Sunday, August 14, 2011

Awesome crash

Wait for it at the end!

Relaxing

So, after our whirlwind series of trips things have calmed down a bit. Yea right. Sara flew back to Tennessee to go to Rachel's wedding and my brother (Aaron) came to visit The Hague. I will let Sara post about her excursions in Knoxville, but I certainly had a busy week walking around Holland. We went to Amsterdam on the day he got here, got breakfast outside and had a great day walking around and relaxing in the different squares. Unfortunately, I did not feel so well, to say the least, after deciding that it would be a good idea to stay up all night hanging out with some friends so that I would be just as tired as my brother when he landed! I went out with Chaz and Ethan and the most interesting of things to happen was after locking the keys inside the apartment I had to climb over a neighbor's wall, up on to our back patio, over the roof and in through the front window.

Back to my brother's visit, we wound up renting longboards the second day I think. It just so happened that Bram, who works at the shop was going with some friends to the Zwarte pad (a parking lot on the dunes by the beach) to downhill and invited us to go with. I will post a video soon. That may have been the highlight of the trip! We wound up making day trips to Delft and Utrecht, as well as playing some soccer with the guys I usually play with on Saturdays. In Delft, the old walled city where the royal family originally resided, we visited the historical walking tour, which turned out to be quite mysterious. In Utrecht, we went and found an old castle outside of town. It had been reconstructed in the 19th Century by a wealthy family, and may have been the most opulent place I have ever been to. We separated ourselves from the tour and saw some of the depths of the castle before visiting the hedge maze in the gardens. The family donated the grounds, but reserved the right to use it every September for their parties. A couple trips to the beach and a lot of frisbee in the parks around The Hague and Scheveningen, and his trip came to an end. It was a great week and we were able to really experience Holland.