In Utrecht

This morning I got up really early and made my way to the Central train station in Amsterdam. It took about 45 minutes on the tram! Rachel told me that the people in the trams stamping tickets sometimes misunderstand her because the word for 2 sounds like the word for 3 and sure enough, the man stamped three zones on my stripenkaart instead of 2.

I arrived in Utrecht via a not-so-interesting route. Utrecht is surrounded by industrial areas so unfortunately there wasn't anything very interesting to look at out the window. Dana met me at the station and together we walked to the boat. The boat is outside of the main touristy section of town and I would have never found it without her. It is a tall ship but the sail was bound and the set covered most of the deck so it isn't much to look at most of the time. Inside the galley, it's actually really nice. Beautifully finished wood everywhere and lush cushions...all covered in the remnants of last night's "wine and cheese" party. It was pretty funny. People were waking up just as I was getting there so everybody I met was in the same state of tired and out of it. :)

Today we explored Utrecht. We ate a picnic lunch in a nice shady square near the Domkerk-the oldest church in Europe! Unfortuntely a large portion of the church collapsed when a tornado hit the area in the 1600s but the tower is still standing and is so gothic it's great. It's nice to see a true gothic church after seeing so many Baroque churches in central europe. We paid 7 euros and took a guided tour up the tower. The tower is over 450 steps high or so and it was pretty cool. Very narrow winding staircase that got more and more narrow the closer we got to the top. From the top we could see for miles in every direction and the sky was clear but a little hazy. Very cool. Utrecht central itself is a very typical small european town with a central square and church and with lots of winding little cobblestoned streets. Bicycles fly by and it's hard to stay out of their way because the pedestrian walkway areas are often covered with parked bikes or with patio tables. But so far everyone has been very polite and I'm having a good time. The pace is much slower and more likeable than the grimy big city.

We then walked around town for a bit and had a beer with lemon at canal level and rested our legs for about an hour. We then explored some of the cloisters that are surrounding the church area. They are all lovely with pretty little gardens. Now we are walking back to the boat and have stopped at this Maroccan (I guess?) internet cafe/coffe shop...? I'll see the show tonight.