...
Yup, you guessed right: Beer. 

Okay, so I may or may not give in and buy a miniature version of these clogs to put on my keychain. Thoughts? If so, I will make the purchase in the airport en route home as nothing screams tourist more than having a little pair of dangling wooden clogs hanging from your keys. Kinda like if you are from NY and have a keychain with "I <3 NY" written on it. No offense if you do buuuuut.... 

Flower Power

Keukenhof, Holland. Pretty much, the Disney Land of flowers. Unhealthy food included. You can look at flowers while eating waffles, strawberries covered in whip cream and powdered sugar, or a good old ice cream cone. Your pick. 

Barcelona in Pictures

Beach in Barcelona

A Barcelona Street

The Hebrew Letters on this wall is one of the only remains of the Jewish Quarter that once existed in Barcelona. As you can see, not everyone likes this...

To each his own

Sangria at Cerveceria Catalana... unreal. GO.

Park Guell

Candy At the  Markets!

So, I realize I have been slacking lately when it comes to blogging. I do have a good reason though. You see, the hotel I stayed at with my family in Barcelona costs 25 euro a night for internet. And then, in Amsterdam, it was even more. Unfortunate, but true.


Anyhow, I am back! Back to life abroad in Utrecht and all that goes with it. First off, let me tell you how amazing it was to see my family! It is too weird to think that I still have another 2 months until I get home. I  may or may not have gotten a little teary when I said bye. Can you blame me? Not only was I saying bye to my mom, dad, and sister, but I was also saying bye to nice hotels, delicious restaurants, and air conditioned rooms. If you think I am joking when I tell you I wake up having heat flashes in the middle of the night, you are sorely mistaken. Not only is my room boiling sans air conditioning but when I open the window I seem to attract humongous mosquitos. All I can say is thank gd for the hard cover book I bought at the Anne Frank House because it has done wonders killing those damn bugs. I can't exactly smack my IPad against the wall. 

Today I went to two grocery stores (yes, they may have been right next to each other but regardless I get an A for effort...) in search of something you most likely have heard of: PAM. Guess what... PAM cooking spray does not exist in the Netherlands according to the two employees I spoke to in each of the stores--see, I told you I get an A for effort. In fact, not only does it not exist, but one of the people I spoke to told me that the only reason Americans have such a product is because we are always worrying about our weight since we are "so obese". "We just use butter or olive oil here," she said. "Hmm...", was pretty much my only response I could come up with in the moment. I mean, can I really disagree? No. Although, it was kind of embarrassing especially after I had described in detail why I was searching for it in the first place...


uh, because it is 0 calories. duh. 

EEE!!! My mom is currently taking a nap in her hotel room in Utrecht!!! She landed at the ungodly hour of   5 am and is now finally here-- could not be more excited! Oh wait, I first need to finish my take home final before I go into town to see her. Wah wah wah...


Maybe, if i am not finished in two hours, I will just go with the old "well at least I'm a native English speaker" excuse to make myself feel better about whatever I do end up handing in. But, then again, maybe I will just finish.... decisions, decisions. 

I had an eyebrow waxing appointment at 12:30 today. I left my apartment at about 12:05 which really gives me the perfect amount of time to bike in, park, and check in; the whole "there was a lot of traffic" excuse doesn't exactly work in Utrecht so I try my best to be on time.Unfortunately, weather.com certaintly did not prepare me for the powerful gusts of wind that would blow every two minutes, making the twentyfive minutes I gave myself feel like a race against the clock. To put it in the simplest of terms-- the lady who waxed me first had to wipe the sweat from my face before applying any wax. "Ahhh its so windy outside, sorry that I am so sweaty!" is pretty much how I said "Hello, It's nice to meet you" to the nice lady who was waxing my eyebrows.Just a day in the life...

I have decided as to why I feel so safe in Utrecht (besides the fact that it actually is very safe here): Bicycles. It is a whole different experience to be walking or biking by yourself-- which, mind you, still usually means your surrounded by plenty of people doing exactly the same thing--and see a strange/scary/suspicious looking person on a bicycle than seeing that person roll down his/her car window and stare right at you. It's not exactly like you can be stuffed into the backseat of someone's bike. Eerie, I know. But enlightening nonetheless. 

Utrecht has had absolutely beautiful weather this entire weekend. On Sunday I actually got color GASP! And then, via videochat, was told I need to start wearing suntan lotion. Isn't it amazing how parents always pick up on certain things... I personally thought the color did me a world's of good. One can only deal with the pale Dutch look for so long. Anyways, there is no doubt in my mind that a bottle of suntan lotion is coming my way all the way from Long Island so until then I will soak up my daily dose of Vitamin D.

Uy! I just received my take-home final via email and I now know what I will be doing until 14:00 on Thursday when it is due. Boooooo.


Don't worry though, I do have a small something to look forward to... my Mom comes on Thursday morning!! And then, as if that wasn't enough, we are flying to Barcelona on Saturday morning to meet my Dad and my sister! We are spending 5 days in Barcelona and then heading back to the Netherlands to spend about 5 days in Amsterdam (with a possible trip to either Utrecht or the tulip gardens). I cannot wait! I also cannot believe that this time has actually come. You know when you think about something for so long, getting ready for it, telling your friends about it etc, well, this vacation definitely falls under that category. I already know exactly where I am taking my mom for lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner (yes, I mapped out the 5 meals that she would be in Utrecht for-- don't judge). Not like I have made reservations anywhere but then again we are in Utrecht not the East Village. 

