Sail Trip & other Dutch adventures!

I'm already back in the US, but I'm going to finish these anyways. So after school ended on May 19, I went on a sailing trip with my university to the north of the Netherlands in Friesland! They have some really nice lakes up here, and we stayed at a hostel with a dock just next to it. It was so nice! They speak Friesian in Friesland, which is actually just a different language than Dutch because they can't actually understand each other. But Friesian speakers can also speak Dutch, so they use that as their common language.

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!

Copenhagen

After that crazy month of traveling, I got two weeks to just cool down and concentrate on school before heading off again...this time to Copenhagen!!! This was a really exciting trip for me because I'd been planning it since the beginning of the year in order to meet up with some friends from high school who were also studying abroad. It was super cool to have a little Mead reunion in Denmark out of all places! Emma was studying abroad in Florence, and Gretchen was studying in London, but we all met up, along with Emma's friend Amy, who was also studying in Florence with her. In Copenhagen, we stayed with Emma's Danish friend Victoria, whom she met in Cambodia. Connections everywhere!!! But so much fun.

This was also a short weekend trip, so we spent the first day trying to navigate our way to Victoria's apartment and then having a cup of coffee at her place first (lots of coffee that weekend...the two studying in Italy were missing their cappuccinos) before heading to the University of Copenhagen, where she studied. It was pretty centrally located and was such a beautiful school. They were having an open day for students, so there were lots of food stands and concerts and such. It was nice to just sit and chill! We got some falafel on the way back and laughed a lot and were very happy just to be in this awesome city together.

Friends!!!!!

After a rough night of starting "Inception" together but all falling asleep before the movie was even half over, we woke up to fresh made breakfast by sweet Victoria. It was so good...she was the best host ever! The next day, we walked all around town and also did a boat tour, which was a great way to see the city and all its top attractions! It truly is a lovely city. We saw Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid statue, the royal palace, the parliament building, some great churches, the opera house, some museums, and much more.

The back of Little Mermaid...great pic

I especially love the colorful buildings along the harbor and all the cool ships over there. There are also some houses on the water that apparently have waiting times of over 100 years if you want to buy one. So crazy! The city was beautiful, and the houses reminded me a bit of the Netherlands. I actually kept getting reminded of the Netherlands while I was in Denmark because I felt like there were some similarities between the two cultures, such as many similar words in the languages, how everyone bikes, some certain foods, and the fact that everything is pretty much flat. I think both cultures are wonderful. Also, fun fact about Danish royalty -- all kings are always named either Frederick or Christian; it alternates every generation.

Harbor

We also visited Christiania, this little area within the town that is supposed to be free from Danish law. So basically it's just like this commune kind of thing where there's lots of weed and alcohol and music festivals. No pictures are allowed there though because people actually live there and that is their home. I thought it was a really interesting place to visit though.

Right outside Christiania

After that, we headed home, where Victoria was awaiting us with an amazing dinner of this kind of savory pie...ahhh, it was so good. We spent the night having some beers and talking and playing games and just enjoying each other's company. It was so nice!

The final day, we headed to a tiny little Danish village (I think it had a population of less than 50 people) where Victoria's family lives. They were so gracious and welcoming and made us a traditional dinner of roast pork and potatoes and gravy that you usually eat for Christmas. It was the best meal ever...sooo delicious! The rest of the day at her house was spent playing games, going on walks around the village, and just hanging out with her family. It was such a lovely day.

View of the little village

Victoria drove me to the airport after dinner, and I said goodbye to all my friends. It was an amazing weekend, and I'm so thankful to have gotten to reunite with old friends and also to have made such great new ones in this incredible city!

Easter in the South of France

This time of the year was super busy for me. I didn't really travel between winter break and spring break, so I accidentally crammed all my trips into a tiny time span. For the fourth weekend in a row, I was traveling, but it was still wonderful. After Budapest, Athens, and then Prague, I made my way down to Carcassonne in the south of France to spend Easter with my friend Cassy and her family! They get all religious holidays off here as well so we got a 4-day weekend for Good Friday and Easter. It's great!

Cassy's family owns a very old villa in the countryside in Carcassonne, and it is in an absolutely beautiful location. You can see so much land in every direction and everything is green and so lovely! A lot of the area used to be or still is vineyards, so you can kind of imagine in your head what it looks like. The house itself was also so cool because it is, as I said, very old, and they are always working on it. It was fun to help out around the house or in the yard and to make myself useful, haha. I felt like I was living a life of someone in a book I've read or something...it was so cool to be there.

