from holland with love

My first Dutch lesson started yesterday. The school is right around the corner, a 5 minute bike ride at most. It's a rather small class, with a very diverse group of people, all of different backgrounds in the Netherlands for different reasons.

My teacher said my pronunciation is very good, and asked whether I needed to be in the beginner's class. I really think I do, but it was nice to hear that I am doing well so far.

My next class is on Thursday, and I can't wait! I'm happy to finally be learning something again, and hopefully it won't take me too long to get into the swing of things. I really want to start speaking Dutch soon!

I also went to Amsterdam for the first time this past weekend. I've been meeting some au pairs in the Netherlands through some groups on Facebook, and a couple of us took a day trip.

Amsterdam is so different than Den Haag. I'm not sure which I like better. Den Haag is more beautiful, but Amsterdam has a more diverse population. And so many more people out and about, too! In Den Haag, I feel like I stand out as a foreigner, but not in Amsterdam (I guess because there ARE so many foreigners there).

And I can't believe how CHEAP it is to travel here. It only cost about 11 euros for a round trip to Amsterdam. So, it IS possible to do Europe on a budget (so if any of you are thinking about coming for a visit...)

So, anyway, our first stop was a pancake house. Neither Kelly nor Chloe had experienced the real Dutch pancake yet, so we made it one of our missions of the day. Needless to say, I had never seen so many different kinds of pancakes on one menu before. Sweet, savory, special sweet, special savory, American, Canadian, Hawaiian, the list goes on and on.

We stopped in many cheesy souvenir shops, then made our way to the Anne Frank Huis. It was really weird knowing that we were in the house Anne Frank hid, and seeing some of the original stuff that was in the house when they were in hiding. It's also much bigger than I had thought! The only disappointment was not seeing the original diary. They temporarily replaced it with a copy while they restored the original, or something to that effect.

After that, we just wandered around, stopped in more cheesy souvenir shops, had a bite to eat, then wandered through the Noorderkerk Market.

I didn't get many photos, but I'm hoping to get some good ones when I go back this weekend. I'm not sure what's on the agenda yet, but there's still so much to see that I'm sure whatever we end up doing will be fun.

For now, I will leave you with a photo Kelly took of Chloe and I in the Dam.