The pancakes were DELISH! Last time I went I had a sweet one-- apples and bananas-- and this time I had a savory one-- cheese and veggies. While both were delicious, I think I am leaning towards the apple and banana one as my favorite. There is just something about warm fruit on a crepe-like pancake. 


Don't worry though, I am taking my family there in a week and a half so I will be reunited with the apple and banana pancake. Enough of this savory stuff. 

Can I just tell you how happy I am not to be packing up and going anywhere this weekend? That, if I wanted to, and we all know I secretly do, I could sit in bed all day on both Saturday and Sunday and watch Season 2 of The Wire simply because I can. This is a luxury ladies and gentleman, a luxury. Although, even though I am not going anywhere this weekend per-say, I do have a whole lot of booking to do in the next two days if I have any desire at all to leave Netherlands during the month of May. Travel suggestions anyone? Anyone want to meet me in some cool European country for a quick weekend getaway? Come on, I know you do! 


Personally, I am thinking I am going to fit in as many warm, possibly beachy places as I can before I return to the U S of A. Take note, I am now mentioning my return in the blogs. I'm not saying I want to hop on a plane and come home tomorrow, but I am most definitely starting to miss a few things, oh, and you know, maybe a few people. Besides, now that it is April I officially made it through the hard part. Translation: winter in the Netherlands. 

Tomorrow is my Dutch Present Day Society final. Besides the fact that I am a little rusty on the whole studying thing, it's not exactly my favorite pastime. So, to make myself feel better about the rather long night I had ahead of me, I decided to treat myself to a brownie that I really like at this one coffee shop. Then, low and behold, I signed onto twitter and found out that April 7th is National Coffee Cake Day. No, I did not eat coffee cake per-say, but I ate a brownie, which is like cake, and had a cup of coffee...


I know, I am going out on a limb here but I am just trying to make myself feel better about the brownie. I mean, if you went and had yourself a little coffee cake (or coffee and cake... ) after reading this I wouldn't blame you...

I am attempting to become good at yoga... one painful class at a time. I found this great studio called YogaMoves on the web when I first got here and even went as far as to email them to find out details, prices etc and then never actually took a class. Why? Well, because I could not find the street... Lame, I know. Luckily, I literally walked into the sign that points people like me in the direction of the studio this past week and have officially enrolled; I bought a 26 class pass. While I am not entirely confident I will be a "yogi" by the time I leave here, I can promise you I will be attending all 26 classes. Helloooo... its called an exchange rate!

By the way, if you were wondering why I didn't post sooner (cough, cough, MOM), it is because I was extremely busy yesterday. I watched the last seven of the thirteen total episodes of The Wire season 1. Seven hours of TV later, I can now happily download season 2*. 


*If you are like me and happen to have inordinate amounts of time to kill, The Wire is a great show to get into because the episodes are actually an hour long and each season only costs $12.99** on iTunes.


**No, iTunes did not endorse this announcement. 

Copenhagen

I made it. I made it. I made it. Woohoo for surviving my first (and maybe only...) hostel experience. It was actually totally fine! Although, apparently we stayed at a nicer than normal hostel which pretty much just means they charge you extra for every possible thing. Storing luggage after you check out: "Twenty kroner please." If you can imagine, handing over my very precious kroner to the woman behind the desk at the hostel got a little old after a while. Guess it was a good thing we only stayed there for two nights!

The grey sky= proof I climbed those narrow stairs in the bad weather. EEK!

Anyway, regardless of the hostel experience, Copenhagen was a great city. We got there Saturday morning-- a little bit too early in retrospect-- and found this cute hole-in-the-wall restaurant that made the most delicious salads. Sidenote: I SERIOUSLY miss salads. I swear, I would have people looking at me like I had four heads if I ever dared to order a chopped salad in this country. After we all ate our salads a little too quickly to be ladylike, accompanied by the casual "oooh this is so good" or "mmmmmmm avocado", we found our way to the canal to get on an hour long guided canal cruise. I definitely would recommend the canal cruise. You might not be able to hear a word of what the your guide is saying but you will definitely get a lot of good photo-ops. Besides, if you are like me, you will forget the names of everything anyways and then type it into google so that you don't mislead your many blog followers. For example, we climbed this great spiral church on Sunday morning, in the rain nonetheless, and until I typed in "spiral church in Copenhagen" I did not know that the proper name was Church of Our Saviour; yes, I know, what an original name!

The Danish sure do know how to make a good Danish.. har har har

We also saw a castle, a church, a few gardens, the palace, and climbed the Round Tower (note: I don't remember the name of any of them... oops). It was definitely a trip full of walking and sightseeing but don't worry I definitely took a danish break every once in a while. Lets put it this way, when I got back late Monday night I was really looking forward to starting a brand new day on Tuesday full of oatmeal, veggies, and whole wheat food products. I can only handle so many croissants and muffins and baguette sandwiches in one weekend.

Did I mention I will be having my first hostel experience...?


Wish me luck!

Happy April 1st! It is currently overcast and dreary in Utrecht (as it has been for most of this week) and I am patiently awaiting the nice weather again. Definitely did a lot of bussing into town this week. When I first got here, I did the whole biking in the rain thing, but with time I have realized that bussing into the city is definitely worth it when the weather is uh, shitty. Pardon my french. 


I leave for Copenhagen tomorrow morning with 7 of my friends from Utrecht. We get back Monday night and then I ACTUALLY have work to do. Grrrrr. Finals time for me! First though, a quick trip to Amsterdam for dinner tonight to see a WashU friend who is studying in Florence. Yes Mom, I will pack beforehand.