A Little Family in Utrecht

April 9, 2011- As you may or may not know, Konyndyk is a very Dutch name.  This means that I have a lot of Dutch heritage and for the weekend of April 9 and 10, I went and visited some distant relatives.  I began my journey traveling to Utrecht where I met Sascha, my second cousin.  While in Utrecht, we walked around the city looking at all the cool architecture and sights to see.  

Utrecht is an older city and definitely has an old city feel to it.  The church is in the center of the city with a huge tower rising above the city.  The canals are much lower than the road in Utrecht with plenty of room on the side to walk around.  

These are much different from the canals in Amsterdam or anywhere else for that matter.  

While in Utrecht, we visited the Spoorwegmuseum which is the railway museum.  

This museum focuses on the history of Utrecht’s railroad system as Utrecht is the center of train transportation in the Netherlands.  It also showed the different types of trains throughout the past ranging from steam powered to coal to electricity.  For lunch we ate at a nice restaurant that was outside.  A big difference I noticed about the Netherlands and Europe as a whole compared to the United States is how many restaurants sit the customers outside.  I really enjoy this style of restaurants especially on a nice day where the sun is shining with warm weather.  You also get an excellent view of the city and occasionally get front row seats to a bagpipe show!  As you may have guessed, that is exactly what happened to me.  

The Beatrix Pipe Band began playing there bagpipes only a couple feet away from where I was seated.  Another difference I noticed since living in the Netherlands is that there are many random occurrences such as a bagpipe band or street performers that cannot be found anywhere in the United States.  Also while in Utrecht, we climbed the Dom Tower, the tallest church tower in the Netherlands with a total of 465 steps with no elevator.  

While on the tour, I learned that the tower was actually the first part of the Dom church to be built.  The church was built in three sections.  But in 1674 the middle section of the church collapsed during a huge storm while the tower itself remained standing.  The tower has a large collection of 50 bells with one weighing 8,200 kg!  

These bells can play various songs and melodies depending on the desired song.  People can also pay to have a song played and one person even played a song by Metallica!  Once on top of the tower, I could see for many miles and could also see Amsterdam and Rotterdam!  

This gave an excellent view of the city and also the countryside.  After climbing down the tower and walking out, we found a group of Swedish? people dancing around hitting wooden sticks with each other.  

This was a very odd dance but they made it all flow together.  As we were watching them, a group of women all dressed in bright pink walked by.  I asked Sascha what they were doing and she said it was a bachelorette party.  Typically in the Netherlands, for bachelorette parties, everyone has to dress up in the same ridiculous costume such as monkeys or bright pink clothing.  The point of this is to all look similar so that people walking by know that a woman is getting married.  Utrecht is a very interesting city with a lot of different culture I have never experienced anywhere else.  After all of this, we boarded a train and started heading for Sascha’s home located in Goor, 25 km away from the German border. 

Locks and Leiden

April 2, 2011- Today for our third weekend of excursions we went to the open-air museum, or Openluchtmuseum, which is located in Arnhem.  Today was the warmest day yet since arriving in the Netherlands with a temperature of 73 degrees!  At the museum, we started walking around and looking at various types of Dutch houses in the past.  These houses ranged from being made from mud with straw roofs to the more contemporary houses. 

  I noticed, however, that many of the older houses have very small doors and low ceilings.  This baffled me since Dutch people are normally tall but the houses seemed to be built for short people. 

The museum had many different areas and buildings.  A cheese shop, train station, restaurants, windmills, a brewery, and a playground were all located in the museum.  These are the types of buildings found in a typical village in the Netherlands.  The museum created a feeling that we were walking through an actual village.  After walking around for a while, we found ourselves at the playground.  We spent some quality time there playing on the swings and other things.  We also rowed a boat across a little pond just for fun.  The museum was enjoyable and gave a picture into the way life was in the past.  This included seeing the progression of architecture that occurred throughout the centuries.  After the museum, we headed over to the locks.  

The concept of locks is very simple and I have seen many in the past.  These locks change the water level on various canals and rivers where dams are located.  This happens so that boats can continue past the dam while changing water levels.  The last stop of the day was to a small town.  We ate lunch and walked around the town for a while and also stumbled upon an old castle.

April 3, 2011- Today we went to Leiden for our Sunday excursion.  At Leiden, we toured the city and saw where Jane’s barn is located and where her relatives live.  The city had a very cozy feeling in my opinion and had a different feel to the other cities I have visited.  

