I purposely pushed my bed up against the large front window in my apartment, specifically so I could wake up to mornings like this one. I don’t ever bother looking at the weather report any more, so it comes as a lovely surprise whenever it snows. I love when the snow just falls perfectly on the trees as it did this morning. Later, it started coming down quite heavily and I managed to catch a video of it. I know this is nothing like the snow in Vermont (which I will be revisiting quite soon), but it’s a good amount of snow for Amsterdam! What do you think? Will it be a white Christmas in Amsterdam this year?
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Go It Alone
“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”-Henry David Thoreau
A Neighborhood With No Streets
Giethoorn is a town located north east of Amsterdam. This town is considered to be the Netherlands’ Venice. I had stumbled upon many websites mentioning this neighborhood before I even decided to study in Amsterdam and ever since I had a great desire to see it for myself.
Instead of streets, this neighborhood has canals, bridges, and walking paths. The people living in these homes do not have one, two, or three car garages, but rather one, two, or three BOAT garages. Little wooden bridges arc over the canals to allow passage to each home.
The town was very quiet when we were there. Supposedly it is not that quiet in the summer time and is actually quite the tourist attraction. We visited on a freezing cold day in November where we ducked into café on the edge of a canal to get warm. Very cute restaurants and shops adorned the walking path aside the main canal, right across from the residential homes.
Later, we took a boat ride for only €5 around the canals where these beautiful homes are nestled. The canal opened out into a lake where there were some islands with a park for summer camps and a large house with boats to rent. The entire town was filled with ducks, sheep, and friendly cats. The drive out there was beautiful as well, seeing vast fields and hundreds of windmills. It was quite a nice afternoon.
