Day 2

I feel quite foreign in England now. I keep waiting for people to speak Dutch and all they speak is English… I also keep waiting for American tourists to speak in their American accents but most people here are English… I look the wrong way on the roads as well as the Dutch drive on the wrong side of the road as with the rest of Europe… Slowly I will adjust back…

On to Day 2:

We woke up at 725am to get ready to eat breakfast at 830am so that we could go out early at 9am to find a bicycle. However, we only managed to get bicycles after queuing up for an hour at the VVV to enquire. It was however, easier than walking around Amsterdam to find a bike shop. It was a bit hard to cycle with bags at first but we got the hang of it after a while, at least I could start and stop without feeling like I was falling off.

We then took the train to Utrecht, foregoing our plan to cycle there as the time needed to cycle there would mean having no time to spend in Utrecht at all. This meant having to pay an extra surcharge for the bicycles.

When we reached Utrecht, we were trying to find a way out of the station. We followed the Uitgang signs (meaning exit – at first deduced by the man running to door signs). We found ourselves walking through a shopping centre and feeling foolish being the only people with bikes. Who else would push their bikes through a shopping centre? We then walked back to find an information counter and asked how to get out of the station!

After some time, we managed to stumble through an exit and went around trying to find a VVV (pronounced Vay vay vay – the information centre). We had to go there to ask where our hostel was. We stayed at B&B Hostel Utrecht CityCentre which was not too far away from the information centre. It was in an unmarked building and even dodgier than the first hotel. It was supposed to be 46 Euros for the 2 of us but because the guy gave us the wrong change, it only turned out to be 43 euros. The guy was a bit ADHD so I suppose that’s why he gave out the wrong change.

We left our stuff there and went out to explore Utrecht. We went up Dom Tower which was the highest tower in the Nederlands. We walked 465 steps up… and 465 steps down – making it a total of 930 steps. My legs felt like rubber when I was walking down and had to brace myself at the walls to stop myself from rolling down the stairs.

Sarah lost her wallet here in Utrecht. Either it dropped out or it was pickpocketed – we will never know. All we know is that it’s gone. First I lost my railcard somewhere in Manchester… and now she’s lost her purse.. How unlucky are we?

We then ate at a Cuban restaurant where the menu was in Spanish with Dutch explanations… We just guessed what we wanted…

We then went back to hostel to rest and plan for the next day’s trip as we had to cycle a long way…