Holland

With our eight large bags, my mother and I trekked through Groningan train station, awaiting the familiar Dutch face which we were very excited to see. At this point we were laughing hysterically because not only did we look silly with all of this luggage, but also because we really didn`t know where to wait for Vera becuase as far as we knew, she was still taking her final exam. But, we only were waiting aimlessly around for five minutes before Vera emerged from the crowd and greeted us with a big grin and many happy hugs. She put us on a bus with all of our bags and then she rode her bike and met us at the bus stop that is closest to her apartment. We rolled our way up to the front entrance to her building, and when she opened the door we saw the challange ahead of us. The steep, narrow stairway was going to be fun. Nevertheless we heaved our way up the stairs and somehow found room for all of our big suitcases in her one room apartment.

Once we were settled in, Vera took us across the street to a church yard to have a picinic. We sat there in the sun and caught up on things. It had been four years since the last time I had seen her! After a while, Vera took us back to her appartment, and even though we protested that we should take her out to dinner, her will to make us her famous speghetti dinner won over. (It was delicious Vera, good job :P ) After dinner and a few drinks, we headed out on the town.

Groningen is a college town. That`s the best way to describe it. And everyone was out clubbing that night because exams were over and it was the last day that most of them would be in Groningen for the summer. What a great time the three of us had! We danced, sang, drank, met many interesting people, and just had a good time. We ended up visiting every bar in Groningen, I can`t tell you how many there were, but we were out until 6:15 in the morning so there had to be quite a few. Thank goodness Vera had told us to wear closed-toe shoes because the floors in the bars were completely covered with glass shards from broken beer bottles and if we had been wearing flip flops, our feet would have been nearly amputated. We finally went home when the sun was up, and slept for a good.. two hours. We got some breakfast and shopped around in the morning to wake up a little, then we had to take all of our suitcases back down the steep stairs to catch a train going to her hometown, Osterbiech. It was there that we met up with the rest of her family. Vera, mom and I were so tired from the night before, we couldn`t handle too much. But we did have a pleasant Dutch dinner with the Post family. We then very easily went to bed.

The next day we failed to wake up early to catch the train we wanted to Amsterdam, but nevertheless we did make it there. We took a boat "taxi" through the canals of the city, and it was actually a sweet deal because you could get off at certain stops, then come back on later with the same tickets! We saw many interesting buildings and we visited the Van Gough museum. It was fun to learn more about the artist that we have been studying in school almost every year in high school. We got some lunch then walked around downtown. I feel like I got a pretty good feel for the city in general. Most people just think "Amsterdam.. weed, prostitutes, parties" but I found the city in general interesting. Like I said before there is a lot of interesting architecture, and also fun restaurants and foods. We spent the day touring the city, then near nightfall we went back to the home-base.

This visit really whizzed by, but it was a lot of fun! Thank you Vera! :)