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Day 19: Last Day in Europe

My last day in Europe.  Spent relaxing out on a beach.  Couldn’t get much better than this.  The temperature outside is perfect.  The breeze from the ocean is great.  And no rain clouds in sight.  Woke up today around 8 and then headed downstairs for the breakfast buffet.  I was too lazy to shower before eating so I went down in my PJs.  But, it’s okay.

So, last night I checked my flight times.  And wow, do I fail at planning.  I found out my flight is for 10:45AM and the earliest check out time here is 8AM.  Luckily, during breakfast I explained my situation to the owner and he was kind of enough to let me pay this morning and then told me to leave the key in my room.  Now I can leave as early as I want.  There’s a train that comes around 7:20AM that goes to Amsterdam Central then I transfer trains to go to Schiphol Airport.  Should make it to the airport by 8:10AM.  Gives me enough time to check-in and have some breakfast.  As a random tip for booking train rides around Europe, use http://www.raileurope.ca.  Just pick a date, time, and destination, and it’ll give you all possible routes you can take to get to said destination.  Makes it much easier than going to each country’s individual train transit website.  The prices on the site are fairly close to what you’d get at the station.  You don’t have to buy your tickets early.  The prices never fluctuate if you’re taking IC or ICE trains.

DSC00765.jpg Anyway, today I’ll be just relaxing at the beach again.  For lunch I got a chicken burger with satay sauce.  Also, bought some cherries from the local grocery store Dirk.  Very yum.  I walked around a bit today.  Wanted to show this to you guys.  The beach here is really cool how it works.  Its divided up into sections by which company or restaurant sponsors the area.  So I took a shot of three.  A red one, blue one, and white one.  Each section is run by individual stores or at least it seems that way.  But still, pretty cool.  The facilities are really nice.  Like there’s showers and washrooms nearby that are fairly clean.  They even provide sun tents and chairs on the beach.  You really don’t have to bring much with you when you go.  Perhaps only bring a towel, but even those can be bought at the stores nearby.  And there’s a gazillion flat bed like chairs too (forgot the name).  Bottom line this place is mad chills.

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If you like beaches, biking, drinking beer, eating fries, or a combination, then Zandvoort is for you.  There’s a lot of local and privately owned hotels in the area.  I think I got lucky with the one I picked.  Cause some of the other ones look pretty dingy.  Oh, another really popular thing to do here too is driving Ferraris! For 50€ you can drive a Ferrari on a track in the area.  I didn’t get my international licence so I can’t do it today.  I definitely have to remember to do that next time.

For dinner I ended up eating a pizza with tuna, onions, mushrooms, and a lot of cheese.  Then grabbed some fries from Febo a fast food chain in the Netherlands.  I better start packing soon.  I’ll probably work on writing some more articles later.  Like those tips pages I promised and my overall feel for each city I visited during this part of the voyage.  Probably work on them while on my 11 hour flight to Hong Kong.

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Day 18: Beach on Zandvoort

All right, I have a confession.  I lied.  I didn’t go to Amsterdam.  Actually I failed at planning a trip to Amsterdam.  I somehow booked a hotel for Zandvoort and didn’t check until the day I had to leave Groningen.  Actually, I booked it on Kayak.com and I just picked anywhere close to Schiphol.  It said 10 km so I didn’t think it was that far from Amsterdam Central.

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But, whatever! I’m here and honestly this place is amazing!  There’s beaches (tons of them), lots of food, places to rent bikes and segways!  And the best part of this trip, my hotel room.  The hotel room is SO nice.  Probably the best place I’ve stayed at my entire trip thus far.  It’s super clean, looks like it was just renovated.

Shotel Ate another dish of shawarma and fries and then for dinner I had fries with satay sauce and a dutch cheese pocket. Super healthy, right? After that, headed to the local grocery store and grabbed a 1.5 litre bottle of water and then headed home.

Waited around until 9:45pm so that I could go out just before sunset.  Got a few shots of sunset and even using one as my background now.  If you want a full resolution version let me know.  I’m really liking these ones.

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Day 17: Groningen Museum & Shawarmas

Ended up going out much later today.  Left around 3PM today.  We all headed out to Groningen Museum.  Future Chair It’s a museum of modern art and as per usual with modern art museums, it had some really weird stuff.  Walked around like usual. Snapped some photos and then at the end of museum, there’s this AWESOME info centre.  It’s like a futuristic office room.  Here are some photos of the room.

The guy working in the info centre was really nice too.  And he spoke English perfectly.  I haven’t really found anyone in Groningen who could speak English properly.  I told him about my trip to Amsterdam and he gave me some tips to where to find some museums in Amsterdam.  I’ll probably visit the museum with the Van Gogh collection.

