Rain, rain, rain and some wind too!

Today I decided, despite the wet and windy weather, I was going to go to Haarlem. It's about 15 miles west of where we are staying in Amsterdam.  I set out at around 1030hrs. I walked about 3 blocks to the Metro Station to catch the #5 to Central Station Amsterdam. It took about 20 minutes to get to the Central Station. While on the train I met Marjorie. She was raised on Aruba, which she told me used to be part of the Netherlands Antilles, so she grew up speaking Dutch. Marjorie told me about an English speaking Presbyterian church in Amsterdam and invited Andrew and I to join them on a Sunday morning.  We parted ways at the stop prior to Central Station....What a lovely lady-she made my morning!

At the Central Station I had to find the "big" train that connects different cities. After finding the ticketing office, the woman there was very helpful and I ended up buying a ticket on the Sprinter Train to Uitgeest, which goes via Haarlem. The ticket cost me EUR 7 and 50 cents. I thought that was quite expensive for a 20 minute train ride, so next time I will try to find an alternate way to get there!

Once there I walked and walked around Haarlem. I went to Haarlem Centrum:

I popped into several stores, looking for furniture we can purchase for the house. I found a cute desk:

in this beautiful store (this is the ceiling!):

I walked and walked down some very quaint streets in a nice small town:

While I was walking it started raining, then raining harder, then it started to hail. With the wind gusting my umbrella turned inside out a couple of times!  While walking I remembered why I stopped wearing my glasses when I was a kid growing up in Minnesota.....the rain was getting on my glasses making me wish I had "windshield wipers" and my breath was fogging up my glasses!

I have found everyone in the Netherlands to be quite friendly and helpful. Though I am trying to speak at least a little bit of Dutch, as soon as people realize I only speak English they will speak English with me.

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Today we signed a contract for our rental house! We got a two year contract for the house in Haarlem. It's two bedrooms and has a garden, which will be perfect with the dog!  So, this weekend we will be going out and buying a few things for the house to get a start on furnishing it!