itslastcall

Hello everyone!

I am writing this from the Netherlands. Yes, I am here. It was a bit of a stretch for me, traveling by myself. I first took the train from Nyon to Basel. Stefan met me here and showed me around the city. We had pizza for lunch (they served my coke in a wine glass) and then we walked around. He took me to see a cathedral, and we went to the top of the bell tower. It was beautiful. The bell even rang while we were right beside it... a little bit unnerving. The bell was 3700 kgs ( 8140 lbs). Pretty big bell. Stefan said "when it dingles..." and I'm thinking "a bell like that does not dingle..."

This is the river Rhine, where boats go by shipping stuff from Germany and France :




View from the top:
Me being nervous by the edge:
huge bell:
Inside:

After we bought some groceries for our supper; pasta with pesto, and a chocolate fondue. :) yum.



Very Swiss:

So at 5 a.m. I was up and at 5:30 Stefan met me (and carried my backpack S:) for the 20 minute walk to the bus stop. He saw me off on the train and I set out for a full day. I had one change, which was tight. I had convinced myself I would miss it but somehow managed to find that track 11... how? prayer? it must have been God.

myself at approximately 7 in the morning:
I started talking with these two guys near me (mostly because I heard that they were aiming for Amsterdam as well). I was hoping they would carry my luggage for me. Peter (a guy from the workshop) had suggested that all I needed to do was twirl my hair and some guy would carry everything for me. When they saw what I was carrying they said I was "strong but still beautiful". However, they didn't offer to help. I guess I looked capable.. that's a good thing right?

The one on the left was from Bulgaria, looking to buy a car. He was a little funny... suggested a few places for me to travel to in eastern europe... said i needed to check out a place in romania where count dracula lived. He kept stressing "he was a real person!". His name was Dimitri. The one on the left was from Vietnam and his name was Dom... or Dum... not sure. sounded like Dum. I was a little nervous following him. He was doing the same transfer as me. Talked like he knew where he was going but I still don't believe it. His girlfriend lives in Amsterdam so he was on his way to see her. It was honestly so funny to eavesdrop on their conversation. I kept bursting out in laughter because of the funny combo of accents. Clearly Dimitri wasn't as impressed with Dom as Dom was with Dimitri. Funny.

Anyways, I finally arrived at Amsterdam Central. Waited for about 5 minutes... surprisingly calm. I wasn't sure I would even recognize Linda but then there she was and everything was suddenly okay.
We went out for Italian food in the evening with her fiance, Johann. I had four-cheese macaroni (just so I could say I had mac+cheese in Haarlem).

So that's it. I am safe and sound. We had a great day today, shopping around in Haarlem again. I bought some sweatpants. The brand is le coq sportif which i'm thinking means the sporty rooster. anyways, i was always making fun of Linda for this one hoodie she had. Now i have matching sweatpants. :)

We had coffee at this really awesome shop where they hire people with disabilities. they have all of these crafts for sale and a cafe in the back. i think it's such a great idea.

plus the coffee was great :)

I also noticed what seems to be some sort of dutch male identity crisis evidenced by the weirdest shop names:

Linda tells me it's just cool to use english in your shop name, but i didn't think being called a "sissy" or "not yet a man" would ever be considered a cool thing.

oh one last one:

Now, if that isn't Holland, I don't know what is. :)