I will tell what we did as I take you on a glorious picture journey (preemptive apologies for my inability to pick a tense)...
First, I woke up at some ungodly hour to meet Sebastien at the train station. Hardly anyone was up and about...
-Fish Market, Groningen, on the way to the train station-We get to the airport to pick Andreas up, and then the three of us hopped on a train (more like stumbled) and were off to Amsterdam!
-Sebastien and Andreas preparing for the treacherous (?) journey ahead!-MISSION #1: AMSTERDAM (again.)
We get to Amsterdam and commence wandering. We purchase books (yay good literature!). We eat lunch (yum), see a sign for some photography exhibit and decide to try and find it. Half an hour later we are meandering through some, as Sebastien put it, "brain damaging" photos. I was not prepared for the horrifying things that I saw...yikes. All brilliantly composed, yet painful to experience (which I do believe was the point).
After a stumble into the Red Light District (boobies) we continue our aimless mission (?).
More wandering. We appear in front of the Rijksmuseum, where I get to see Rembrandt dominate "The Night Watch" as well as some of my favorite self portraits he painted (when he was 22, and another one of him being all old, quirky and awesome). Also saw Miro poke fun at Dutch painters. It was absolutely lovely.
After this, it was 18:00ish, so we had a drink to collect our brain-damaged/excited-by-art selves in preparation for the next leg of our journey (which was simply finding food and getting our tired bodies back on the train).
After a stumble into the Red Light District (boobies) we continue our aimless mission (?).
More wandering. We appear in front of the Rijksmuseum, where I get to see Rembrandt dominate "The Night Watch" as well as some of my favorite self portraits he painted (when he was 22, and another one of him being all old, quirky and awesome). Also saw Miro poke fun at Dutch painters. It was absolutely lovely.
After this, it was 18:00ish, so we had a drink to collect our brain-damaged/excited-by-art selves in preparation for the next leg of our journey (which was simply finding food and getting our tired bodies back on the train).
-The only picture I took in Amsterdam...woopsies.-
NEXT MISSION: UTRECHT
We arrive with little to no plans. This day mainly consisted of, you guessed it...MORE WANDERING. aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! (it's all good).
Highlights to be mentioned: church, the famous house designed by Rietveld (inadvertently part of the de Stijl movement)...yup. That's about it...Here we go:
-Andreas contemplating life in the courtyard of the church-
-The exterior of the church...these Dutch take their Gothic seriously.-
-The courtyard. I felt like I should be in some Lord of the Rings film.-
-Unusual decoration around the arches of the church...normally, these arches are decorated with angels or saints or other religious icons...what do the Dutch do? Decorate their arches with arches...eh...?-
-Dom tower...it's a tower. Shocking.-
-Inside the church. I have found that Dutch churches really lack a lot of religious adornment when compared to other countries...probably because religion is not so serious here (the church by my house was converted into a dance studio...go Jesus!)-
-Looking up from under a chandelier...who would have guessed you would find awkward modern aspects in a Gothic church.-
-On our way to the Utrecht train station to come home, I noticed that one of the stoplights was a bunny...Everything Dutch is cute (except the weather. The weather is the spawn of the hell beast).-
-Andreas on the ride home...-
-Sebastien and me on the ride home...I fell asleep because I am a party-pooper.-
-For a moment we thought we saw sun...turns out it was just this country continuously toying with my heart.-
Well...that was my mini vaycay. Now time to start studying. One week until exams. 23 days until I am home. 41 days until I see you all at Grandy's B-day extravaganza.
SUPER EXCITED!
Love
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