Hello Young Adventurers!

Location: The airplane, The Netherlands- Leiden, Haarlem
Primary Language: Dutch (I do not speak Dutch). Fortunately, most people also speak English and could help me if I couldn’t understand something.

Welcome to The Netherlands!  Many of you may have never heard of this beautiful country, but let me tell you- it is INCREDIBLE.  It is so beautiful and quaint.  It is filled with windmills and canals, kind people, and incredible history.

My flight arrived at 8:30AM on Monday morning into Amsterdam, Netherlands.  It was a long night on the flight, but I managed to get some sleep on the plane, even though I was so excited I could barely contain myself.  I did have a window seat, though, which meant beautiful sights (including an above-cloud-sunset)!

I love flying, y’all.  So many people on planes shut their windows and never look out, but I hope to never be that person.  There is just something incredible about seeing the world shrink below you as you fly away on a new adventure.  I’m also a huge geography nerd, and I love to try to identify landmarks and landforms below me if possible.  It’s fun to try to use that to figure out where I am, and it’s amazing just how much you can see from so high up.

When I got into Amsterdam, my flight had actually been delayed by almost 2 hours.  I was lucky that my friend Lindsay (who I knew 20 years ago!) happened to be there to drop off family at the airport and was willing to drive me to Leiden instead of me taking the train.  Y’all- I can’t tell you how incredible this was after almost 24 hours of travel to get here.  I was not awake enough to handle figuring out the train system in another language at this point.

I met up with my friend Marie in Leiden. She has lived here for the past year and wanted to show me around her city.  It was beautiful.  One of my favorite things about it here (and all of the Netherlands in general), is that most people ride bikes everywhere rather than drive cars- so I got on a bike and went exploring!  We saw windmills, got coffee, and played in an old fortress.  Marie even lives next to one of the prettiest churches (kerk in Dutch) that I have ever seen.  The last picture is the view from the INSIDE of her house!

The day quickly caught up with me, though.  Europe is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast, which means 10PM was really 4PM back home.  Between the crazy long travel, lack of sleep, and overall exhaustion, I was ready for bed.  I keep forgetting about the time difference throughout the day, though. Hopefully I will adjust soon and get rid of this jet-lag!

The next morning I woke up and had the entire morning to myself, so I decided to take a day trip to the city of Haarlem, which is still in The Netherlands.  I had to take the train to get there which was super scary because all of the signs were in Dutch, and I do not read Dutch.  Fortunately, I was able to figure my way around and get where I needed to go.  I had no idea what to expect, but was blown away by this city.  The weather was beautiful- cool with lots of sun and a nice breeze.  The city itself was similar to Leiden, but I did have some really amazing highlights.  I visited Grote Kerk (Do you remember what Kerk means in Dutch still? If not, look back up earlier in this post!).  Inside was a BEAUTIFUL organ that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played himself when he was only 10 years old in 1766- almost 250 years ago!  Mozart would later grow up to be one of the greatest composers of music to ever live, and it was a huge honor to get to walk where he once did.  Here’s the organ!  Do you remember learning about the organ last school year?!

Isn’t that impressive? It was gigantic.  Can you imagine being your age and performing on this instrument in front of a full church of people?  Hard to believe this instrument is over 250 years old, too.

After the church, I got some ice cream at a local store and walked around a bit before heading to the Ten Boom House (huis in Dutch) Museum.  I learned so much here.  Back in the mid-1900’s, Corrie Ten Boom hid a family of Jewish citizens within the house from the Nazi’s during World War II.  She knew that this would put herself at risk for punishment, yet she did it anyways because she knew it was the right thing to do.  We got to tour and see the old hidden room they used to hide in, and it was really humbling.  The hole in the wall in the pictures obviously didn’t exist back then.  Instead, they entered the room through a hidden door in the bookshelf which I managed to get a picture of.

Here is the hidden room within the Ten Boom Huis during WWII-

Learning more about what happened here during World War II was extremely humbling.  It’s something we don’t think about as much in the United States since we didn’t have to see the violence first hand as a country with the exception of our soldiers fighting overseas.  Take time to learn from our planet’s history, friends.  It’s the only way we can prevent it from repeating itself and move forward with hope and kindness.

This has only been two days, and I’m already in love with this country.  I have 3 more days here before I leave for my next destination.  I can’t wait to continue exploring The Netherlands with you! See you soon!

Have Courage, & Be Kind

Mr. Weavil