Kapsalon After the museum I took my family out for food.  We ended up eating at this place that sold another famous dish of Dutch culture.  I got this thing called a Kapsalon.  It’s not a hair salon, but a dish with salad, cheese, fries, and shawarma meat.  It was really good! It’s more or less their version of a poutine; or at least according to wiki it is.  This is definitely one of the better dishes I’ve had here.

Once we finished eating, we headed back home.  Before heading home though, I grabbed my train ticket from the train station to Amsterdam.  Honestly, if you’re travelling on the ICE or IC lines, getting tickets straight from the train station isn’t any different them buying online.

Now that I’m home, I’ll start working on the photos and finish uploading the rest of them.

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Day 16: Gay Day & IKEA Foods

Saturday. Today is everyone’s day off.  Woke up to the noise of screaming children and slamming doors.  Ended up waking up super late again but had breakfast with the family and showered before 11.  Gay Day Concert We headed out again today to the city centre.  My folks had no idea what festival was going on today.  I sort of had a clue from all the colourful flags but I couldn’t be sure because I couldn’t read the signs.  But of course! It was the GAY PRIDE PARADE today.   Full of music you’d normally associate with gay pride, and enough transgenders to fill an entire building.  It’s nothing compared to Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade, but its definitely not a bad day to come out.  Lots of free food, and even some places were handing out free beer!

Groningen Clock Tower I ended up going up this clock tower with my uncle and my cousin Dennis.  Man, I didn’t realize how much vertigo I would feel going up to such a tower.  Really it was those steps up to the tower.  It was in that spiral shape, but it was so steep, and there’s no handles, just a rope in the middle.  It was however, worth it.  Went to the top and took some shots of the city.  Take a look at the photos below to get an idea what the city of Groningen looks like!

After coming down, I needed to eat something.  Ended up having these snackings called Tzatziki Burgers.  They’re really tiny.  About the size of Junior Cheese Burger at McDonalds.  Also grabbed some famous fries and a sausage.  So good.  Earlier we dropped the two youngest cousins, Rick and Kevin at Chinese school.  So once they finished we grabbed them and headed back home.  Before going home though, we stopped by IKEA and picked up some hot dogs and something to drink.  I ended up eating 2 IKEA dogs and got my favourite drink at IKEA, LINGONBERRY JUICE!  The hot dogs weren’t much different but they do have 2 extra ingredients we don’t get in Toronto; fried onion bits and pickles.

My aunt made BBQ tonight. Smells really good.  So, hanging out with my little cousins while we wait for food.  Like I said before Google Translate has been such a life saver! It sounds really awkward and IT IS! But, so grateful for it.  Speaking with the youngest one, Rick, is pretty funny too.  I’ll talk to him Chinese but he always responds in Dutch.  Even though he knows I don’t understand he keeps on yapping away.  It’s fun though, I’m picking up a little bit of Dutch along the way.  I think I can finally hear the difference between German and Dutch.  Before I couldn’t even hear it at all.  I have some basics down now too, like “Thank You”, “Excuse Me”, “Sorry”, “You’re Welcome”, “I”, “You”, “Nothing”, “Beer”.  Even though I’m not doing as much sight seeing here, it’s definitely an experience I definitely love!

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Day 15: IKEA Brunch & Trotting The Town

Ended up having a beautiful IKEA breakfast in Groningen! It’s a lot like the IKEA in Toronto but with a lot of differences.  The one here is much more decked out.  Like, they have PS3s everywhere for kids to play with.  The cafeteria has all the classics, like meatballs, but it has a few other selections that are a bit more Dutch.  You can see from the photos all the food I had.  I had to make up for missing my actual breakfast.  Actually, when I tried taking a photo of the food bar near the exit, the worker there started shaking his head at me.  According to my aunt apparently because I’m Asian I must be taking photos to copy their business; how racist.

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The As-Is section in IKEA Groningen is REALLY CHEAP! Like actually worth buying stuff from there! Like they had their glass doors they were getting rid of for only 5€! You’ll never find that in Toronto! I’d buy them but it’d cost way too much to ship them back.

After walking around IKEA for a while, went back home with aunt and uncle and waited for the kids to get off school.  When they got home we headed out for the town.  My uncle dropped us off downtown while he went to work.  We walked around for a bit and I took some photos, as usual, of buildings around the area.  The style of architecture is a lot like Paris, but on a smaller scale.  Didn’t stay for too long though since it was almost time for dinner.  We headed home by taking the bus.  Once we were home my aunt started cooking dinner.  Had my first Chinese meal in like weeks!  Never seen so much white rice on my plate.

I spent the rest of the night surfing on the internet and chatting with friends back at home until like 3 in the morning.  Anyway! Enjoy the photos!  The first real shots of this tiny town of Groningen.

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