To the Netherlands!

The main difference between the Netherlands and the Neverlands, is that you can take a train there instead of needing fairy dust. But let me tell you, that train doesn't always work out ideally.

So I have a 6 hour train ride from Hamburg, Germany to Breda, Netherlands. I take 3 trains, all about 2 hours long with plenty of stops (thus the long rides). I finish my first leg of the journey and notice my next train is a little late. Finally, I notice on a board it is delayed an hour. Well, that won't work, I only had 3 minutes in-between my next connection.

I go talk to the help desk. I guess they are used to this because he asks my final destination, takes my itinerary and gives me a new one. It will only add 30 minutes to my trip, but now I have 5 trains to catch before I get there (added 3 connections). I am hopping local trains until I get there. Well, this will be interesting. My phone is out of minutes, I have no Internet, my friend is expecting my at 6:30pm and I will get there at 7pm and I can't tell her that.

One of my train rides is as short at 14 minutes. It was crazy because I was never 100% sure if I was getting off at the right stop. One major, major difference between Scandinavia and Germany is the friendliness of people. Germans are good people, but not by nature friendly. I ask a lot of questions and get more glares than not, but I get my answers either way and move on.

My last leg is the longer one, about 1.5 hours and by a sheer miracle it has free wifi on it. I was able to let my friend know I would be 30 minutes late without any issue. Success! I finally get to the station and quickly find my friend in this super cool tunnel.

We proceed to walk back to her place where I will be saying. Now Breda is a relatively small city. Roughly the size of Lawrence, maybe a little bigger. It is only 15 minute walk or so from the station to her place just outside the city center. Once there I get to meet her cool roommate Katja, also a German. Now both Silvia and Katja are in Breda going to a University there.

Since I am starving we go to the store and get some food to make. I have been living off bread pretty much for days now, so since I have access to a kitchen I buy two round cut steaks for my meal. Silvia has potatoes and adds peas and carrots to the mix. Sweet Jesus, it tastes so good. I wolf my food down and enjoy a Dutch dessert (Flau...?). It is pretty much pudding, but a little less thick. Ours is mixed chocolate and vanilla. It is good though.

Around this point one of Silvia's other friends comes over, Vanessa, also a German. We all hang out, get to know each other, have a few Dutch beers and an all around good time. At some point during this I notice that I am getting a migraine. Balls. Now, migraines are not simple for me. They are by me slowly going half blind. Then I get crazy auras in my vision that make me sick, then I get a huge headache. I have a medicine cocktail I take now that makes a huge difference though and gets me back up on my feet in about 4 hours. I take it down and say F*** this, I won't let it spoil my time. I keep hanging out with everyone till about 1am when the pain is blocking me from really interacting. At that point I go to sleep and wake of refreshed!