Vineyards

Near the house

One afternoon, we went into the center of the city and explored inside the citadel. It is super cool...there's just an entire old city inside this giant fortress. We had yummy crepes, and I thought the city was lovely.

Outside the citadel

Other than that, we spent the weekend eating lots and playing games and talking and lying in the sun and drinking wine and going on walks and watching movies. We flew kites, played with the dog they were watching, went to a dinner party with the neighbors and made new friends (or at least just me since I met them just that night), went for a hike with the same neighbors, and just really had the best time ever spending time together with Cassy's family. They have been really kind to me this whole time I've been in Europe and always treat me like family, which I so appreciate!!

Walking the dog

Flying kites

The highlight of the weekend was the Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning, when all of us kids (we still count) ran around their courtyard, trying to get the most chocolate eggs possible. Their dad enforced certain rules so that we wouldn't cheat, haha, it was a lot of fun. I can't remember what place I ended up in...I just remember that I didn't lose. And then we all ate chocolate together and it was a great day!! Another amazing and unforgettable weekend!!!

Our last walk together <3

Prague

Just one week after getting back from Athens for spring break, I took a quick weekend trip to Prague with two American exchange students. Tiffany is from California, and Lisa is from Oklahoma. The three of us are I think the only three Americans who stayed for the whole year at UCU rather than just one semester, so we've stuck together and have become good friends. As I write this, they have both already returned to the States, so now it's just me, but I really enjoyed our time together here in Utrecht!

Prague was beautiful. I felt it was similar to Budapest but a bit smaller. It also had a river running through it with many bridges and a castle on one side. I thought the architecture of the buildings and houses was so beautiful.

Lovely streets of Prague

My friend from UCU is from Prague, so she provided maps and helpful tips about what to visit. We stayed at an Airbnb very close to the center, so it was easy to walk everywhere. We arrived late Friday afternoon so just explored a bit that night and saw our first glimpse of the city. We went to the Old Town Square and saw the famous astrological clock and mostly just walked around that area. We also got a nice traditional Czech dinner and found that prices are also really cheap in Prague! It's pretty nice to travel in Eastern Europe because things are quite inexpensive...it's perfect for students!

Astronomical clock

We also visited an Easter market and thought it was so fun that there were easter eggs and spring decorations all over town. The stalls were set up just like Christmas markets, but they were for Easter instead! Such a great idea.

Easter market

The perfect end to the night was a stop in a fancy little bar where there was live music. It kind of felt like we were in the 1920s or something, haha..it was really nice. And beer there is super cheap! Especially Pilsner, which is Czech.

We spent our Saturday really hitting all the major attractions, which actually left Sunday to be a pretty chill day. There was like a marathon going on or something on Saturday, so it was a bit crowded in town but lively too, so that created a nice atmosphere. It was also the first day of the spring tourist season at the Prague Castle, so they had some different events going on there, like some special concerts and plays, etc. It was lovely to see the inside of St. Vitus Cathedral inside the palace walls after waiting in a very long line.

Beautiful stained glass from St. Vitus Cathedral

We walked around all over town, through the Jewish Quarter, over the Charles Bridge, to a huge park with a giant working metronome statue (the history was quite interesting...it had replaced a Stalin statue many years ago), took a quiet little rest on Kampa Island (just a tiny little island in the middle of the river that you get to by stairs that are halfway across a bridge connecting the two sides of the city), and saw some other famous sites like the Strahov Monastery, the Dancing House, and Wenceslas Square with its huge national museum (that is unfortunately under renovation right now).

View of Prague

John Lennon Wall

It was a very thorough day, and because we enjoyed the live music so much the night before, we decided to try out a piano bar directly across from where we lived. It was the best choice ever!! An old man would alternate between drinking with his friend and playing incredible music on this upright piano. We had so much fun just enjoying the music and sipping on our beer and eating our desserts and cheese platter. It was so fun just talking and laughing so much and enjoying our second and last night in Prague.

Our final day started with an early morning hike up Vitkov Hill, which was right behind our place. There's a giant monument on it as well as an amazing view of the city.