The highlight of the city was the Science Museum.  This museum covered a very wide range of topics , some were interesting and some were not.  The beginning of the museum focused on early medicine and astronomy.  The first part of the museum bored me up until we reached the simple machines and physics related exhibits.  This is probably why I am an engineer.  After spending a long time there, I moved onto the anatomy of humans and animals section.  

There were a lot of skulls and skeletons of various animals along with other things.  Some of these things were disgusting, such as a human fetus.  There was also a big emphasis on dental care while being there.  A large exhibit was focused primarily on appealing to younger kids as to why they should take care of their teeth.  It was a nice reminder for me also.  Upon leaving the museum, Uko and Jane bought everyone a small meal to tithe us over until we arrived back in Amstelveen.  This restaurant was located on a boat in a canal.  Many restaurants such as these can be found throughout the Netherlands as the country has water everywhere!  

I was quite happy and the food was delicious!

Spain!!!

Exam week finally arrived marking the end of the first half of the semester.  Since I only had one exam early in the week, I decided to use this opportunity to travel to Spain.  After doing some research and purchasing plane tickets, I was ready to travel.  Since this blog is supposed to primarily be about Dutch culture and Dutch experiences, the goal of our trip to Spain was to locate the house of the famous Sinterklaas!  The Dutch version of Santa Claus who lives in Spain during the off-season.  But anyways, a total of 6 people went to Spain, including Tyler, Matt Warren, Ian, Andrew, Staci, and myself.  We were going to be in Barcelona for two days, Sevilla for two days, and Madrid for one day.  The intention was to leave early March 22 and fly out of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.  But those plans changed when we accidentally bought the wrong train tickets to Eindhoven.  So we had to leave the night before.  We left on the latest train leaving Amsterdam at 11:30pm and arrived at around 1am in Eindhoven.  Then the adventure began!

After arriving at the Eindhoven train station, we decided to start walking to the airport.  We walked for around 2 hours and finally arrived at the airport at 3am.  Upon arriving, we realized that the airport did not open until 6am.  At this point, the temperature dropped into the mid 30s.  Since Eindhoven seemed to be only industrial buildings, it had no 24 hour cafes or even gas stations.  So we were forced to spend the rest of the night outside.  After attempting to sleep on the benches, we eventually gave up and starting running and jumping around to stay warm.  At that time, several homeless people also came and did their own things to survive the cold.  One person even offered us some Styrofoam to use for insulation!  After an intense 3 hours of using our survival instincts to make it through the night, the airport finally opened and soon enough we were on our way to Barcelona!  

Barcelona

Our flight landed in Girona, a city located about an hour north of Barcelona.  We jumped on a bus to take us to Barcelona and we all fell asleep instantly after pulling an all-nighter before.  Once finally in Barcelona, we began by walking around and exploring the city.  

Since we had absolutely no plans for this trip besides our plane tickets, we decided to first try to find a hostel to stay for two nights.  We found a very good hostel located in the center of the city.  

Our hostel and the view from the our room

All six of us were located in one room on the sixth floor of the building.  We continued exploring and seeing all the touristy spots that Barcelona has to offer, such as:

The Sagrada Familia

the Goudi sculptures

and beaches.

Barcelona felt a lot like Miami to me because of the large number of palm trees, warm weather, and the nice beaches.  Unfortunately, the weather was still too cold to swim.  Barcelona is the coolest city I have ever been to and was so much fun!  There were street performers everywhere!  

I also ate a couple Spanish dishes that tasted very good.  

Tortilla and croguettes

Paella con pollo

These dishes were tortillas, paella con pollo, croquettes, tapas, and of course, sangria.  The second day we climbed a mountain and had a picnic at the top and watched the sunset while looking over the city at night. 

Yes, very romantic!  Once arriving back in our hostel, we all crashed and got prepared to leave for Sevilla early in the morning.

Sevilla

On March 24, we woke up very early at 3:45am and took a cab to the airport.  Upon arriving in Sevilla, we began to walk around once again trying to find a hostel to stay for one night.  We finally found an awesome hostel which had a rooftop terrace.  

The hostel also had a couple free nights of food and drinks which we took advantage of.  March 24 also happens to be my birthday, so my theory is they knew this and threw a birthday party for me!  But while in Sevilla, we walked around the whole city about 6 times total doing all the touristy things.  

Plaza de España

Tower of Gold

Bullfighting ring

My favorite place was the Palace garden.  

This garden was very peaceful and had orange trees growing everywhere!  

