During the program, I did not expect to travel nearly the entire width of the Netherlands to get to our site visit today. It took us three trains, two buses and a bike ride to reach the front of the Kroller-Muller Museum located in Otterlo. First of all, I would like to point out I successfully rode a bike despite not having ridden one since I was a child. I was especially proud considering the last time I went ice skating, I needed five stitches in my face after, so I really didn’t have high hopes for by biking skills. The museum is actually located inside a national park, with extensive bike trails around the area for museum visitors to enjoy the scenery. The first thing we did after entering the museum was head to the Van Gogh Cafe for lunch.
On our way to lunch, we wandered through some of the park that was filled with sculptures and artwork. There are sculptures located throughout the national park that you can both walk and bike through. After we stopped for lunch, we went inside to explore the different exhibits the museum had to offer. The museum offers the second largest collection of Van Gogh artwork in the world. It also had exhibits on modern art and works from artists like Picasso and Monet. I was really excited to see Picasso’s work and some more of the Van Gogh collection. We spent about an hour browsing around the museum before the group decided they would like to bike more around the park.
Now, at this point it was really raining and I’ll be honest, I really didn’t want to bike around the park. Elaine and I decided that it would be better to just bike back to the entrance and start out two and a half hour journey back to Delft. At this point, after a few very long days filled with site visits, I wanted a little bit of time to relax, work on my blog and take a nap. I managed to get in a very long nap before I came down to the lobby of the hotel to order dinner and work on my blog. After a week long hunt to find playing cards anywhere in the Netherlands, Jack finally found some in the train station and excitedly brought them back to the hotel for us. We spent the evening playing cards once everyone was back at the hotel before heading to bed.
This was the halfway point in the week and sometimes I forget just how tiring travelling can be. We really are on the go all day long and spend our evenings hanging out way later than we probably should, but that a big part of the fun while studying abroad. It is really hard to believe that I fly back to Seattle in just 10 days. It feels like I have been here for both a very long time yet hardly have spent any time in the Netherlands at all. I appreciate the fact that I have gotten to meet some amazing people that I don’t normally get to talk to on campus and I am looking forward to our last 10 days of adventure.