Independent Travel- The Netherlands- May

In the end of April, I decided to visit a friend who was studying in the Netherlands, in Leiden. I arrived on Thursday afternoon, explored Leiden for the day, and met all her dormmates. There were only two actual Dutch people in her dorm, but I got to meet a bunch of people from Great Britain, and we all ate dinner together that night. The following day we went into Amsterdam because I was curious to see the famed "Red Light District" and a photography exhibition that my friend mentioned. My friend didn't want to pay to visit museums she had already seen, so I returned myself the next day to visit the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank House, and the Old and New Church. The most memorable thing for me was the Van Gogh museum, because he's been my favorite artist since childhood, and I'd never seen his work in real life. It was set up chronologically, and I had the leisure of looking at things for as long as I wanted because I was traveling alone. On the train back to Leiden that night, a man sat next to me and started speaking Dutch to me. I told him I was sorry that I didn't understand, and we ended up speaking in English. But that was a cool part about being in the Netherlands- no one could point me out as a tourist because I look Dutch. In Spain, people are always shouting "Hey rubia" (meaning "hey blonde girl”) at me, and it's impossible to pass myself off as a native no matter how well I'm speaking Spanish that day. In the Netherlands I felt like I was almost passing for a native (I rented a bike like they do), and that was fun for me.