My adventures on the train

Sorry! I'm getting lazy about posting new stuff. And since I'm still feeling lazy, just pictures will have to suffice to sum up this last week. Who wants rhetoric anyway?

The Markt, where vendors fill every Thursday during the General Market

The General Market on Thursdays hosts over 150 stalls, including clothing (american flag clothing is rather popular here),

One of the many cheese vendors, where I spent  €28 (~$35) on cheese and shredders (eek!)

Musical organ pulled by the draft horse

Classic Dutch treat: StroopWafels (syrup waffles).

Waffles made from two thin crispy waffles with a caramel filling.

I buy all of our fruit for the week
from these - really inexpensive.
For instance, a kilo (2.2 Ibs) of organic
donut peaches =  €2.5 ($3.12) 

Leggings for sale at the market

At the market, you can get everything from melons and cheese,
 to hair products and make up

more hair accessories, even fake hair extensions,
sunglasses, scrunchies...

and even pet supplies.

I ended up having a very busy weekend with lots of traveling on the train. On Saturday, I visited Margot in the very south of Holland. In the morning, I said good bye to the boys at our doorstep and took off in the pouring rain to catch a 9:30 train for Vlissingen. I bought a round trip ticket from a cashier, then found some flowers to buy for Margot. From there, I only had a few minutes to get to my platform to catch the train. On my way to the platform, I realized that I had lost the ticket somewhere in that short time, and ran back to the cashier. "We can't just reissue you a ticket; that's not how it works," he told me. He then ordered me to go look for it where I had bought the flowers - no luck. So I went back to pay another $50 for a ticket, when the cashier ushered me to follow him. "Come with me," was all he said over his shoulder as he walked briskly to the platform. By then my train had pulled up, and trains only stop for 60 seconds at each stop. He told me to jump on and that he would tell the conductor to take me to Vlissingen, but that I would have to buy a ticket home. Whew!

Margot's dogs kept wanting to crawl up onto my
neck. I awkwardly posed for a picture anyway

Train travel through new countries is the only way to go. It's absolutely wonderful and I try and ride the train every time I visit a new country. It's so peaceful and it takes you through some of the most dramatic landscapes the country has to offer. I arrived in Vlissingen, met Margot (she was shocked to see that I was no longer blonde), and together we ran to catch the ferry to the province of Zeeland. Once on the other side, Margot drove me through the countryside to have lunch at her sister's house. After lunch, Margot took me to her house to feed her 3 dogs, and show off her paintings to me (she is an art teacher and is preparing for her own year long exhibition starting today).

Margot's work

 

I thought that I would try and rest on the
train after what I thought was the end of my day...

Ride on a small ferry boat. Da, Zeeland!

So my plan was to leave Zeeland in enough time to catch this neighborhood street party happening on our street so I could meet all of our neighbors on Schutterstraat, but that didn't quite pan out the way that I had planned. When the train pulled up to my stop in Delft, I was ready at the door to jump off. But to my surprise, the doors never opened, and after a minute, the train continued on to the next town. On all of my previous hops on and off of the train, the doors always opened. Little did I know, you have to press a button to open these doors. So I got off in the next town, Den Haag. Instead of waiting for the next southbound train (which would have been the smartest thing to do), I decided to walk back to Delft. I hate waiting for buses to pick me up because normally, no matter the distance, I can walk to my destination in less time than waiting for the bus. But that's Seattle. This is another country where I don't speak the language, let alone know how to navigate myself from one town to the next on foot. I didn't even have a map, but I do have a strong aversion to waiting for modes of transportation when I have two perfectly good feet. Well I learned my lesson.

Lost, I took a picture of this map at a bus stop to help me find the way.
Too bad my camera died 15 minutes later

I took off, headed South East, expecting it to only be a 20 minute walk, tops. Two hours later, soaking wet from the downpour, I gave up and jumped onto a bus I had no idea where it was going, but knew I could ask the driver for help. He took me to the closest stop where I could wait for the next bus to Delft. I sat in the cold rain for another hour (patiently waiting this time), kicking myself for being so confident in my pedestrian ways. By then, Claire and Alex had grown concerned and were on the phone, trying to save me. But by the time they could figure out where I was exactly and how to get there, the bus had arrived. For what it's worth, I wasn't too far off, and if it wasn't for all of the construction, and water ways, deterring me from finding a direct path, I think I would have made it sooner. At 10pm, Alex brought me over to the party to meet the friendly neighbors and watch the end of their boules tournament.

On Sunday, the whole family went to a bbq at Claire's Uncle Frank's house. Because their car only holds 5 people, I needed to take the train. That morning, I caught a train, northbound this time, to Amsterdam (50min ride). I then took a tram through the city to Claire's Aunt Bernadette and Uncle Jorge's apartment, where we three, plus two more cousins, Bo and Gabby squeezed into a tiny car and drove 30 minutes to Franks. There I met many of Claire's relatives, but not all (she comes from a family of 7, and her mom comes from an equally large family). Because Bernadette and Jorge were not headed back to Amsterdam, however, I needed to figure out how I was getting back to the train station. Luckily, Aunt Tia interrupted the conversation at the end of the night and said, "Excuse me, but I think that we need to be giving some attention to how Chelsea is getting home tonight." I looked over at Claire and Alex and said with a smile, "Why thank you, Tia." and everyone started laughing. Everything was discussed in Dutch among the family, and in the end I guess I ended up kicking Bo out of a car headed to Amsterdam. Claire's cousins, Tashi and Tycho (spelling?), who are not much older than me, and their Thai partners, welcomed me into their car and they dropped me off at the train station. They also offered to take me out and show me around Amsterdam while I'm here - yay!

And that was my fun but exhausting weekend! Hopefully I can steal some of Claire and Alex's pictures of the bbq.