The last of the Netherlands - the compressed airport version

I'm currently sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home.  I meant to write sooner, but the last couple of days have been really long whirlwinds, and the one place we stayed where I had some time, the internet was really spotty.

The best tree!

Our second day in Amsterdam was really good.  We were up early, thanks to the shitty Germans, but it meant that we got a pretty good start to our day.  We walked through town to the Anne Frank House, and saw, well, the house that Anne Frank lived in during the war.  I don't have any photos, as they were not allowed.  It was crazy busy.  We had to book our tickets online in advance, and show up for a specific time slot, and we spent probably an hour or two from there standing in a slow line, going through the museum, and then into all the houses different floors.  At the request of Otto Frank, the sole surviving member of the Frank family during the war, the rooms have been left empty.  That being said, there was one wall that was original and preserved, in Anne's room, with all her posters up on the wall.  Her original diaries still exist also, and we got to view them under glass.

The Rijksmuseum

A sneaky, sneaky shot of what teenagers do best.

It was good to see the Anne Frank House (Huis), but I really didn't enjoy it due to how busy it was.

After that, we headed over to the Rijksmuseum and wandered through the park nearby.  There was an ice rink with people skating on it, and we went to the Van Gogh museum.  I was really excited about it.  I have so far seen his works in the Museé d'Orsay, been to Auvers-sur-Oise to visit the church he painted, the final house he lived in before he committed suicide, and to his and his brother Theo's grave site.  The Van Gogh museum was three floors of paintings (again, no pictures), and by far the biggest collection of works I've ever seen.  We stayed there a while.  I stared at everything.

I wanted to be inside the d.

We were pretty museumed out by the end of the day.  It was a lot of walking - we ended up just going to the grocery store for dinner and crashing early.

The next day, we packed our bags and checked out, but kept our bags with the hostel desk and headed over to the Rijksmuseum.  We weren't super interested in doing another museum, but the building was impressive and we had a museum pass to use up anyhow.  It ended up being massive inside, much larger than either Jamie or myself suspected.  We were there for two hours, and I think we only saw half the museum.  I took a few pictures, because we were allowed to this time around.

Feeling the time crunch to get to our next destination, we made our way slowly out of Amsterdam, but not before stopping for cake at a shop, and stopping in a MAC store to buy myself some new lipstick.  We made our way very slowly out of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Centraal Station.

The houses got cute in Oosterbeek.

We got on the train to Oosterbeek.  It was the site of a major battle in world war two, called Operation Market Garden.  Allied air-forces banded together to try and capture and regain hold of this area of the Netherlands, hoping to push back German forces - it was part of a larger plot to win the war by Christmas 1944.  German forces demolished a few key bridges in the area, delaying the ground troop reinforcements, and when the air troops were overrun, there was no ground support as backup.  Short story, the Germans won, and completely leveled the surrounding area.  Everyone was killed.

In Oosterbeek, there is a war cemetery and museum in honour of the fallen soldiers.  After poking around the war cemetery for a while - I was adamant we had to leave before dark - we went and caught the last half hour of the museum before it closed.  Because we were so close to closing time, they let us in for free.  We felt bad though, so we each bought a pin to help out the museum a little.

After that, we hopped back on the train to Arnhem, where we were staying for the night.  Arnhem is one of the towns that was totally destroyed during Operation Market Garden.  Maybe it's because it was dark when we arrived, or because we got completely lost trying to find the hostel (to the point where we rode a bus in a circle, walked for a while, and then I said screw it, and paid 15 euro for a taxi) but neither one of us really liked Arnhem.  Our hostel was so far out of the way that we ended up with cold grocery store snacks as dinner again, since there were no restaurants anywhere in the area, and the Netherlands seems to like hostels without kitchens.  We only stayed at two places that had kitchens on the entire trip.  The region is the gateway to a large national park, but we only had the night to stay, so we never checked it out.  Really, we should have seen one or two less things.  Oh well.

