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One of my favourite European people I have met during my one year trip around the world has got to be the Dutch people. These guys are just so friendly and welcoming!
I met three groups of them during my travels to South Africa and Malaysia and I ended up staying at two of their places in the Netherlands and also visiting the third person while I was there.
It was quite an interesting experience because all three of them have about 10 years age gap between them and they all lived at different parts of the country. They were all at totally different parts of their life and I got to experience it with them as they showed me around their city.
Friend #1: Dutch couple with 2 year old son in Rotterdam
My first stop in the Netherlands is a Dutch couple I met in Gansbaai in South Africa where you do the Great White Shark cage diving. I stayed at their place for about 3 nights and they showed me around Rotterdam and surrounding areas while I was there.
They took me to a museum located by the embassies from different countries and snuck me in using my friend's wife's pass. He told me to pretend to be a blonde girl as we walked through security.
We also got a chance to see the famous Windmills at Kinderdijk which is a world heritage site. Admittedly, the husband told me he's never been here and it's mostly Asian tourist that visits. I found that quite hilarious.
They also took me to a local beach and fed me some nasty raw fish which apparently is a local delicacy. When I tried eating the raw fish, they filmed me while I tried eating it and laughed at me when I made a face indicating it was disgusting.
What I found fascinating is that the Dutch couple I visited is in their 40s so they are building a family at the moment and I saw them in action as they tried raising their 2 year old son. He was going through the terrible 2's and was definitely acting crazy many times. I saw how exhausted my friends were and definitely realized I'm in no way shape or form ready to be a parent yet.
I had an amazing time visiting them and off I go to my next friend living my Amsterdam.
Friend #2: Dutch guy and Austrian girl couple in Amsterdam
The next set of friends I visited is a couple I met while I was in Drakensberg, South Africa. They were younger and their age was between 27-30 years old (roughly my age group).
Currently, they are working to save up money to go on a 1 year and 6 months trip around the world. They've done it before and absolutely loved it and plan on doing a second one in the nearby future. They like having guest visit them and I stayed with them for two nights as I explored Amsterdam.
While there, I got a chance to do a 3-hour city walking tour of Amsterdam which admittedly is probably the best walking tour I have ever done during my one year trip thus far.
One of the cool things about travelling is sharing your culture with other people so I took the opportunity to cook them a traditional dish from the Philippines where I was born (I'm Chinese but grew up in Canada). They also taught me how to make quick tacos using the oven so I have a new recipe now when I go back to Canada.
Friend #3: Dutch girl in Eindhoven
The last friend I visited is a 19 year old girl that Karen and myself met while we were in Malaysia. She was quite funny because one of her favourite travel activity is to chill in the hostel watching netflix.
I went over to her house after she showed me around Eindhoven and there I played cards with her family. I learned that Dutch people called the "Diamond" card "Windows" and the "Spades" as "kicking it". I suppose the diamond card does look like a window if you turn your head slightly sideways and I have no idea why spades would be called kicking it.
I had a great time hanging out with her family and learned about her plans to study abroad when she starts university.
Overall, I had an awesome experience in The Netherlands hanging out with all three friends. It was very interesting to see the contrast in lifestyle because they were all roughly 10 years apart and was going through a different stage in life. From parent, to working a typical 9 to 5 to someone just starting university.
Visiting friends that I met during the earlier part of my one year trip has been my favourite part of my trip through Europe.
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