Today, we took a day trip by train to Antwerp, Belgium and stopped on our way there to visit Tom's coworker, Ed , who lives in Rosendaal, The Netherlands.
We had a nice lunch with Ed's family on his back patio. Rosendaal is a "village" of about 50,000 people and Ed lives on the outside of the city, so country fields greet his backyard. It was a beautiful day, about 73 degrees and sunny. Ed's wife drove to Belgium (5mi from their house) in the morning to shop at a bakery for bread that she said was better than The Netherlands'. We started off our meal with a delicious fruit dessert plate (it was a bunch of fruit artistically placed on a pastry crust---it looked like it was out of a magazine). Then we had wine and sandwiches. We used the Belgian rolls for the bun and then Ed said that here in The Netherlands, it was customary to only put one item on each roll (a piece of ham OR cheese) and not stack them like we are used to in the US. Other options included a crab salad and a raw meat spread that was actually really really good because it was seasoned well. We ended the meal with cinnamon rolls.
We hopped on the next train to Antwerp, Belgium and I was a little upset because I learned from Ed that you only get your passport stamped one time once you enter the European union.
We made it to the huge train station in Antwerp, Belgium and then walked to the old part of the city to see buildings built in the 1500's. I stopped at H&M to shop (where people were trying on clothes in the aisles!), then we ate lunch (I ate steak tar tar on toast for lunch) and had beers (mom had tea). We saw a carriage pulled by actual Belgian Horses.
Once we got back to Amsterdam, we noticed a weird plastic thing that turned out to be a urinal that was completely open to the public. (See pic on facebook). Guys just walked up, whipped it out, and went on their merry way! They're so open about that stuff.
So many sites to describe, but I've got to go to bed now because I'm flying out for Barcelona in the morning!
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