View from Vitkov Hill -- the TV tower is known to be one of the ugliest buildings in the world; if you look closely, there are giant crawling babies stuck randomly on the tower...seriously. Look it up -- Zizkov TV tower

The rest of the day before we had to leave was spent in cafes and in the very small but wonderful Dvorak Museum that Lisa found. After being informed that we could only use cash, we turned around to go find an ATM, but two older men behind us asked the lady how much it was and then just bought tickets for all of us! They were so kind, and we ended up talking to them for a little bit. We found out they were from the East Coast and that one of them was a UW alumni! It's always a lot of fun to meet Americans in other countries and to always somehow find some sort of connection. The world seems much smaller after you travel!

Dvorak's piano!!!

We then took a 13-hour overnight bus ride back to Utrecht and then walked all the back from the station since we got there so early in the morning there weren't even busses yet. But we loved our trip so much and have so many great new memories!!!

Happy on Kampa Island

Spring Break: Budapest & Athens

I am terrible at blogging and haven't done so in forever, but it's because I've been keeping myself busy with lots of traveling and activities, and I'd rather be having fun than sitting in my room on my computer...which I am doing now, but the point is I try not to do it a lot. I've traveled sooo much since my last blog post and done so many different things, so I'm just going to post a quick succession of blog posts in order to catch up.

For spring break, my unitmate Cassy and I went to Budapest and Athens, and they were incredible! I loved both cities so much.

Budapest
This was the first time I had traveled to an Eastern European country, and I loved it! We couchsurfed at this lady's house, and she was the kindest host ever. She had three little boys and also lived with her mom, but she made her kids double up in their beds so that we could each have our own bed. Their place was just outside of the city center and took about 30 minutes to walk there, but it was still still so nice and we really enjoyed staying there. She and her mom picked us up the first day from the train station and took us on a car ride of the city, showing us all the biggest attractions so that we could figure out what we'd want to see the next few days. She brought us to the top of a big hill so that we could see the night view of the beautiful city below. People say that Budapest is the "Paris" of Eastern Europe, and I totally agree. With the Danube River running under its many bridges and with its beautiful, old buildings all lining the sides of the water, I could really see the resemblance between the two cities.

Cassy and I have traveled quite a few times together already, and whenever we do, we realize we like to mostly walk around the city instead of taking public transportation because you not only get to your destination but get to see so much more of the city along the way...and for free! So for the next few days (I think we spent about three days there total), we spent a lot of time just walking around and figuring out the layout of the city. The part on one side of the water is called Buda and the other is Pest. Buda is richer and has the main castle and big hill that tourists like to go to in order to get good pictures of the view, and Pest has pretty much everything else.

Streets of Buda

Market

Highlights of our trip were:

• having a buffet dinner for around 6 euros per person (most things in Budapest are super cheap!)
• taking a walk at night along the Danube River and seeing the beautiful Parliament Building lit up
• playing with our host's little dog (his name was Zseby, or something like that...it means "pocket" in Hungarian because he was very little)
• going to a thermal bath...it's basically like a natural heated swimming pool!



Parliament Building by night 

• exploring the area around Matthias Church on the Buda side
• going inside St. Stephen's Basilica on the Pest side and being completely overwhelmed by how grand and beautiful it is
• deciding to go out for drinks one night but then both ending up being asleep in our beds by 9pm
• walking into a random nice building because everyone else was doing it and walking out 20 minutes later still having no idea what it was
• accidentally being there on a national holiday and seeing Hungarian flags EVERYWHERE...so patriotic!
• finally being able to walk around outside in just a t-shirt again!

Matthias Church area 

Matthias Church 

Interior of St. Stephen's Basilica

View from the top of Gellert Hill

Brussels

After our wonderful trip in Budapest, we returned to Brussels for a day because it was cheaper to have all our flights go out of Brussels rather than flying directly from Budapest to Athens. We spent the night at Cassy's house, and it was a lot of fun because her whole family was there! I had spent a weekend at her house before and also hung out with her and her siblings together in Utrecht, so it was really nice to see her family again. Cassy's birthday is March 12 and mine is March 20 (I think we were at her house on the 17th), so her mom was so sweet and made a delicious dessert to celebrate both our birthdays! For dinner, we had raclette, which is kind of like fondue but actually really not. You eat pieces of melted, soft cheese with other things like potatoes and meat. It's really yummy and it was really fun!

