A Castle, Snackbar Food, & Groceries
I know I won't probably blog this much the entire trip, but while I'm in the mood and have the time...
Last night (which was still my first day), Joyce and I went to a grocery store to get a bunch of things for the week. She got stuff to make meals for dinner and I got a few things for lunches. Also, we got lots of cookies and sweets! I've been eating a ton of them already. So good! The karamelwafel is my favorite. It's like the traditional Dutch stroopwafel, which is kind of a chewy, caramel and cinnamon flavored cookie, but this one is covered in chocolate too. We also got these chocolate covered marshmallow things--which I'm sure you can imagine--but they have super soft and gooey marshmallow inside and just heavenly.
For dinner last night we ate a lot of "snackbar" goodies, which basically means deep fried fast food. I tried things with Dutch names that I can't pronounce and definitely can't spell, but they reminded me of deep fried sausage, deep fried ground meat, deep fried noodles, and a mozzarella stick. We also had interesting sauces like mayo, curry sauce, peanut sauce, and a mustard-like sauce. Everything but the mozzarella stick thing and the mayo were new, interesting flavors to me. Paired it all with a good rose wine.
After dinner we chatted but had some alone time too. I talked to Philip via text for a while and then took a shower. At about 9:30 I finally went to sleep, which means that I was up for about 29 hours straight with a max of 10 minutes of sleep total during that time period. Yesterday felt like about 4 days in length.
But I slept well last night. And it lasted about 14 hours haha. I felt good afterwards!
Joyce and I went to to a castle today! It's called Kasteel Sypesteyn. It is on the site of a castle from the 1200s, but was restored around the year 1900. It is now a museum that holds the owner's personal collections of armory, furniture, paintings, and porcelain. I couldn't take pictures inside, but it was interesting! The grounds around the castle were beautiful and the day was great to be outside!
Joyce drove me around the neighborhood in that area after we were done at the castle. Lots of huge, beautiful houses where rich people live on the water! A quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and then Joyce made "sausage pasta." Lots of veggies (green beans, peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic) with rotini pasta and sausage in a pasta sauce. It was good! I loved the sausage!
Everyone speaks Dutch to one another; I thought that everyone would speak English everywhere for some reason. Joyce had to translate for me during the castle tour.
Tomorrow is my first day at Joyce's college. Actually, I think we are starting the week at a different college for my "introduction." I'm excited to see what's in store for the next two weeks!