If I have to find a word to describe how the past week has been, the first that comes in my mind is crazy: everything started with the flight to Amsterdam to visit my friend Anni for a week of vacation. I was a bit disappointed with the maximum allowance weight for the cabin baggage with Alitalia – 5kg – even though it was a great idea to bring a checked suitcase too for the souvenirs. Anyhow, once arrived at Schiphol airport, the first thing I realized was that probably shorts and summer t-shirts are not the best choice when you travel to Netherlands.
Met Anni at the airport – after about 5 months – we headed with the train to Leiden, the town where she lives. Trains in Holland are kinda expensive – and not expansive as I usually write: I first thought they were perfect-always-on-time ones, but that’s not the truth even here. We reached our destination in around 15 minutes and we needed other 15 to walk home: Leiden is a pretty nice town, with hundreds of bikes and the typical dutch houses with a very particular roof.
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We still didn’t know, but Anni’s house would have soon been the main problem of the holiday: situated in a attic, it has with two rooms, a little kitchen, and a bathroom that is not usable by those who are more than 80kg; I placed my stuffs in the “free” room, which was rented by someone else since few days before, and after a fast lunch we went to visit the town. I know, you’re probably wondering why the house was so problematic, but of course I will go on in chronological order so that you won’t stop reading ’till the end.
Leiden – and as I could see later even other towns in Holland – is full of fast foods: I’ve been eating burgers for days and looking now forward for a delicious italian lunch at home. We visited Leiden on the very first day, while Monday was dedicated to The Hague: we had plans to meet my italian friend in the evening to watch our Italy playing against Paraguay all together. The Hague is slightly different from Leiden: still very calm and nice, it was full of Dutch dressed in orange because of the match vs. Denmark; we went near the screen to see the result twice and both the times Holland scored a goal: they must thank us.