Groningen

I spent the last few weeks in Europe. My first week I went and visited my friend Marielle in Netherlands. She showed me around her town of Groningen. It's a very charming European town. I love it.

I took some trains from Amsterdam to meet her. Took a few detours. Spent a lot of time sitting in empty train stations. Finally made it.

She thankfully picked me up at the train station. 

Everyone rides bikes in the Netherlands, even in the snow and rain. This is the train stations bike parking. Times what you can see by ten and that is how big it was.

I loved Marielle's apartment. She has her own apartment, and she's made it really classy. Its on a very cute street. She also has huge windows over looking the canals. 

Dutch eat bread, butter, and chocolate sprinkles a lot. It was our typical lunch.

I went to dinner for her mothers birthday with her family. It was really fun to get to know them a little and see how different Marielle and I grew up.

We ate at an Egyptian restaurant her parents love. Her step dad had us go take picture pretending to smoke the Huka.  Sadly it took us both a while to figure it out, and her dad told us we looked very unnatural. 

The owner was good friends with them so he made her mom a very special birthday desert.

I did all the Dutch things, and was able to ride bikes everywhere which I loved. Even though it was freezing there.

Im practically Dutch now.

I was there the only days it had been sunny in a really long. It was beautiful.

The city has hidden gardens all over. Since everyone rides bikes everywhere you can walk behind a few buildings and it's completely quite and calm. Its very relaxing.

There also is amazing architecture, and cute cobble stone streets everywhere. You can't beat that. I've been to a lot of European cities and Groningen is one of my favorites

Netherlands has canals everywhere, which in my opinion really adds to its charm.

They have really terrible suckers. There was a really unpleasant surprise in the center of my sucker. Apparently its delicious to them. I like almost any food, and it definitely wasn't meant to be in a sucker.

Marielle, Huib, and I made dinner one night then went out after. I loved seeing what they do for fun and getting a small glimpse of their lives. It was fun seeing them in their element since they'd been to my house, met my family, and seen how my life usually is. 

I hope they are able to come back to Salt Lake sometime and stay with me.