Today I spent the entire day exploring the city of Groningen, located in the nothern part of Holland.
I got up in the morning relatively early (around 7 or so), and went downstairs to get breakfast. Breakfast was very good - they had a huge assortment of rolls, cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cereal, and even a few american foods (namely sausage and bacon (!), as well as scrambled eggs). After breakfast I grabbed my camera and started walking around the city.
I first walked down to the museum next to the train station, and soon after found that it was closed till the winter because of renovations. No big deal, there are a lot of other museums around. So I went to another, and saw that it was closed as well, but more that it was closed every monday. This wasn't looking good for me, and my prediction was proven correct when I saw that the other museums around were all closed. Oh well, there's always more to a city than its museums.
I walked around for a while and found one of the buildings from the State University of Groningen (one of the largest universities in the netherlands, with over 50,000 students). The building was incredibly ornate. It had stained glass even in the main stairwell.
I basically spent the entire day walking around, and saw some pretty cool things. Enjoy the pics.
View from the Martinikerk
Some ducks from a park on the east side of the city. They apparently get fed by people a lot, as they have no trouble sleeping in the middle of a foot path (even with people walking by), or following you until you give them food. Yes, I was actually followed by a duck for about 200 feet until it realized I didn't have food for it!
Some of the tens of thousands of bikes in Groningen
A Cafe next to de Grote Markt (main square in Groningen)
Needless to say, I had a lot of fun checking out the city. Tomorrow I'm actually going to go to Amsterdam for the day at least. I'm currently looking into how much it would cost to stay the night there, as I have a feeling that will be an ideal situation for me. Essentially if I came back to Groningen, that would involve taking a 30 minute train to Amersfoort, and then a 2 hour train from Amersfoort to Groningen. And then I would have to make the same 2 hour trip south to Amersfoort to go back to Berlin. It makes more sense for my to stay overnight in amsterdam and just take the 30 minute train to Amersfoort in the morning. But I still have to find a place before I make up my mind.
