Update: Netherlands

Visiting the Netherlands was a real treat! The majority of my time was spent in Amsterdam visiting Maddie and Karlijn my best friends from my exchange to Singapore. I also go to see other friends from exchange which was fantastic. I also saw my good friend Linda who was with Karlijn and I for the majority of our wanderings in South East Asia. On the weekend in Holland I drove with a rented car around the the country and even to Belgium to visit family and my friend Madavine.

I don't like to just write out exactly what I did like this. I find that stories about individual events are much more interesting than a synopsis of places visited. However, it gives context for what I was doing I suppose. My trip to Holland seems like ages ago now and I am having trouble recalling any interesting stories. Here are the ones I can remember:

In Turnhout my great uncle, Heeroom, tried using my i-pod. He put one ear bud in his ear and then the i-pod to the other ear, sort of like how one would use an old fashioned telephone. I have a great picture of this. I cant get to it because my camera is broken, incidentally my i-pod is now broken too.

One night in Amsterdam we stayed on a one hundred year old sail boat that used to be used to ship spices or some other good. Now it is the house of Karlijn's friend. This isn't really a story so much as a cool fact.

After returning from vising my family I went to try and find Karlijn at her work because our plan for me to email them had fallen through because the computer was broken. I really thought I knew my way around the subway system. I went to four different stops and walked our of each exit at each stop. I couldn't find the cafe where Karlijn worked at. Every exit I walked out did not look familiar to me. I was seriously lost. All the while the security guards would stare at me suspiciously. I'm sure I ended up on a large number of security cameras. I became nervous some huge investigation be started to discover the identity of this young male scoping out the Amsterdam subway system carrying a mysterious red package (my rain coat). To clear myself of any suspicion I asked a security guard where the cafe was, and he was so incredibly helpful!! I found the cafe with no more problems after that. Unfortunately Karlijn wasn't there. She wasn't even working that night. I returned home after that having spent over two hours on the subways.