Day Three: Den Haag and Rotterdam

Another wonderful day in the Netherlands!! We woke and had breakfast with Vera's mom before getting ready to head out -- which meant restuffing all my belongings back in the pack, including my gifts from Vera and the few items I picked up (be excited family -- these items are for you!). Thankfully Vera's dad came home before we left so that I could thank them both for opening their home to me and being such wonderful hosts. Here is a picture of the van Buuren family: 

Except Vera's brother, Jelle, isn't in the photo -- I should have taken one at dinner last night since he had school today. Oh well. Next trip ... 

A train ride followed by a bus ride landed us in Den Haag where we went to Madurodam, which is basically a scaled down version of the ENTIRE country! If you ever wanted to know what the Netherlands looked like if you were a giant, this is the place for you! It was really impressive. I enjoyed seeing smaller versions of some of the places we had already seen, like the airport, as well as places that we will see tomorrow when we are in Amsterdam. We ate lunch here, and I was introduced to the Spanish croqueta's Dutch brother, the kroket -- I'm just putting it out there: the United States really needs to up its culinary game and come up with a version of their own. Or just start importing them from the Netherlands or Spain. Seriously. 

After we finished exploring the entire tiny country, we headed to Rotterdam, the city where Vera lives while she is at university. We've only explored a tiny portion of the city (we are really exploring Rotterdam on Saturday), but I can already tell why she loves her city so much. Not to mention: the view from her room is gorgeous!! We dropped off our things, met her roommate Arlene, and warmed up with some hot tea (I've mentioned it's wet and cold, right?). Then we took the metro to the market. This market was AMAZING. I thought Soulard market was grand (and don't get me wrong, I love Soulard market) but this place had more varieties of food in one spot than I've ever seen ever: fruits and veggies and meat and cheeses and fish and nuts and sweets and breads and chocolates and wines and teas and herbs and coffees, plus prepared foods: Italian and Asian and Spanish, gelato stands and sausage stands and hot chocolate with churro stands and sushi stands ... it really was a sight to see. On Saturday we will go back and eat our way through it -- today we were in a mission to pick up the supplies to cook dinner for ourselves. After we grabbed what we needed we went back to Vera's flat to prepare dinner. The chilly weather and threat of snow must be influencing Vera's music choices, because we listened to Christmad music as she cooked. haha 

And now the dinner has been consumed, the sangria had been ingested, and it is time for sleep. We are planning to get an early start tomorrow so we can spend as much time as possible in Amsterdam ( although if you followed the blog back in the Camino days, you will remember it was always our intention to get up early and start our day on time; I have faith that tomorrow we will really do it). 

Some pictures from today: 

On the train! 

Here we are in the miniature Netherlands!! 

This is the (small) Royal Palace in Amsterdam -- we will go to the real one tomorrow! 

If everything here is to scale, then this fish are like whales 😳

My delicious kroket. 

My new BFF: the tulip gatherer. 

Chef Vera!! 

Yummy pasta with sangria -- reminiscing on all our Camino "pilgrim meals" and the people we shared them with. Also: I'm making this pasta when I get home. Yum! 

And the view from Vera's window. So beautiful. 

Time for sleep. Good night. Buen Camino. ❤️