My absence is explained!
I was absent for a while becuase eumelia came to stay with me! We had an awesome time and crammed the days full of art and train journeys and cities and food. I had promised to feed her All The Food, which I did, and she managed to eat almost all of it, which was pretty talented.
On the first day, we saw parliament and a palace (monarchy ftw!), ate a stroopwafel, went to the miniature city before we finished off at the beach, where we had Dutch pancakes and ice cream for dessert, which I spilled on my shoes. I'm nothing if not classy, people :).
We went to Amsterdam next, saw the Rijksmuseum and the Nightwatch, went to the Anne Frank house (we had to queue for an hour, but it was worth it.) We saw Dam Square, another palace, lots and lots of touristy shops, but I promised to save eumelia from the clutches of key chain clog sales people, so we avoided those.
We were pretty beat after two intense days, so we did Delft lite, seeing a Delft Blue pottery place (where Mel bought Delft Blue clog earrings, complete with certificate) and we saw a Vermeer exhibition that didn't have paintings but lots of history about him, and then we sprawled at home.
On Wednesday we met Marliesanna from twitter in Utrecht, where we had the traditional Dutch three egg lunch which Mel managed to eat in its entirety by skipping breakfast, before we went to Amsterdam again to tackle the Van Goghmuseum, where we saw the famous sunflowers and other pretty paintings, and Mel bought more earrings.
Thursday we did nothing in the morning and in the afternoon kilawater came to visit because she and Mel wanted to meet after hearing me talk about each other, and they hit it off and we chatted and played games and then Mel packed and this morning we went to the airport and I was creeped out by the soldiers with the Massive Guns (which, wtf) at the El Al check-in desk. We were apparently very early so we breakfasted before we had to say goodbye and then I cried my eyes out when I got home. Managed not to embarrass myself on the train, thankfully, but now the flat is lonely and empty-ish, which is very strange.
On the first day, we saw parliament and a palace (monarchy ftw!), ate a stroopwafel, went to the miniature city before we finished off at the beach, where we had Dutch pancakes and ice cream for dessert, which I spilled on my shoes. I'm nothing if not classy, people :).
We went to Amsterdam next, saw the Rijksmuseum and the Nightwatch, went to the Anne Frank house (we had to queue for an hour, but it was worth it.) We saw Dam Square, another palace, lots and lots of touristy shops, but I promised to save eumelia from the clutches of key chain clog sales people, so we avoided those.
We were pretty beat after two intense days, so we did Delft lite, seeing a Delft Blue pottery place (where Mel bought Delft Blue clog earrings, complete with certificate) and we saw a Vermeer exhibition that didn't have paintings but lots of history about him, and then we sprawled at home.
On Wednesday we met Marliesanna from twitter in Utrecht, where we had the traditional Dutch three egg lunch which Mel managed to eat in its entirety by skipping breakfast, before we went to Amsterdam again to tackle the Van Goghmuseum, where we saw the famous sunflowers and other pretty paintings, and Mel bought more earrings.
Thursday we did nothing in the morning and in the afternoon kilawater came to visit because she and Mel wanted to meet after hearing me talk about each other, and they hit it off and we chatted and played games and then Mel packed and this morning we went to the airport and I was creeped out by the soldiers with the Massive Guns (which, wtf) at the El Al check-in desk. We were apparently very early so we breakfasted before we had to say goodbye and then I cried my eyes out when I got home. Managed not to embarrass myself on the train, thankfully, but now the flat is lonely and empty-ish, which is very strange.