Rotterdam

Well, I'm back from my absolutely lovely vacation. Katie, Kyle, Jaron, Olga, and I went to Rotterdam, Delft, Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, and Barcelona over a span of 12 days. It was, in a word, awesome. Now, how to distill the experience for the benefit of my avid readers...I think I'll do several posts, each one dedicated to a portion of the trip. Let's start at the beginning with Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Here are my notes:

Day 1:
- We traveled for 20 hours, and I slept on the floor of an airport for the first (and hopefully, last) time in my life.
- When we arrived, Katie immediately introduced us to some kind of weird Dutch cookie called a stroopwafel. Jaron goes insane for appelbollen. Dutch food is unexpectedly delicious.
- Our host with the most, Vincent, a friend of Katie's, met us at the train station and took us to our hostel.
- The hostel was awesome, and cheap!
- We meet Katie's other friends, Phe and Rick (a.k.a. "Pretty Ricky")

- They take us in a water taxi across the river to a place called Hotel New York. The driver of the water taxi was a legend. He had a singing turkey on the dashboard to "make us feel more at home." Still not sure how that makes any sense, but it was sweet. This is a picture of Kyle and me trying not to die in the water taxi.

- Along the way, we get a good look at the Erasmusbrug:

- At the hotel, we drink Heineken and eat bitterballen, which are SO tasty. All food in Holland apparently comes in the form of a deep-fried ball, and I'm NOT complaining.
- Rick, Phe, and Vince take us for all-you-can-eat sushi! What am amazing idea. I had been missing sushi something awful. We learn the following Dutch words:

1) gezellig - apparently, there is no adequate English translation for this word. The closest is "cozy."

2) swaffel - I beg you to Google this. It was the word of 2008 in Holland by popular vote and it became the word of this entire trip for us.

3) proost - cheers!

4) biertjes - beers

- We go back to Vince's place and meet Jelle, whose awesomeness words cannot describe. He was SO DUTCH. His computer desktop background was a picture of him shirtless and wet emerging from an unknown body of water.
- Observation: Why are all Dutch people tall and gorgeous?! How do they manage to speak perfect English, every last one of them?? They are seriously the sweetest people. Everyone we met was helpful and open and no one seemed to have an attitude problem. I have never felt so at home in a strange country as I did in Holland, and most of the credit for that goes to our wonderful hosts. Thank you!

Day 2:
- We had a new roommate, who was a weird, older guy. He pretended to count his change 10 or 12 times as he watched me get dressed, hoping I might accidentally flash him. Sicko. I got dressed in the bathroom from then on.
- We went to Albert Heijn (grocery store) and Katie made us kip (chicken) sandwiches.
- Went to the art museum and managed to miss the entire third floor.

- Went to Het Park. No sun, but it was still pleasant. I was trying to carry on my sister's tradition of visiting the nearest park whenever you travel.

- We walked around, taking in the sights. We had coffee, pastries, and saw someone making poffertjes. We saw this shirt, which made our day (It says "I am the swaffel King):
- We met up with our hosts and went to Vince's apartment, where he made us lasagna! We listened intently to stories about Sinter Klaas (Dutch Santa, or as they would probably say, the original Santa).
- We discussed Bob Ross, an 80s TV show called Air Wolf, which I had never heard of before that night, and Chuck Norris.
- We learned that the worst insult you can hurl at someone in Dutch is kanker hoer, which means "cancer whore." According to Rick, the Dutch are the best at cursing because they curse you with diseases, such as cholera, and typhus.
- We played Dutch charades, which is far and away superior to American charades. During the course of this game, we learned that in Holland, Big Bird is blue!

That's all for this portion of the trip!