HIST213 with the esteemed Dr. C and my beloved classmates ended last week. I DO realize that there are a lot of gaps in my Italy story (they make you pay for internet here. It’s a right pain in the arse.), so this blog will continue once I get home. My anecdotes and descriptions will be a trifle more hazy due to the sheer volume of things we’ve done and the elapsing of time, but I’ll do my best. Both for your sake, dear readers, myself, and Siena.
And I’m still here! Class ended but instead of getting up at 7am to get a bus to Rome to catch a plane with the rest of my classmates I got up at 4am to get a train to Pisa to catch a plane to the Netherlands. The train ride to Pisa was rather eye-opening. Siena is this magical city without any real graffiti or squalid houses or homeless people or even metal fences. And as beautiful as the distant Tuscan hills were, it was hard not to notice all of the above. Of course this is going to sound dumb, but it was then that I realized that Italy is a real place, not just the fantasyland that Siena is.
There were pigeons in the Pisa airport.
I didn’t think anything could make me hate the American airport experience more than I already did, but European airports (at least, Pisa and Eindhoven in the Netherlands) certainly did. The ease of the whole process, the lack of distressingly long lines, the reasonably priced cappuccinos…sigh.
There are three things you notice while traveling across the Netherlands by train. One, it is flat. There are no hills whatsoever, which is a bit of a shock to the system when you (you meaning myself) have been accustomed to a city and a region where a new hill starts every ten yards. Two, there are a whole lotta cows. Three, the Dutch train system is the greatest. It’s clean, quiet, efficient, and low fuss.
There are three things you notice when you get off the train in the Netherlands. One, everyone is at least a half foot taller than you, two, they’re all riding bikes, and three, they’re all bloody gorgeous. I freely admit that after three weeks of not being sure of any Italian man’s sexual orientation, it was a relief just to get some good ogling in.
I spent four happy days with my beloved friends Danielle, Kristen, and Hans in Groningen, a university town a few hours north of Amsterdam. They fed me and clothed me and gave me a place to sleep and patiently listened to my endless stories about Italy.
It took me a few days to not automatically say “Ciao, grazie” at the end of any interactions.
Dutch food is a strange, wonderful thing. The first night, Dani made stampot which I TOTALLY didn’t spell correctly but that is at least how it sounds. It was a lot of mashed things, some of which I believe include potatoes, carrots, and some kind of meat, and it was delicious. Still not entirely sure what it was or who thought of it, but it was excellent all the same.
The cheese. Holy cow.
And stroopwafels, my Lord. They’re essentially these dense caramel-y cookies with dense caramel-y goo sandwiched between them. But my favorite of everything was spekuloos (oh dear. Another mangled word. Dani, I know you read this blog. Send me a Facebook message with all the correct spellings. Please.). Imagine spice cookies mashed up into a paste (kinda like Nutella but better. That’s right. I said BETTER THAN NUTELLA.) and then imagine that paste spread on bread. I kicked myself all weekend for bringing carry-on only luggage so I couldn’t bring a jar back.
Groningen (pronounced like you’re hacking a lugie and then followed by i-gin.) is a lovely and extremely picturesque city. It’s almost a little sickening how fairytale-like it is. I know I have been calling Siena a magical fantasyland ad nauseum, but one half expects to see Hansel and Gretel traipsing around Groningen. There are wide, green canals inhabited by houseboats, brick streets, colorful trim on the gingerbread-esque houses, billions of bikes, and did I MENTION how gorgeous the people are? Siena is a city you’d expect to see in an Under the Tuscan Sun equivalent, but Groningen is straight out of Disney World.
More stories to follow, I promise!
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