Mom, Ana, and Alexa in nl!

spring break 2023- mid-March I think

hey! Mom, Alexa, and Ana came to visit me a few weeks ago. Here's what happened..

Thursday

Met them at Uncle John and Aunt Grace's house. It was so surreal to see them. It's so crazy cause that was the longest time I've been apart from my family.. so weird. But, what was even weirder was that it didn't feel so so weird. It was just Mom, Ana, and Alexa visiting the Netherlands.

It was so nice to eat food that Mom made (I think we ate chili) and fruit and vegetables!! I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables in the Netherlands, mostly just bread. After dinner, we hung out and then they dropped me off at Mar's because I had a Rotary weekend.

Monday

We went to alpaca high tea. We were going to take the train, but there was a bus strike so we couldn't take the bus to get to the station so we drove there instead. Mom was really scared to drive, but we were mostly on the highway so it was fine. Mom was baffled by the cars driving the speed limit. Also, you know how in Houston, everybody is on the left two lanes, speeding and trying to cut other cars. Well, in the Netherlands it's the exact opposite. The left two lanes are completely empty; everyone is on the right and driving exactly the speed limit. Mom was so shocked.

We went to the alpaca high tea which was in a barn. There were baby kittens there too! The alpacas were very cute and fluffy.

Then, we went to Zwolle which is a nearby town that my exchange friends who live near there recommended for shopping. We ate sandwiches and walked around, but I think Haarlem is way better for shopping if you want to shop in a small town.

Then, we went back to the house.

Tuesday

Okay, this day.. what did we do? I think we went to Haarlem. Okay, yes we did. I went with Aunt Grace, Mom, and Ana. We went to this rooftop restaurant on top of a parking garage. It was super cute. The whole building was windows so there was natural light and it was decorated cute. We got food and it was okay. The menu is seasonal and Aunt Grace said the food choices were better in the winter. I got a burger with mushrooms, but I didn't love it cause the mushrooms were freaking me out. You know those mushrooms with those black frills? Omg, those mushrooms are very scary and I hate the texture. I like mushrooms but not those mushrooms. Gross.

Anyway, then we went shopping. I showed them my favorite stores, and they liked them. But, Ana got tired after we visited like three stores. We also just walked around and visited the center with the big church. We also went to a pharmacy and a chocolate store. The caramel chocolates were so good omg.

That was it for Haarlem.

Wednesday

This day we went to Amsterdam. Mom looked at the wrong tickets, so we thought we were late to Anne Frank Huis. We got there, and she showed the tickets and turns out we were actually late and the ticket date was wrong. I booked the tickets for the week before. But, they still let us in so that was good. We went to the Anne Frank Huis. That was like my fourth time going there, so I am so sick of the tour. I don't want to go there anymore.

Then, we went to a sandwich restaurant. It was the same one we went to last summer and we really like it. Alexa really wanted to go there, but I was like "we don't even know where it is" and she was like "no I know where it is, it's right by a river." Bro. First of all, it's a canal. Second of all, there are canals ALL over Amsterdam. But Mom found it using that google photos google maps thing which was very surprising because she is def not a tech person. We went to the restaurant and I wanted to sit by the canal because that would've been so cute. But, we ended up moving inside because they couldn't handle the cold which was annoying. And by cold, I mean there was a breeze.

We ate, and then went to two different bakeries. Winkel 43 for their apple pie and then I forget the other cafe for their cruffins. We picked those up, and then we shopped around this area directly west of Amsterdam Centraal. Omg there were so many cute shops. I'm going back there again. Then we walked to the centraal station. We took the train and it was delayed by like forty minutes because of the train/bus strikes. We ran to the buses and we missed it by a hair. I literally saw the bus driving off. I was so tired at that point and so annoyed with Mom, Ana, and Alexa for being soo slow so I definitely was feeling myself shut down. I definitely felt like crying because we had to wait an hour for the next bus, it was cold, it was rainy, my phone was about to die, and I really just wanted to be inside not standing anymore. But it was fine. We made it back.

Thursday

We went to Mall of the Netherlands with Aunt Grace. We got fish and chips for lunch with like 9 different sauce dippings. Then, we went shopping. Then, we went grocery shopping for taco night. We had a taco night with Aunt Grace, Uncle John, Kaitlyn, Matthew, mom, Ana, Alexa and Mar. It was really nice.

That was pretty much it. I said bye to them on Friday. It was very fun, yeah.

- Amelia