Athens

We left the next day for Athens! Athens was such an awesome city. I was completely in awe of all the ruins just scattered throughout the city. I can't believe people live there and on their way to work or school they'll just see some ruins that existed there for thousands and thousands of years. Apparently things can get tricky when building new buildings there because they always find random ruins that they are obligated to somehow preserve while constructing their new building. As a result, you'll find a lot of banks and metro stations with glass floors that you can walk over while looking down at old ruins. I love visiting museums, so we had fun at the National Archeological Museum, as well as the New Acropolis Museum, both of which we got in free with our EU student cards. And the Acropolis was amazing. The Parthenon was partly covered with construction stuff, but it's still so cool to see!!!

We also met up with other UCU friends (one of them is another American exchange student who is also here for the whole year...there's only like three of us who stayed for the whole year) who happened to be in Athens for spring break, and it was so fun! We had dinner together and then went on a pub crawl, and we really enjoyed ourselves talking and playing games in each bar. We were very loud and probably reinforced the stereotype that Americans are loud and annoying, but I'm glad we gained a very memorable experience of Athens. It was colder than Budapest at that time of the year, but still warm-ish, so it was nice to get away from the Seattle-like Dutch weather for a little bit.

Meeting up with UCU friends!

View of Athens from Lycabettus Hill

Highlights of our trip were:

• eating about 7 gyros each total in the span of 4 days
• visiting all the ruins -- the Ancient Agora, the Roman Agora, Hadrian's Library, Mars Hill, and so much more!
• climbing Lycabettus Hill at sunset and somehow climbing it in 10 minutes when it should actually take 30 (we couldn't find the actual path and were like basically climbing through a forest to find it; we went past a fence and through many nettles and bushes and somehow miraculously came out very near to the top) -- having a view of the sun setting over the entire city was absolutely beautiful
• seeing the supposed prison of Socrates on Filopappos Hill and also just chilling on the hill in the sun for a while, enjoying the view of Athens
• the weather being warm enough to eat ice cream
• meeting my brother Sam's friend Doros and hanging out with him several times -- he is one of the nicest and most generous people ever
• eating so much delicious Greek food

The Parthenon 

Our first of many, many gyros

Aegina

My birthday happened to be while we were in Greece, so we celebrated it in Aegina, a small island about 45 minutes away (by ferry) from the port in Athens. Because it was off-season, it was pretty quiet on the island, but it was still wonderful to be there. We rented an ATV, and I'm pretty sure we woke the entire island up every time we rode it. It was awesome though and so fun to get around the island that way! It was beautiful to see the view of the ocean and the mainland every time we rode around on it. We visited some more ruins there and just rode through the countryside on the island, having a really relaxing and nice day. The place we stayed was in Perdika, a little fishing village at the south of the island...it was beautiful! But because it was a bit quiet in the off-season, we rode up to the main area around the port to have dinner. We spent a chilly night in the nice little hotel we stayed in and then left the next day back to Athens. All in all, it was a wonderful birthday, and I'm so glad I got to spend it on the island with Cassy! :)

View from Aegina

The island of Aegina

Our ride 

Port of Aegina

Skiing in the Alps

I realized that I forgot that I had also gone on a weeklong ski trip during the winter break when I wrote my last blog post. I don't know how I forgot because it was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever done...I learned to ski in the alps!!! I'd never skied before, but our school's Trip Committee organized classes taught by other students for the beginners.

We took an overnight bus ride (about 15 hours or so) to the south of France to a ski resort called Les Deux Alpes. Over the course of that week, I fell many many times, but in the end, I felt quite comfortable with skiing and was able to do blue and red slopes, so I was super excited! The first few days were a bit rough, but after that, it became really really fun!!! Also, it was so nice to make new friends (all of us beginners had to stick together for the whole week because nobody wanted to ski with us...haha jk, everyone was nice to us, but it was just nicer to ski with people our own level) and to just enjoy seeing the beautiful mountains all around us every day. We would ski every day in the daytime and then come back at night to all play games together and to relax because we would all be exhausted. It was a great experience, and I'm really excited to ski again next winter!

Here are some pictures of how beautiful it was:

Les Deux Alpes 

Just skiing down a mountain in the Alps

Not the best panorama, but this was as we came down from the glacier at the very top, I think

I can ski now!

Over the clouds

These pictures don't do the view justice at all, but they give a glimpse of how beautiful it was...there were a few days where we were so tired we didn't want to ski, but the view itself was motivation enough to go up the mountain!