Reborn

It's official: I have been reborn a Dutch-woman. All these years of hearing from my husband, the proud Dutch citizen, the wonders of Holland, I am finally a believer.

It all started when we spent our last day in Paris, and I realized that what had started as a sore throat from the fumes of Paris and it's filthyness (that happened to me the last time I was in Paris too, so I'm not making it up!), had
morphed into a full-blown cold. Thanks, Paris. We hopped on our train to Holland, and while I watched out the windows for the next 4 hours, I saw Paris turn into Brussels, which turned into Antwerp; all of them somewhat busy and dirty. But then a wonderful thing happened: the smoke stacks and graffiti were slowly replaced by sunny forests and quaint country roads lining old Belgian and Dutch homes; the roads filled with bicycles and people waving while riding alongside quiet brooks. Then there were windmills and horses and canals and buildings. We stopped in Rotterdam and Den Haag, and then we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal station. Once we arrived at our hotel, which is flanked on two sides by canals and on the other by a small cobblestone street barely big enough for a car, we went out to see the city, and visited the Dam Square, the infamous red light district, which was fascinating but naturally a little odd to see the women selling themselves in each windows, and to a coffee and pastry house. Several hours later, we buried into our big warm bed and fell asleep. Mostly. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep because of my stupid cold and runny nose (where does it all come from?!), and some tapping noise outside our window. Again, thanks, Paris.

Today we woke up late and decided to chuck our itinerary in favour of wandering, and wander we did. We walked all over looking for coffee and poffertjes, which are basically like tiny pancakes, but better, and finally settled on a croissant in the south of the city. Then we walked up and down the flowermarket, and around the old mint, and began a day-long hunt for a poffertjes pan, because we want to be able to make our own! After traversing the tiny city a few times, we found the Albert Cuyp Market, which stretches maybe almost a mile, and where there are no tourists and the vendors have everything you could imagine. From clothing and household goods to fresh cheese and pastries and even art, of which we got three huge pieces to add to our collection. By the end of the day we found our heavy poffertjes pan, and were ready to lug everything back. Now we are resting in our room, about to grab dinner, coffee, and most likelyore fries and pastries :) Tomorrow we are off to Amersfoort and Arnhem to visit Nolan's aunt and uncle, and see more of Holland. I'm madly in love already and it's only been one day.