NETHERLANDS

Well, this seems like an appropriate place to begin with the first post of a travel blog I've been meaning to launch for a really long time.

So, here we go with... The Netherlands. 
This beautiful, lush, fortuitous, bountiful, glorious land is becoming increasingly mesmerising to me by the week, and I have been here for over a year now.

It's probably safe to say that if you have chosen to be an expat somewhere, it is because you fell in love with that place, and - like a romantic love affair - decided after spending a little time with it that you would rather stay than fly back to your native home. This is how I, too, found myself living as a resident in Holland, and how I have discovered myself setting up shop here, starting a new indefinite chapter of life and... being really freaking happy, actually. 

There is no way for me to choose just one area of this thriving, vast, Dutch country to blog about, so I'll just talk about this weekend. (A note that I will attempt to tackle Amsterdam another day, when I have twice as much caffeine running through my veins and the energy to spell check the crap out of this blog).

Destinations: Hilversum - > Muiderberg -> Loosdrecht.

Travel Tools: Two Road Bikes, one cell phone with a map on it, two helmets, and a Canon.

Companion: A very tall Belgian man named Bruno. My inner soundtrack repeating Dutch music lessons intended for five-year-olds on a loop. I killed that one somewhere in Naarden...

This was one of my favorite weekends since moving here last June, because it was filled with sight seeing we did by accident, on the way to seeing the sights we planned to on purpose. That, my friends, is the best way I've found to experience the world: Setting out to see some of it intentionally, taking in the obvious sights, but being moved by the surprising ones no one necessarily brags about along the way. 

On Saturday, Bruno and I set out with our water bottles filled and our hearts excited on our bikes around noon from Hilversum, Netherlands, where he lives. Hilversum is a little village town neighbored by Hilversum Media Park, and Hilversum Sport Park - where the Nike European Headquarters are (and where, coincidently, many of my friends work). A lot of young people and families work and play in Hilversum, there are plenty of shops along the lines of H&M and Douglas (a store similar to Sephora), many great restaurants, a night scene, and a nice movie theatre. It is a magical town surrounded by deep woods to run and bike through (or just take a stroll), farmland you can really investigate and get to know like it's your own back yard, and lines of the prettiest homes I've ever seen, along picturesque canals. If you like the calm and quiet of the countryside, with an easy walk to markets and great faster-paced living, this is a total gem.

Those summer vibes in Hilversum, Netherlands.

Okay, so we got on our bikes and pedaled about 15 kilometers towards Muiderberg (pronounced MOW der Beh-rg), stopping along the way when we came across an empty arsenal fortress overlooking the water in Naarden-Vesting (Het Arsenal)...

Feeling on top of the world.

A number of times on the route, I felt like we were in a mirror image of our vacation with my parents to Camden, Maine, last month. Naarden, especially, made me think of that with its thousands of ships parked next to the harbor. Bruno and I continued on to Muiderberg and had lunch at a place called the Zeemeeuw (the Sea Bird/ Sea Gull), where we had iced tea and sandwiches (pulled pork for him, grilled veggies and humus for me), and I mused for the 50th time about what it might be like to live there. This is becoming a constant thought process for me: "Maybe I could live HERE... what would that be like?"

De Zeemeeuw. Not a sea meow, like I thought at first glance. 

The big surprise for me was as we biked along the farmland after lunch, and Bruno yelled up "Look to your right, it's a castle!" He said it so calmly that I thought I'd look up to see a small castle-type structure or fort, but instead I was greeted by rows of cows with a backdrop of THIS magnificent thing: 

The best view I was able to get with my phone. I highly recommend you check this out for yourselves if you can.

This was the Muiderslot Castle, set in Muiden, which is one of the better-known castles in the Netherlands and has been shown in TV shows depicting the Middle Ages. So, no wonder it took my breath away! 

