The next morning, we grabbed breakfast at Bagel and Beans (coffee, not refried) before touring the adorable town of Haarlem a little more. Haarlem is also referred to as "Little Amsterdam" because of the similar architecture and design of the city. It was unfortunately pouring all day again, but that didn't slow us down (until around 4pm). We walked through a few adorable back streets and saw the small, community gardens and even a playground with chickens (or kips!) and the fluffiest bunny we had ever seen.
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| Rainy Haarlem |
We walked through the street market in the main square and visited the beautiful cathedral, where the ground consists of hundreds of marble graves. For lunch we tried the traditional Dutch fast food: french fries with mayonnaise, ketchup, and onions and another order with mayonnaise, sauté sauce, and onions, as well as a beef croquette, a frikandel (sausage), and a kaassouffle (deep fried cheese pastry). I think we'll stick with our burgers and fries dipped in ketchup haha. Afterwards, we met up with Jara's friends and their adorable baby, Noa, at an old Jewish church which has been renovated into a brewery. Very cool place. Our desire for a homey rainy day comfort led us to see Man of Steel at the local cinema. The theater seats were extremely comfortable and the movie was great. It had Dutch subtitles which made things interesting as well (Fun fact: hamburgers is the Dutch word for citizens). After dinner, we made ourselves look nice and accompanied Jara to a Full Moon party at the restaurant she works at. Her coworkers decorated our faces with glow in the dark paint and we danced the night away, or for at least like 2 hours.
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| Besties! |
The next day we traveled to a picture perfect Dutch countryside town complete with 9 windmills. We walked around, ate amazing caramel waffle cookies, and headed out to the beach! While the weather was finally cooperating, we had to overcome extreme winds on the shoreline to reach the restaurant for lunch. We also biked around Haarlem for awhile, which was super fun. Madi was a tad too short to gracefully mount the Dutch bicycles, sadly. It took her a few tries each time to get on and stabilized, but she did it. We didn't want to leave the Netherlands, but alas, it was time to move on. We had such an amazing time during our three days there and definitely hope to return someday. Again, a million thanks to Jara for being such a great friend!
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| Milan and Jara |
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