My new job as a tour guide, sort of... part 2

hello world!
I'm back with part dos of my "my new job as a tour guide, sort of..." series and probably (hopefully) the last one. Unless I get caried away again...
Anyway let's get back to the story telling.

Day 4:
After a long and tiring day in Amsterdam, on saturday we decided to take things a little slower and stay closer to the hotel. I was very excited for today as I was going to show them ( my friend and his parents) my hometown, the city where I was born. 'S-hertogenbosch or Den Bosch. It was about a half an hours drive so not that far. It's a very old city, with a big cathedral and canals just like in Amsterdam. Only I think it is a lot nicer (but you know, I will always prefer the home town). And suprisingly, they prefered Den Bosch aswell. We walked trough the city enjoying all the views and of course visited the cathedral, where we  were met with a surprise. For a limited time, to get awareness to the restaurations necesary to preserve the cathedral, you could climb one of the towers and enjoy the views from above and get a good look at the 30 or so famous little statues the cathedral has made by artists like Jeronimus Bosch ( Who as the name suggests, was born in the same city as I). As it was the 500th aniversary of Jeroen (jeronimus) Bosch's birthday, you could see the city filled with art and his influence was very present. They also had an exibition at the "noord brabants museum" and of course in the "Jeronimus Bosch art centre." We only went to one of these musea as 2 is quite a lot, and we wanted a relazing day.
Also as it was saturday, there was a big market going on in the city centre, as occurs every saturday, alltough it was slightly smaller because of a fun fair going on. The market sells things like vegetables and fruit, flowers,pieces of fabric and especially food. Such as big warm dutch cookies called "stroopwafels" or fried fish and if course chips ( or fries).
We went home not long after and just relaxed.

Day 5:
This was the one day I had off of tour guiding. My friend and his parents went to Rotterdam but I stayed in the hotel as i had to study for my exams :(.

Day 6:
On monday I also didn't have to do any tour guiding as my friend and I where going to the Efteling,which is a famous dutch theme park. I have talked about it in a previous blog post so I wont go in to detail. But just have to say I love this park a lot! (like a lot a lot) And I was very happy when my friend liked it just as much as I did. We had a lot of fun and took a lot of cool pictures.

Day 7:
I didn't do much as I had to fly back home early the next day. So apart from studying, packing my bag and some last minute shopping I relaxed. At the end of the day I went to visit my cousin together with my mom. It was a lot of fun as I had not seen him for almost 6 years. And he has 3 kids I hadn't met either, who, if I can just say, are the cutest things ever!

Day 8:
On wednesday, unfortunatly I had to go home again. As I had my exams early the next day, and my flight was firstly intended to leave at like 11 PM, I switched flights to a earlier one. The only bad thing was that I had to fly alone. I am not a big fan of flying or bif crowded places so I was quite nervous about the whole flying alone thing. I had done it before but still.
Fortunatly everything went great and soon I was back at my trusted apartment watching netflix ;)

So I hope you enjoyed this mini series of my "experiences" as a tour guide.
I'm sorry I don't have anymore pictures but as I told in the other post, my camera broke 1 week pior to leaving, and my phone has no memory...

Have a great day/night wherever you guys are.

xxSimonee

My new job as a tour guide, Sort of... part 1

Hello world!
So I know this post is a little late but i've been on holiday and then I had exams so I was a little busy.
I went on holiday to the netherlands, once again, only this time a friend and his parents came with me. So I had to act as a tour guide, something I absolutly hate as I found out. But I did enjoy showing them around my beautiful country and especially my home town.

Our trip started on a wednesday morning, bright and early having to leave my house at 4:45 AM. The first hour and a half where very stresfull as the people I was traveling with had overslept and almost missed there flight. Luckily for me my mom was going aswell so I wasn't completly on my own. Thankfully they made it just in time and our holiday could begin!
As we flew early, we had half the day to spend in the netherlands, but we didn't spend it together. I went to do some things with my mom and relaxed (flying gives me major anxiety) and they explored the town and fields around the hotel they where staying. We had flown to brussels airport ( yes the same where the bombs went of in march) which was kind of strange as there where large covered parts of the airport you couldn't acces. But apart from that you couldn't really see anything.

Day 2:
On thursday, our first full day here we went to a town called Vught. I lived in this town for a good 7 years and wanted to show them some sights, such as the old nazi concentration camp just on the outskirts of town on the edge of a big forest. It was one of the biggest concentration camps in the netherlands and one of the only ones still sort od intact. It has been transformed into a museum and is also a national monument. I visited the camp a few times when I was younger and this time it was just as impresive as before. Everything was silent, you couldn't even hear the birds singing. My friend who has been to auswitch in Poland, told me the same thing happened there, not even the birsd want to be there, it is silent and you can still feel the impact it had on the world, as if you can feel the peoples pain and fear. After that we walked trough the forest to get to a fusilation place, it is a spot where the germans murdered hundreds of people, it is now a big memorial and every year on the 4th and 5th of may people put flowers there and comemorate the death, to then celebrate the liberation of the dutch from the germans. But I will not go into to much detail as I could keep talkin about it for ages and I would bore all of you.
After walking trough the forest we visited the town and had lunch on a lovely terras in the shade.

Day 3:
On Friday we had to get up really early (5:30 AM) to go to Amsterdam. We had tickets for the Anne Frank house at 9 AM and it took us about an hour and a hald to get to Amsterdam from where we were staying. I had never been to the Anne Frank house but I had read her diary several times and was very excited to go and learn more about this girl who was an example to so many people. One of the things that surprised me was the fact that all the rooms where empty, void of any furniture. I later found out that it had been the request of Otto Frank, Anne's father, he wanted all the rooms to remain empty. It didn't say why but I think is helped you see how small the place truly was and this way you could use your own imagination aswell. It was very well organised and most videos and explanations where in many different languages, not just Dutch and English.
After finishing at the Anne Frank house we wandered the city, reveling in the inmensity of it all. Not many people realize this but Amsterdam is a very big city, and not all famous/ tourist sites are close to each other. I believe we walked about 18(!) km that day, and I can tell you my feet where killing me at the end of the day!
My friend and his parents went on a boat trip trough the canals but I didn't join them as I had allreay been on a tour a few times. So I had about 2 hours to my self. At first I was planning on just wandering the streets and taking some pictures but after about 5 minutes of walking I stumbled across a museum which was all about science and the human body. Now apart from being a history freak I also love science especially biology, so when I saw this exposition I decided it was a good idea to go in and explore, because that just is a normal thing to do (for me atleast). The exposition was amazing and it had real body parts, which could make some people squemish but not me, but just incase I will not include any pictures here. When I was leaving the museum there was a girl outside with a real human hearth you could hold and she would tell you some things about it. I obviously held it and was very happy at the end of the day. I had learned a lot about the anatomy of a human hearth and to then just hold one was very exciting for me.
At the end of the day we went to the Van Gogh Museum which, can I just say, Is A-MA-ZING, the building and the art are both very nice. I also love the layout of the building as it is round you start at one point and automatically end up on the other side where you can go up the stairs to the next floor. This is very easy and you can't really get lost,or have to walk along all the rooms to get to the stairs for the next floor as some musuea have.
After a long and satisfying day we went home and man was I tired!

 I took some of the pictures from Amsterdam last year when I went on a boat tour. I don't really have many good pictures this year as my camera died a week before my trip so sorry.

No I was planning on making it one blog post but I talked so much I'm afraid it will be to long, so i am going to be making a part 2, just as I did with my Italy travel miniseries.

Hope you enjoyed and have an amazing day/night wherever you are

xxSimonee