My journey started by train from the Amsterdam airport, then by bus. I didn’t snap a picture, but the trains were very nice, modern, and decorated with a butterfly theme (complete with butterfly shaped bag hooks). Cabins were spacious, with small tables readily available. I worried I had accidentally stepped into “first class.”

Once at the Ede-Wageningen station, I took a bus to the Haagsteeg stop. The convenient thing about the Netherlands is that English is taught in schools, and over 90% of Dutch can speak it conversationally as a second language. However, for American travelers, lack of familiarity with Dutch can still be a problem. I so totally butchered the pronunciation of “Haagsteeg” that the bus driver didn’t know where I was asking to go. (Fortunately I was able to show him on my phone.)

At last I arrived at Audrey’s building. Her hallway is co-ed and has ~8 students (each with their own bedroom), a couple bathrooms and showers, and a kitchen where everything is shared. It’s also got a definite Ship of Theseus feel: students come and go, but never all at once, and the generations who have gone through have all left a mark. The walls are plastered with funny newspaper and magazine clippings, making the common areas feel like living art pieces. There is even a scrapbook for the hallway that dates back to the late 1990s.

Audrey’s room looks great. She’s got lots of cool decorations and has painted a plant themed mural on the wall.

The room also hosts Audrey’s cat, Radja, adopted here in the Netherlands.

I then met Audrey’s hallmates, who were incredibly welcoming. An Dutch/Irish resident named Aoife (pronounced “Efa”) gave me her towel to borrow for a shower; we discovered that beyond sharing a similar name and curly hair, we also have the same birthday. Eventually I started losing track of the students as 5 people and some significant others filtered in and out of the kitchen to have lunch.

I was able to observe what the Dutch students ate:

Lunch A: Olive oil, shredded cheese and sliced green olives on a baguette, warmed in oven.

Lunch B: Pasta salad.

Lunch C: Sliced cheese and salami wrapped in a white tortilla.

One person was using an unfamiliar kitchen tool, a cheese slicer. It seems useful if you buy large wheels of cheese. Apparently it’s a very Dutch thing.

Dutch cuisine is said to be a bit bland, something I will have to judge for myself in the next few days. Audrey tells me that eating out is very expensive here so I will probably stick to the grocery store.

I also got to try some European chocolate. It tastes different than Hershey’s chocolate, which has traces of butyric acid (a sour tasting compound found in Parmesan cheese) from the manufacturing process. As an American, the European chocolates taste overly sweet/non-complex, but many Europeans think that Hershey’s tastes like puke, and it isn’t sold by grocers here.

Somebody also brought up Stroopwafels. I’ve been pronouncing them wrong for years…

The most striking part about exploring the Netherlands is biking culture. Bike lines are found everywhere and Dutch use bikes for any trip under several miles. The bike “parking” for the grocery store was more busy than the car parking. You also have to constantly be looking both ways as you cross both roads and bike lanes.

Also, Wageningen has a modern yet compact feel. I don’t know how to describe it, but everything is so neat and close together that exploring feels like walking through a doll’s play-set. It’s surreal… almost like some IKEA designers built the model of a “perfect walkable town”. All the major shops lie on a long brick walking street. The whole town feels cramped yet utopian, and lacks the grit or undeveloped areas that I’m used to seeing in any other city or hamlet. Every shop is clean and modern.

The local businesses, even the grocery store, do not take Visa so I needed to have plenty of Euros. I bought some toiletries, bottled iced tea, chocolate, and a bacon & egg sandwich.

I ended the day with a 4 hour nap and really hope to reset my sleep cycle tonight!