Post Barcelona Adventure Weekend!

Upon returning to Amsterdam from Barcelona on Tuesday, April 14, Corey and I left Central Station to retrieve our bikes from the fence we locked them together to. As we approached the area, we noticed that the fence looked pretty bare, and joked that our bikes were gone. Nonsense, all of the people that parked by us must had just moved their bikes already, we thought. Once we came upon the area we had locked our bikes, we realizes that our bike, too, were suddenly invisible against the green fence that we had left them six days before. Then, I noticed a little red sign with Dutch writing, about ten feet ahead of us- I suddenly realized that maybe it was not okay to have parked our bikes there for such an extended amount of time. Fortunately, on the side of Central Station there is a place called “Mac Bike,” which is a bike rental service, different than the one that my program arranged for us, which was Orange Bike. Corey and I jogged over to Mac Bike and I asked the employee: “Is there some sort of bike towing service who would have taken our bikes, had we parked them in a ‘no-bike-zone’?” To my question, the Mac Bike employee responded with, what sounded like “Ah F*ck.” To this, I was surprised by his bluntness and we responded that “yes,” we knew we were “screwed.” The man laughed and said, “No, AFAC, is the corporation that tows bikes.” In fact, the Mac Bike employee was not cursing at the fact our bikes were gone, but all the long trying to tell us that there was a towing company, and its acronym is “AFAC.”

On Friday, April 17, with no class ahead of us for the day, Corey and I walked to Central Station, knowing we had quite a journey ahead of us: our program leader, Hannah, told us that the whole process would take approximately three hours…45 minutes to get there, and the rest of the time to obtain our bikes and ride them home. After six minutes on a train, a ten-minute bus ride, and about a five minute walk, Corey and I stumbled upon the AFAC sign and property. As we made our way to the front office, we noticed the thousands of bikes collected outside, all around the vicinity. The woman at the desk seemed nice enough when we entered, and within a minute we were explaining that sometime between the previous Wednesday and last Tuesday, our Orange Bikes had been towed from Central Station. To this, she nodded, but didn’t smile. She informed us that yes, she had had our Orange Bikes there for the past week, but the day before they were returned to the Orange Bike store right by where we live. After a delusional laughing fit, Corey and I retraced our steps back to the train station. Knowing that I have Dutch heritage and have been wanting to travel to the city of Hoorn to check out where the Van Horne’s came from back in the day, Corey suggested that we take a little trip out, since we were already out and planning to spend at least the next few hours dealing with our (lack of) bike situation.

Five minutes later and only twenty-three euro spent, Corey and I were on a train, an intended thirty -minute ride, to the great city of Hoorn. Today was the second day in a row that the Netherlands had a sunny day, and we stepped off the train to encounter a bright sky and a light breeze. It was perfect! We immediately started to walk around and explore this little town, with small cafes, little boutiques, cobble stone sidewalks, and horse-and-carriages all around. We found a nice little café called “De Tuynkamer.” After a delicious lunch, where our waiter was kind enough to give us a map of the city and suggest we walk down certain streets to come upon the coast, we left this little piece of heaven to explore a bit more. After some window-shopping, we came upon a beautiful coastal area, with tall houses and apartments on the edge of the water, places that we decided we would not at all mind living in! We sat down on these stairs right on the beach, threw in an earphone each, and enjoyed some tunes as we soaked up a little Hoorn sun. After a while of admiring the views, watching children play soccer and ride their little bikes nearby, and see dog owners playing catch with their pets in the water, we decided it was time to get back to reality. On our way back to the station, we stopped for some ice cream. After frustrating the lady a bit- I think, I decided on a scoop of Mocha, while Corey went with mint chip. While my flavor was delicious, Corey decided that his mint chocolate chip ice cream was “too minty,” and either purposefully or carelessly, when I turned around from withdrawing money from the ATM, his two scoops were laying on the pavement, and half of my Mocha was suddenly in his cone! I must admit, I did make the better flavor choice! Another forty minutes later, and we were back home in Amsterdam, where the air was still warm and the sun was about to set.

About three weeks prior, we had made plans to go to a concert in Rotterdam (about an hour by train from Amsterdam) on the evening of Saturday, April 18. Because neither Corey or I had been to Rotterdam before, we did not know if we would be able to fill up a whole day with activities there, so we decided to get up early and go to Delft (on the way to Rotterdam, about forty-five minutes away from Amsterdam) on the way to Rotterdam. By one’ o’clock in the afternoon, we were off of a train and leaving the Delft station, ready to explore a new city, for the second time in two days! Another sunny day in the Netherlands, Delft was full of street markets, beautiful canals- a bit smaller than those in Amsterdam, and small shops and restaurants lining the streets. We also stumbled upon a town square area, where there was a little festival-ish even going on with tents set up, and little play pins for children to play soccer in. After taking plenty of pictures throughout the streets, Town Square, and whole area, really, we decided it was time for a snack. After nit picking around at various cafes and restaurants, we found a delicious-sounding Mexican restaurant that unfortunately was not open for another three hours. Instead, we sat down outside in the town square at a café for a snack (to tide us over until the Mexican place opened!) and shared a strawberry crepe, which was good- but I cannot wait to be back in Paris for the real deal! After this, we continued to walk around until 4:30pm when we headed back to the Mexican restaurant and shared a fajita dish, which was amazing, as we had not had Mexican food in more than two months! After our meal, we headed back to the Delft station and were soon on our way to Rotterdam!

Not much more than fifteen minutes later, we were exiting another train station, this time at dusk in the city of Rotterdam. Not knowing at all what we were going to do until the concert, where it was, or where we were in relation to the city, we started walking a random direction. After about five minutes, we realized that all the people surrounding us were not white or as nice and proper looking as the two of us, and so we quickly retreated to the station, where we asked an information booth employee where a main town area was. As we were following his directions, we decided it would be fun to find a pub to watch the Chelsea versus (uhm, what was that team’s name?) soccer match. We stumbled upon an Irish Pub, found seats in an overcrowded tabled area, and watch Chelsea’s victory. After this, we found ourselves at another establishment in the main square area, and decided that it was necessary to find a hotel room for later that night, since we would, without a doubt, be up until at least four in the morning, and would rather die than take an hour train ride home at that time. After finding a hotel and freshened up we eventually made our way to the concert hall by metro. The performer was a DJ, ranked number two in the world: Armin Van Burren, and the show was amazing. We made some friends throughout the night, and we were quite sad when the DJ, Armin Van Burren, had completely his performance. Although, we captured some great moments on camera and we will never forget being five feet away from Armin himself, nor will we forget him looking directly at us, pointing our way, and throwing up a “T” in our honor (if you don’t get it, don’t worry about it).

I am so happy that I finally had the chance to travel a bit around the Netherlands, and especially visit the city of Hoorn. It was a beautiful city, one that I hope to return to another time (or two!) this semester, and I am jealous that the Van Horne ancestors had the privilege in living in such a quite, cute, and pretty town. Oh, and don’t worry, Corey and I eventually recovered our bikes from Orange Bike, with only a twenty euro charge!

As members of CIEE, our travels around the Netherlands will not stop here. This weekend, our program (CIEE) has arranged a weekend-long field trip to one of the Netherland Antilles islands: Schnoonighghgjk. I cannot wait to fill you in about this adventure coming up this weekend!

I miss you all, and love you all, more!