Netherlands Day 1

I had so much fun on my trip that getting back to normal life has been a bit hard. I had to go out of town for work the weekend I got back and then I started back up at my second job that same week. Needless to say, this post has been a long time coming. I've been avoiding my photos because just thinking about sorting and editing all 1500 of them is so overwhelming.  Hopefully I can get through some each day so my travel photos don't take forever to post :)

I got into Amsterdam at about 1:00 in the afternoon and spent the next hour and a half trying to get a hold of my friend. We were staying with her uncle and he was supposed to pick us up at the airport. I had never met him, didn't have his phone number and my friend's phone went straight to voicemail. It was a stressful first day! Turns out she had put her phone on airplane mode because it was low on batteries and she had fallen asleep. We finally got in touch, found her uncles and heading to their place near Leiden. That day, they took us to a beautiful tulip field. They drove us around for an hour or so until they found this field. I believe it was just a company that sells tulips but there were a bunch of other people taking photos so we hopped out. Since they had a very long winter and a cold spring, there weren't as many tulips blooming as there should have been. However, the SMELL was incredible from the hyacinth. Made freezing my butt off totally worth it. Every time the wind blew, you got the most amazing scent on the breeze.  You would have to be there to properly understand. Think how good a hyacinth or lilac bush smells when you walk by in and then times that by 10,000 or so and you might get the idea :)  Then they took us into the city to show us around a bit so we weren't overwhelmed the next day. It was so sweet. Her aunt cooked us a huge dinner that night and we didn't eat until about 11 pm. Even though I don't speak any Farsi, it was nice to hang out with her family and take it (somewhat) easy that first day. I was exhausted!

 

   

  

Stay tuned for more photos from our next 2 days in the Netherlands and LOTS more photos from the rest of our trip soon!