(The oranges did not taste good).  We also got a free walking tour of the whole city.  Later that night, we went on a very long mission to find the cheapest helados in order to celebrate for my birthday.  After searching for an hour, we finally decided on a place close to our hostel.  Once we arrived, we realized it already closed.  So we continued on our mission and finally bought ice cream at the most expensive place in the city.  The next morning I woke up early and went up on the rooftop terrace in shorts and short sleeves and drank some tea.  The morning was very relaxing and it was gorgeous outside!  The temperatures while in Sevilla were in the 80s.  That day was a nice relaxing day.  We went in the cathedral and climbed to the top of the tower and looked over Sevilla and saw an awesome view.  

Tower we climbed

Bullfighting ring from the top of the tower

We also decided to go back to the garden and relax there and play with the ducks by giving them food and making them do tricks.  

It was a lot of fun!  

The peacocks even joined in the fun!  That night the hostel had a bbq on the roof.  We met a lot of people from all over the world.  That is one of the best things of staying at a hostel.  We met several Americans and a couple of them were even studying in Brussels, Belgium.  After the bbq, we headed over to the bus station and jumped on the bus going to Madrid. 

Madrid

March 26, 2011- The bus left at 11pm and arrived in Madrid at 5am.  We all assumed we would save some money by traveling to Madrid while also getting a good night sleep, but none of us really slept longer than an hour.  So that day was especially difficult to walk around the city because we were all super tired and sore from walking so much the previous four days.  But we continued on and saw everything touristy in Madrid.  

None of us really had any money left so we ate really cheap food.  Madrid had a lot of cool things to see and had a different feeling than the other cities we visited.  That night we slept in the Madrid airport and left for Amsterdam in the morning.

Overall, the trip was an awesome experience!  I had so much fun and I was happy I was able to visit.

A picture of everyone who went to Spain overlooking Barcelona

Barcelona was my favorite city because there were so many awesome things to do and see.  Barcelona is a huge tourist city.  Every building looks different from the one next to it.  

There were so many awesome sights to see.  

Sevilla was also a really cool city.  It was a much smaller city than Barcelona and had a cozier feel to it.  

The buildings in Sevilla were very impressive looking  

and had very narrow streets. 

Sevilla also had the nicest weather.  I could see myself living in Sevilla someday.  Madrid was a disappointment in my eyes.  Madrid is the capital of Spain so I assumed the city would be really cool, but it was not very touristy and did not have many sights to see.  My feelings of Madrid may also have been skewed because of how tired and exhausted I was.  The whole trip can be characterized by very little sleep and a huge amount of walking.  My legs were barely working by the end of the trip, but it was totally worth it!  The weather was amazing everywhere we went.  Since most people only speak Spanish in Spain, it was actually pretty fun to try to speak to them in Spanish.  All the Spanish that I learned in high school came back to me so I was able to speak very simply to other people.  This trip made me want to learn Spanish more and I regretted not paying enough attention in high school.  But this trip was an amazing experience and I had a blast!!!

A Little Taste of Home

March 16-  Today I received the opportunity to eat a dinner at a Dutch family's house with Tyler and Cree.  The dinner was a very stereotypical Dutch dinner with meatballs, green beans, and potatoes.  For dessert we were given Vla, which is basically a very soft pudding with whipped cream mixed in.  Everything tasted delicious and I felt just like being back at home or at my grandparent’s house.  There must have been strange with the food we ate because Tyler, Cees (the father of the home) and my stomach were all growling the whole meal, even afterwards too.  Once finished with dinner, Judith brought out a game called Sjoelen.  My grandparents have this game in their basement and I used to play quite a bit as a kid.  Basically what you do is slide these wooden pucks down the board and try to score in 4 small slots, each with different point values. 

Once you score the same amount of pucks in every slot, the points are doubled.  Apparently this game is played quite a bit at parties or other social gatherings.  Judith also served us coffee and tea along with cookies.  

Judith said that normal Dutch tradition is to let everyone have only one cookie and then put them away again.  But since she knew we were Americans and knew I love cookies, she kept them out so we could have as many as we desired.  She brought out stroopwafels, this buttercake cookie thing, and an almond paste dessert with a very long Dutch name that I don’t remember.  

The night was very nice and all of us left with our stomachs full and our brains filled with a little more knowledge on Dutch culture although I felt like I was back at home at my grandparents’ house because they also do the same exact thing when my family eats over.  But the night was a very good experience.