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Last weekend Vincent and I went to Holland. I did not quite plan the trip before, as my aunt and some other friends said that they would visit me in Strasbourg instead. But Aunt Joyce sent me an email in somewhat like last minute saying that she wouldn't make it to visit us in Strasbourg. I felt it was important to meet her this time, so I requested to Vincent if we could indeed go to Amsterdam. He said it was fine. "Whatever you want, baby."
It takes 6 hours drive from Strasbourg to Amsterdam. With the reason that I didn't want Vincent to be overly tired from driving, I proposed a stop either in Luxembourg or Maastricht. We decided to stop in Maastricht instead.
Maastricht
Maastricht is a nice city. That is not very objective by the way, since I was only there for less than an hour. It was just enough to get Vincent to stop driving and to buy some weed before proceeding to Velserbroek.
I couldn't help it when I saw bitterballen in the menu of a restaurant, though. I HAD TO HAVE IT!
So we ordered a portion of bitterballen, which we shared. They of course tasted so good. I forgot the fact that Vincent had never eaten it before, though. So when he started eating it, although it was in room temperature on the surface, it was burning hot in the inside. He took one whole bitterball and munched it in one go. And the result was.... he burnt his tongue!!! I think he almost cried. Hihihi...
Velserbroek
I've never been in Velserbroek before. Not a lot of Dutch people know about this village either. But that's where my aunt lives with her son, Clarence. It is only 10 minutes from Haarlem and 20 from Amsterdam.
We arrived at around 7-ish and for the first time in my life, I met Aunt Joyce and Clarence. Aunt Joyce was just like how I imagined she had been all this time through our communication via email and phone. But Clarence gave a different impression. Of course I knew from Aunt Joyce that Clarence was a good boy, very talented and that she was very proud of him. But then again, whose parents would say bad things about their son or daughter? What I found out was that she was being true about it. He looked like he was good at a lot of things. He writes scripts for plays, he is knowledgable, he travels a lot thanks to the fact that his mother and uncle work for KLM, and he cooks like a real chef - according to Vincent. In fact, he cooked dinner for us that evening and guess what the menu was. Foie gras and its luxurious companions.
Vincent was impressed. He said that Clarence cooked like a real pro French cook. Applause!!!
But yeah... being so kampung-ly Indonesian, I couldn't finish my food. No offense to Clarence or any other French people, but foei gras is only good to taste. That means one bite or two. But not more than that. It was.... - how do I say it? - too thick for me. I had to give Vincent "that look" when he claimed jokingly, "You have to like foie gras or we break up." Bah.
From left to right: the amazing ME, Aunt Joyce, Uncle Ernst, Vincent and Great Aunt in the front sitting. I must admit that they did share the Halatoe's facial features. They reminded me of my mum and aunts and uncles. Hihi...
Around Amsterdam
The next day I called Mia and we promised to meet up at Amsterdam Centraal Station at around 3.
It was SOOO good to meet her again. She looked rather different from the Mia I remembered. She was more beautiful. More vibrant. More... I don't know.
Anyway... we spent almost the rest of the day with her. We had coffee, we walked around the Leidseplein and shopped a bit [Vincent bought me a LOT of stroopwafel, yay!], and we sort of sunbathed by the canal in front of the Vondel Park.
And only, ONLY, just before we byed each other, we were met with Mia's boyfriend, Michael. I had always been curious about this guy since Mia mentioned him several times in her blog, but not quite transparently and openly. Aaaand, he turned out to be a really nice guy. He only had maybe less than 15 minutes to hang with us, but he seemed to get along pretty well with Vincent... due to their shared interest in rap music.
But if you are curious, too, about this mysterious Michael guy, here is the pic. ;)
Aren't they lovely?
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