Week 2 Updates

I've been living in the Netherlands for 2 weeks now and I feel like I'm quite settled in. Said settling has caused me to neglect my blog once again...Here are some highlights from the past week or so.

Friday August 27: My first Kanalhuis party! I went over to another AIESEC house, appropriately named Kanalhuis because it's right by a canal, and had a really fun night dancing to Egyptian, Tunisian, and Brasilian music with a mix of Europop. Also that night I discovered the deliciousness that is fries with mayo and curry ketchup. It sounds disgusting but it actually is a great combination! I don't why we don't have this curry sauce in Canada...

Later on, Peter tried to drive 2 of my roommates at the same time...however the test drive didn't end well so we abandoned the plan.

Saturday August 28: I had a city tour with my AIESEC buddy Laura and then explored the downtown on my own. This was the first sunny day I experienced since arriving and it felt SOOO nice to feel the sun on my face! I can definitely understand how the weather influences your mood as I felt so much more alive and happy than I had the pervious week. My mood was further uplifted by discovering the beautiful flower markets by the canals and some very yummy pizza ;) I can't wait to go to Italy!!

Here are a few pictures of Utrecht so you can get an idea of what the city looks like:

Saturday September 4: I took a day trip to Den Haag (The Hague) with 3 of my roommates to attend MuseumNacht. This event is really cool because you can visit over 20 museums and galleries between 7:30 pm and 2 am for only €10. My favourite museum was the Mauritshuis, most famous for housing Vermeer's 'Girl with a pearl earring'. I think this was my first experience viewing a large collection of 17th century European art and it was quite stunning. After wandering around the city and visiting a few different museums, we went to the MuseumNacht afterparty but soon got bored and decided to try to catch a train back to Utrecht. However, upon reaching Den Haag Centraal, we found out that the station was closed until 5 am. Being excellent hobos though, we did not despair and napped outside at a restaurant terrace. Upon walking back to the central station at 5, we were very sad to see that the first train was not until 7:26 am but a station attendant told us that there was a night train running every hour if we walked to another station 15 minutes away. After following a nice Dutch guy to the other station and then running to catch the train 3 minutes before it left, our tired crew finally made it back to Utrecht at around 7:30 am.

Tekla (Hungary)

Skylar (Vietnam) and Wojtek (Poland)

Key learnings from the past week:

• In the Netherlands, most shops are closed by 6 pm on weekdays (with Thursday being the late shopping night) and almost everything is closed on Sunday. Plan your shopping carefully!
• Night trains do exist, just not where you expect them to be!