Easter Break 2011: Part 2 {The Netherlands [aka the 'homeland']}

Let me start off by saying that I have been wanting to visit the Netherlands for as long as I can remember. Mainly because its my heritage and part of their culture has been mixed into mine growing up with grandparents who immigrated from there. I've always loved having that, all of those holiday traditions and even the everyday visits with coffee and feeding you whether you're hungry or not, all of my Opa's crazy stories from growing up and even from during the war (WWII). Every time I talk with him there is a completely new story that I haven't heard before, I love it. Anyway, we arrived in the Netherlands on Sunday night and spent the night in a city called Delft. I wrote a little bit about it before in another post, but its mainly famous for the porcelain that they make. My dad had been there before because he had spoken at the university there, but my mom hadn't and she really wanted to go, so, we went :) here are a few pics:
After that, we headed to Sneek, Friesland, which is where my dad's side of the family originally came from. It was beautiful weather and wonderful day of exploring and walking around the town! The bridge in the pic directly below is of a really cool bridge that my dad remembers his dad talking about when he was younger :)
Next we headed down to what is called the achterhoek, which is the very bottom of Holland next to the German border and is where my Opa grew up. We spent my 21st birthday and the rest of the week there exploring and visiting with family :) We even were able to go to the actual farm, called Meirika, that my Opa grew up on because it's still in the family. My Opa's brother and sister in law, Oma Gerhard and Tante Hannah, live a couple farms down from Meirika and have some geese and chickens of their own :) Anyway, apparently Meirika hasn't changed much over the years, so that was really awesome to see, to say the least. Meirika is so close to the German border that you literally walk down the street a little ways and you are in Germany. haha.

Meirika

Oma Gerhard, Tante Hannah, and their son and his family who now live in Meirika. Tante Hannah, Sophie and I on the Holland-Germany border. We also went to Paleis Het Loo (Loo is pronounced low) in Apeldoorn, which is a Palace in Holland that was the residence of the House of Orange - basically the residence of the Royal family. It was really cool :)

For the weekend we headed up to Amsterdam! We started off with a tour on the canals, oh yeah. :) We were then on a mission to find poffertjes for my mom. haha I think we had poffertjes about 3 times in the 2 days we were in Amsterdam, we needed our fill. Let me explain, poffertjes are little fluffy delicious pancakes you eat with a little butter and smothered in powdered sugar. delicious. We also had hollandse pannekoeke quite often. I will miss them both... haha we also went on a bike tour, which was SO FUN. Seriously, if there is a bike tour in any city you go to, you should go on it, they're awesome.
After this dad and Soph had to leave :( but mom got to stay another week! So, we went to Austria, which I will tell you all more about in my next post!! haha
love, emily

Easter Break 2011: Part 1 {Wales}

This is the first post in what will probably be a 6 post breakdown of my 5 weeks galavanting across Europe :) First, let me just say that it was a wonderfully intense and crazy trip and that I absolutely loved every minute of it [minus the whole being sick while we were in Wales, but I'll get to that later...]!

My parents and little sister came over here at the end of March and I met up with them in Bath! It was sooooo good to see them! I hadn't seen them in about 3 months at that point, which is a really long time when you usually see them at least once a month! They got there late afternoon, so we walked around for a bit and then grabbed some dinner :) here are some pics:


After this, we headed over to Cardiff and then made our way up the coast of Wales! Mid-way through the week, however, I ended up getting a really bad cold, but still kept going places and seeing things... yeah, I may have gotten better more quickly if I hadn't done all of those things, but I wouldn't have been able to see everything and spend time with my fam! Here are some pics from the places we went and the many castles we saw :)

That's just a taste of all that we saw! It was a really amazing week and I was soooo happy to be spending it with my fam :) next, we headed off to the Netherlands! Which i'll tell you about in the next post ;)
love, emily