For me, this was a big amazing shock. The only downside (if you can call it that) of dating someone who is a native European, and used to seeing massive, ancient castles sitting casually in the middle of town, is that they don't necessarily grasp the shock you feel and babble about for the rest of the day when you catch that same view. I kept making "Princess Bride" references, or quoting Narnia, and he kind of chuckled and glanced at me with a look on his face that said, "You're cute."It's got to be fun for him, though, getting these responses from me. 

With my insistence, we biked all the way to the ... castle... I gawked more at its massiveness, and then once we realized there was an entrance fee we decided just to bike around it and watched from nearby.

The town itself around the castle was stunningly pretty, and the first time this year that I really felt like it is now Autumn. The trees were shedding little golden leaves onto the cobblestone roadways below, and the small ancient houses, perfectly renovated yet showing their age and dating back to 1600s, 1800s, and anywhere before or after, were bustling with locals and with visitors from outside. We biked alongside them on yet another canal, crossing bridges to get a better view of the huge historic structure, and joking about what it must be like to live there along the way.

Then we looped home and spent the evening cooking mussels (by chef Bruno, who always amazes me), chocolate cake with plums sautéed in Goldschlager (don't judge me. It turned out to be amazing), and cooking granola while we watched "The Big Bang Theory" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Then we passed out because, biking.

Yesterday, it was another day of biking and Bruno had planned a specific loop for the day. We set out on the new course, this time heading for the Lake. I am a sucker for any view including bodies of water (or castles), and this route was absolutely perfect. We passed several towns shouting "Tot Ziens!" over our shoulders every ten minutes as each sign indicated we were leaving another one, and finally there it was: the lake - a beautiful water-side town called Loosdrecht. (Lows Drekht).

We started biking past water on all sides. The sun was shining down on us like it was the middle of summer but the air was crisp, a perfect September day, and we stopped at the beach to take it all in. Here, I decided to take my first ever pic on a "real camera",  (I am obsessed with logging my travels on Instagram and I think a simple iPhone camera does fine, but I had some fun playing with the clarity and definition that came from our Canon lens), and started aiming around me to snap pictures. Since Bruno had only packed the long lens, it was a bit tricky, but I managed to get one or two shots as we snacked on leftover Chocolate cake and grapes.

Taking in the view. Bruno gets credit for this one, along with his long lens. 

As I sat there, watching little kids practice football (soccer) on the beach and listening to the birds and the wind around us, I felt a moment of grounded calm. I am an active person, and sitting still has never been my strong suit. But here, it was possible to do so with joy. We gathered our stuff up and biked further into Breukelen - the fanciest town I've ever seen with houses that looked like universities they were so huge. We biked and biked, seemingly into a whole other country, yet the farmlands and pathways held a sense of familiarity somehow.

Taking a picture of this windmill with a long lens was slightly difficult...

Somewhere along the road, Bruno suggested we stop at a tiny old pub on a little street near the farmland, for a drink and some snacks. We wound up sitting outdoors, drinking fruity beers and eating croquette snacks (a very common Dutch appetizer), and I felt the kind of dusty, worn out happiness I have always loved from days of long biking or walks in the woods.

The beers made racing each other home to Hilversum a whole different level of difficulty, but we ended the day sore, tired, and grateful for the bikeways of the Netherlands.

There are many ways to sightsee in Holland. You can get a car (or rent one), hop on a tram or bus or train. But if you want to really see the land - the hidden narrow pathways that lead to countryside dating back to the 1200s - the way to do this is without a doubt by bike. You can sweep by these areas without ever feeling like you are intruding. You're invited into those different lifestyles, welcomed by the trees and tall grass and cows. You get to feel really Dutch for a day, even if - like me - you only know the language in 5 year-old song form at first. But best of all, you get to feel like you are seeing your potential future: living in an old home on a canal near a castle. Or on farmland raising your own crops. Or, if it's your thing, owning a coffee shop or small pub in the quieter side of the country. You can pick your adventure, just like we did, and that, to me, is the best kind of traveling.