We arrived late on a Wednesday night after taking the train for a few hours and then started sailing the next morning. It was beautiful weather and so much fun getting to learn how to sail. We spent lots of time just enjoying the sun and taking turns steering the boat and controlling the main sail. It's kind of a work out to control the jib, the sail in the very front, so the rest of us reluctantly took turns at that too, haha. The next two days were similar to the first. We would eat lunch on little islands and also explored Sneek, the little town nearby. It was really cute and really cool to see because all the houses were built along waterways, so everyone had boats, and it was often more convenient to use these as transportation rather than using bicycles or cars.
We would sail each day from about 10am to 4-5pm and then come back for dinner. After dinner, we'd all play games or just relax in the common room together or play volleyball outside. It was a very relaxing trip. I would say the only stressful parts were during every meal time where there was a constant mad scramble to take everything within sight before it disappeared (coming down to breakfast a few minutes late would likely result in having either no breakfast or no bread left for making a packed lunch). It was a lot of fun still though, and I'm so glad I went! We headed back Sunday afternoon after a morning of chilling and kayaking. It was such a great trip!
Other Dutch adventures I had the last few months:
- doing the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam with a few other fellow Americans (I must say it's a pretty lame tour until you get your free beers at the end)
- helping out in the Daktuin (a rooftop garden at one of the main university's nearby campuses)
- showing around my friend Renee from Seattle
- going to a Holland v. Spain football (soccer haha) game...hup Holland hup! (Holland won yay!)
- going to the symphony at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with my unitmate Floor
- celebrating King's Day (the king's birthday!) with my friends all day in Utrecht...and finishing off the night with a healthy McDonald's run with my friend Cassy
- visiting the Rietveld Schröder House with my unitmate Lara -- it's a really cool modern house right outside my campus that is famous in the world of architecture; the whole upstairs is an open concept space with movable walls that can turn everything into compartmented rooms if wanted...it's pretty cool
- going to see our school musical, Spring Awakening, and cheering on my unitmate Ben who was one of the main characters!
- going to Keukenhof (the really famous tulip garden) with two American friends from Spokane!
- one last trip to the pancake house (YUM) in the forest with my other American exchange friends, Tiffany & Lisa
- celebrating International Beyoncé Day at Tivoli (a big club/venue in town) with Cassy and Lara...best night everrr!!! I <3 Beyoncé
- going to the beach near Haarlem with my American friend Lisa, her sister, and Cassy on Lisa's last day!
- biking to Amsterdam with Cassy for a music festival we went to! Both the biking and the festival were super fun! The biking should've taken 1 hr 45 min according to Google Maps, but we took a bit longer........the scenery along the way was still very nice though :)
- swimming in a canal in the forest near our campus on a super hot day...so fun!!! We followed that up by coloring in our coloring books in the grass...it was nice
- going on walks at night with my unitmate Tess (now that it gets dark at like 11pm)
- staying the night with Cassy at an Airbnb on Texel, one of the five Dutch islands up north -- it's so beautiful, and the beach there is amazing! We brought our bikes and rode around the island along the beach and through the forests...such a lovely last trip!
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