The next morning, we got back to the station with only some confusion, and hopped the train to Maastricht, where we had a hotel booked for the only night of the trip.  And it was such a cool hotel!  It is called The Dutch, and it was very 70s/80s themed.  Everything was painted pink and white, there were flamingos everywhere (the real ones were taxidermied), and the elevator played elevator music.  Coffee and fruit were free, and there was a foosball table.  Some of the larger rooms have disco balls, but we couldn't afford that room.

We checked in, and immediately hopped on the train to head over to Valkenburg, a 15 minute ride away, because there was a Christmas market.  IN A CAVE.  IT WAS SO COOL.

The Christmas Market was really awesome!  We walked through this old medieval style town (Valkenburg) to the entrance of the caves, which were in the ruins of a castle, and once we got in, there was shop after shop of homemade Christmas items.  Dry-cured sausage, tree ornaments, candles, sweaters, etc.  I got myself a really nice knitted sweater, and bought some Christmas presents.  And I had gluwein with amaretto in it, which was so lovely that I think I'm going to start using that instead of brandy when I mull wine from now on.  I tried to convince Jamie to have some too, but he said that the only thing worse than wine was warm wine.  I guess there's no accounting for taste.

WWII graffiti.

The caves had some really cool history too.  They were built in the 1400s to act as an escape route for the castle inhabitants, but when the castle fell into ruin, the caves were forgotten about.  In 1937, they were rediscovered, and WWII soldiers used them to hide from the Germans.  There was graffiti all over the walls in charcoal from the war, which was pretty neat.

After we left the caves, we wandered through town for a bit, and it had a really nice Christmassy feel.  Lots of lit-up trees, and decorations.  Sinterklaas comes earlier than Christmas does, and is celebrated in early December.  Maastricht was just starting to set-up as we left.

We got back to Maastricht and went for dinner at a great thai place, and then wandered around town for a bit to get a feel for it.  We also went to the bar in the hotel, so I could finally try jenever.  The bartender was surprised when I asked to try it - according to her, it is just an old man's drink that is drank before bed as a night cap.  We both tried it anyways...and it was terrible.  The first sip or two was fine, but it got progressively worse as it warmed up.  It was awful.  I had to wash it out of my mouth with a gin and tonic.

Yesterday morning, we got up early and wandered around Maastricht for a while.  We kept bumping into these two guys who were on a fairly frantic hunt for a 'coffeeshop' - place to buy weed.  We saw them walking in circles through town over and over.  We must have bumped into them three or four times.  Some people come here for different reasons, I guess.

A rainbow sidewalk!

Last night, we spent in Delft.  We got in pretty late in the day, thanks to wanting to spend more time in Maastricht - I could live there, too.  And in Utrecht.  And Haarlem.  There are some really lovely places here in the Netherlands.  Maastricht was just a dream.

Delft was another one of those places.  We quickly visited the Nieuw Kerk (new church) and Oude Kerk (old church) while we waited for our hostel to open for check-in, and we watched a lady paint authentic delftware pottery.  She was nice and answered my questions.  Did you know the paint starts out black, and turns that blue colour only after it's been in the kiln?  Me neither!  I wanted to come home with a vase or a teapot or something, but it was ludicrously expensive, so I settled for a little bag of beads.  Maybe I can make some bracelets or something.

Just a gnome and some goldfish in a construction site.  I don't question these things.

He wasn't happy about this.

Last night, I frantically bought as much cheese and chocolate toast sprinkles as would fit in my luggage, and did that anxious thing I do where I debate in my head whether or not I ever need to come home again.  I decided I didn't have enough money left in my bank to make it until payday, so here I am in the airport.

Now I just have to survive another four months of work before I can take some more time off.  I think I'll go to Iceland in April.  And in the meantime, pretend I'm not thirty, and learn to live without cafe créme...or save up for an espresso machine.  I think I'm addicted.  I had one an hour ago, and I might grab one more before I hop on my flight in an hour.  It's a shot of espresso long-pulled through the machine for 15-30 seconds, and has this oily, greasy, foamy frothiness on it that tastes like caramel and served in a tiny cup.  I can't stop drinking them.