1. Everybody is happy.
2. All the time.
3. You need to go somewhere: you ride your bike. Built like a truck, your Dutch bike will most likely outlive you and your dutch children. Also in Holland there are no hills, requiring minimum effort.
2. All the time.
3. You need to go somewhere: you ride your bike. Built like a truck, your Dutch bike will most likely outlive you and your dutch children. Also in Holland there are no hills, requiring minimum effort.
4. Weed. So obvious, it's number 4.
5. Supermarkets/Aldi - all food is ready to go. Typically you go to a supermarket to buy ingredients; here everything is already done. Over 50% of the supermarket is dedicated to pre-made salads, sandwiches and snac- did someone say munchies?
6. Hot Snack Vending Machine Shops. For all the same reasons. You don't know what you're eating - all you know is that it tastes queer and fabulous at the same time, and you want more.
17 Jan, 2012
In addition to severe and delayed jetlag, the fact that I was baked almost the whole time I was visiting Maastricht meant, by the time the clock struck 8:30pm, there was not a thing in this world that could keep me out of bed until approximately the same time the next morning. I am both proud and ashamed to say that, of the three nights I spent in the Netherlands, every one consisted of a solid, unbroken 12-14 hour sleep. Needless to say, like many others before me, I never stumbled upon the elusive and infamous Alah (mostly due to the fact that I didn't try, at all).
On the rare occasion that I wasn't sleeping, I made trips to Aldi in my pyjamas with Shaggy to buy instant coffee (I basically lived off bread, Nutella and Chocomel this entire time), struggled to make said coffee whilst mistaking the sugar carton for milk and vice versa, felt like an utter bimbo, and went on a free (predominately fictional) walking tour of the city - hosted by Brent.
By the end of the third day, I was like a gypsy with too much coin - I had to be on the move again, doing and seeing as much as my three short weeks would allow. As the boys were content to wait in Maastricht where accommodations were free, and a miscellany of drugs and amusements were at their very beck and call, I decided to embark on my own adventures whilst they lay in wait for Lyndon to catch up to us. So I booked my hostel in Berlin, acquired the help of my cousin in reading my train schedule all in Dutch, and got a swift, jolty ride to the station on the back of a bicycle in a shower of rain. This would be my first true travel across Europe on my own, and it wasn't without a glimmer of apprehension and uneasy that I hugged Brent goodbye and climbed onto my train to Germany.
