That One Time My Family Visited and We Went to Stockholm

My mom and brother Sam came to visit me just a few days after I got back from the sail trip, and we had the best week ever together! My brother documented the trip really well soooo here's a link to his blog -- read the full scoop here: http://samsonlim.blogspot.com/. I'll just do a quick summary.

Our first beers together!

I met Sam in the Schiphol airport on Wednesday, and we bussed into the city to explore Amsterdam a bit before my mom arrived. We walked around, had a kroket (I miss them already), got some beers, and just enjoyed being together for the first time in nine months. We then headed back to the airport to pick up our mom and then went to an Indonesian restaurant for her belated birthday dinner. It was a nice night of just walking around in the city and Vondelpark and taking pictures before we headed back to the hotel for some rest before we woke up early for our full day of touristy excitement. I had created an itinerary for the whole week, so we had to keep to our schedule, haha.

Cheese tasting

Thursday started with picking up some appelflappen (apple tarts) from a nearby bakery before going to line up for the Anne Frank House. It was super long line even though we got there half an hour before opening time. It was nice chatting with some Americans around us though while we waited for almost two hours. It was worth it though...the museum was very well set up and very powerful. After we left, we bussed to the Van Gogh Museum, which was also a very nice museum. We were quite quick at going through it in order to avoid museum fatigue (it's a real thing), but it was still very enjoyable. Next, we had some döners for lunch and then went to our third and final (and my favorite) museum -- the Rijksmuseum. This was like my fifth time there, but it was still just as good as every other time. Sam had fun seeing the Nightwatch in the beautiful Gallery of Honor, and then we continued walking around the city and enjoying everything and getting some dinner at a nice little cafe.

My favorite museum ever

The next day (Friday), we woke up early to catch our flight to Stockholm!!! We had close family friends there from Spokane, so we were excited to see them and stay with them. We spent about two days there with them, and they were the best hosts. It was so nice to see them again...it was really just the perfect trip! Things we did were:

• go on a boat ride to see some of the 30,000 islands Stockholm is comprised of
• eat a traditional Swedish meal of meatballs w/ lingonberry sauce and potatoes (like in Ikea...but yummier)
• visit the Vasa Museum, a museum about a ship that sank as it left the harbor a really really long time ago...it was a really cool museum, and the ship was humongous
• enjoy a bbq at our friends' house with other guests from Spokane that they were hosting
• explore the entire city with our friends
• have so much fun talking and laughing and simply enjoying being together again with our friends...miss them already! <3

On a smaller island of Stockholm

Market

Swedish meal

Vasa Museum

Gamla Stan (The Old Town)

Beautiful Stockholm 

Waiting for the bus on a very rainy day

Friends!!!

We left for Schiphol again on Sunday morning, and after arriving, we took the train straight to Utrecht. We dropped off their stuff at my unit, and we started walking into town. I always forget how long it takes to walk into town because I always bike, so we all suffered for quite a while from being super hungry...oops. But we eventually got some more döners and then saw all the main sights in the city. We walked through Janskerkhof & Neude Square, saw the Dom, walked along the Oudegracht, etc. I was their tour guide, and Sam says I am very thorough, as in perhaps a bit too thorough. I enjoyed my tour though...hope they did too, hahaha. It was a rainy day but still really nice to walk around. We (meaning Sam) made dinner at home.

Garden of Domkerk

My cute mom

My lame brother

Tea & appelbollen (literally "apple balls"...yum)

Some gourmet cooking in my high class kitchen

We went back out the next day to explore more! It was sunnier that day, and I took them off the main road to visit a windmill! Sam was excited about it, and we took lots of pictures. Utrecht is so beautiful, and we loved both walking around in the busier city center, as well as going around the smaller and quieter streets that were not in the city center. My mom and Sam both agreed with me that Utrecht is much lovelier to be in than Amsterdam. We explored the city more, going into the Dom and stuff, and then had lunch at a cute cafe on Neude that I had been before.

Windmill!!! So Dutch

One of my favorite spots in Utrecht

We had some yummy tostis (grilled cheese sandwiches) and soup and then went to the station to catch a train to the Hague!

Flags of the 12 different provinces of the Netherlands

It was my third time, and I enjoyed showing them the main sights: the Peace Palace, the Noordeinde Palace, the Binnenhof, etc. We saw the Girl with the Pearl Earring in the Mauritshuis and also did some quick shopping at Primark.

Peace Palace (houses the International Criminal Court, etc.)

"Girl with the Pearl Earring" by Jan Vermeer

After a fun day trip there, we went back to Utrecht to have dinner with Cassy at the pancake house on the Oudegracht (the canal). I was really happy they could meet! After dinner, we went to a bar that had been converted from a hidden church, but it was really full, so we just took a quick look inside and left.

Dinner at the pancake house along the Oudegracht with Cassy

The next morning, we woke up early, and we went to the airport together to send them off. I had such a fun time having them visit me and see where I'd been living for the last year!