Last Thursday, Mildred & I took a little daytrip to Siena since it was one of our free days off school. It’s a cute little town, with a beautiful cathedral and a huge plaza known for holding the Palio. I wish I could go just to see it cause I’ve heard its a crazy fun time. We only spent a couple of hours in Siena because it was so small, you didn’t really need much time to explore it. One of the highlights of that trip was the bomb gelato I had and the Mexican food. Yes, I had Mexican food twice that week. Maybe in honor of Cinco de Mayo next week, haha. And it was amazing… even better than Tijuana!
Friday, we flew to Belgium and spent the night in Brussels. We didn’t see much that night since we were exhausted and we knew we’d be back Sunday to explore more.
Saturday morning, we headed for Amsterdam! I love though how the Brussels train station smelled of waffles and chocolate. It was almost impossible to not get one. So I did, and that must have been my best decision yet. It was topped with caramelized sugar, yum! That and the Belgian sandwich I got made the train ride to Holland so much better. <3 Anywho, moving on. So during the trip, we noticed so many people were wearing orange. We had no idea that we were going to Amsterdam on the biggest holiday of the year, Koninginnedag or ‘Queen’s Day’.. in celebration of their queen’s birthday. How fortunate of us! I didn’t even know the Netherlands had a queen, lol. (Orange is the national color of the Dutch Royal Family) There were tons on people when we got there. It was basically a huge party in the streets of Amsterdam filled with endless entertainment. Good times and good food left and right. “So much food, so much shops, so much fun!” lol When people think of Amsterdam, they probs just think of weed and the Red Light District. haha but Amsterdam is so much more than that..it’s a beautiful city with beautiful architecture. Ps. The Red Light District was really interesting to see. The prostitutes on the windows were so awkward. They were just standing there waiting. I noticed that men walked a lot slower than women while walking by. Some even just stopped and stared. The end of the night was a bang. The fries, the pastry shop.. lol oh man. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I had Mildred with me to lead the way! Queen’s Day is kind of the most awesome thing ever. I propose that the US have a day like it to celebrate Obama or George Washington or something. I found this little quote to sum it up:
“Friendships – and community – will be formed. For me that’s really what Queen’s Day is all about. It’s not an outburst of patriotism, it’s not even about the popularity of the royal family. It’s about a sense of belonging. For one day, everybody is the same in Holland. Bright orange and barmy.”
(Sunday) The next day, we went back to the city center and explored more.. ate more.. (pancakes, yum! but not the same kind of pancakes we have in the US) In the afternoon, we caught a train back to Brussels. We just explored Grand Place and it was beautiful! We def had to come back again the next day.
On Monday, we left early to explore the city. The first thing we saw was the Atomium aka the huge metal balls. It was freezing cold that morning, so we just took pictures of it, ate our food, and left. haha We then walked to find the royal palace. Again, I had no idea Belgium had a queen too. lol I feel so ignorant not knowing anything about Europe. We went back to the city center and the first thing we did was eat waffles, of course. Even though it was super cold, I had mine with ice cream and it was soo delicious. Right after, we were yearning for something salty so we had fries. haha Fries is apparently big in Amsterdam and Belgium. I had it with andalouse sauce, which I’m not really sure what it is exactly, but it was good! After that, the souvenir and Belgian chocolate shopping commenced. I even had to buy another luggage bag (whom I’ve named ‘Charleroi’.. pronounced as Sha-leh-wah after the airport lol) because we bought so much. We had to pay Ryanair €35 extra, but whatevs it’s all worth it. Love me some Galler, Neuhaus, Leonidas, Jacques, and Cote D’or! (Funny little sidenote: I realized how out of the loop I was when I had to find out from a chocolate store owner in Brussels about Bin Laden. Kinda sad I don’t even have a clue what’s going on back home! Ridic.) Later on that day, we hung out with Celine and Nathan and they drove us around some parts of the city that we didn’t explore. We had dinner at this Greek place. Then we went to this pub and tried Belgian beer! I’m not really a fan of beer, but peach beer is amazing! The cherry one was good too. I had a blast. It was such an amazing trip and we met lots of really cool people :) Thanks to Matt, Pieter, Nathan, and Celine for everything! We flew from Charleroi bright and early Tuesday morning.
When we landed in Pisa, we were so relieved to be back in Italy. We missed hearing “Allora” 20 times a day. It was funny how when we first got to Belgium and Amsterdam, we always said “Scusa” and “Grazie” to everyone, not even realizing that we weren’t in Italy anymore. They speak mostly French and some Dutch in Brussels, so it was kind of hard to communicate, but we got by. Amsterdam, however, was basically an English speaking country. They spoke Dutch and German, but I felt like almost everyone spoke perfect English. Without an accent or anything. I was impressed. When we got to Florence, we immediately got some gelato cause we missed it so much. Mildred was craving pizza so bad. haha Oh Italy, I’m gonna miss you so much when I leave!
We went back to class on Wednesday. We brought back some waffle crisps for the class, we missed them a lot! :) After class, we had lunch/dinner potluck with the girls at our apartment. Anna brought a mushroom with bacon French dish topped with a type of Russian sauce. Kat brought couscous salad. Yucca made pasta. Leticia brought Brazilian desserts. Phoebe brought chocolate strawberries. Mildred & I made salad with lettuce, arugola, pecorino cheese, pear, and honey (which I discovered from my first Italian restaurant here in Italy). Everything was exceptionally good! We had a hearty 3 hour Italian meal filled with many laughs and games (telephone and pictionary) haha After the meal, we felt so bloated that Mildred & I decided to take a passegiata (walk) to digest some of the food we just ate. haha We walked pretty far to the outskirts of Florence, I don’t even know where.. But when we got back to the city center, we got some gelato and granita again. hahah so much for digesting. But it was all worth it.
I feel like my life right now is a vacation. I’m gonna miss it so much when I leave! Time is going by so fast. So much to do, so little time! There’s still about a million things I wanna see and try and I only have a little over a month left in Italy, wahhh :/
On a lighter note: Happy ‘Cinque di Maggio’ haha. Holy mother this was long!
