Utrecht and the Beginning of Our Next Adventure

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Today was our last day in Holland. First thing, we woke up and got ourselves organized for our trip to Cairo. Annelie kindly offered to let us use her laundry machines to wash our clothes, so we at least get to start the
Middle East portion of our trip with clean clothes. We stashed our big packs at the hostel for the day, and set out looking for some breakfast in downtown Utrecht on our way to Annelie's - dirty laundry in hand. 

Having picked up some strawberries, stroopwafels and a baguette, we enjoyed our simple breakfast in the shadow of the Dom sitting on a park bench. After breakfast, we walked to Annelie's and got our laundry going. Since it was the day after Holland kicked ass in the World Cup semi-final, Sander and Annelie were a little slow to get going but we still managed to have a great day. It's a weekday, so
Sander had to work; the rest of us though figured we could probably find something more fun to get up to!

We hopped on bikes (2 bikes for 3 of us; Elysia got to learn a little bit about riding side saddle on the rear rack of a bicycle - something that is totally natural for the Dutch but apparently a little tricky for a Canuck!!) and rode into town to rent kayaks and paddle through the city's intricate network of canals. The kayak rental place didn't have single kayaks (who'd have thunk?!?) so we rented a "Canadian Canoe" instead that could fit all three of us. Given the nickname for the boat we kind of figures we had something to prove. So, €15 and 1.5 hours later we finished circumnavigating Utrecht via the main canals. We are happy to report that no crew were lost to the 2 metre deep water, although there were a few instances where the canal wall jumped out in front of us...

After our canoe adventure, we headed back to Annelie's house where we enjoyed a lovely home-made pesto pasta salad for dinner. With our last meal on the Dutch homeland out of the way we caught a bus to the train station where we said goodbye robots wonderful Dutch friends and grabbed a train to Schipol airport. 

Thank you very much Annelie and Sander for showing us such a great time and being such wonderful friends. We will miss you very much and definitely look forward to our next visit!!

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