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- Dag 3
- zaterdag 12 juli 2025 om 18:43
- ☀️ 24 °C
- Hoogte: Zeeniveau
NederlandHoofddorp52°17’29” N 4°42’7” E
Dyslexics, nil.
12 juli, Nederland ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C
Welcome one, welcome all, back to Mount Olympus!
Today was rather a chill day (or would have been if it weren’t for Lily endlessly complaining). In summary, I awoke at, maybe 11, and did absolutely nothing until 11:30 at which point I woke up mum and dad.
We began to get ready, and I wrote yesterday’s blog (all my attempted time management came to nothing, surprise surprise), and Lily got increasingly irritable as she got hungrier.
We then realised that Tate was not awake.
Dad, in a valiant effort to change this fact, said “what’s that? Huynjin outside our hotel?! Bang Chang on the roof!!” Which I found hilarious.
Tate eventually made it out of bed, and got ready, and we were off to conquer the challenges that would face us on this coming day. We left at 12:21 (another palindrome), and with a swing in our already decidedly swingy steps, we made our way up to the ticket scanners, up to the station, up to the announcement board, before promptly going back down to the ticket scanners because we were in the wrong place.
But we did find the right train eventually, however at some point dad was talking about their systems, I said “well that’s stupid,” and everyone thought I was talking about dad and he was rather offended.
Once on the train, we sat and laughed and did nothing for a while, happy as clams, and then…
Disaster struck.
In the form of mother.
Sometimes, at seemingly random intervals, with no warning, mum will ask to see our screen time. Any child who has been in such a situation understands the abstract, but nonetheless pure, terror that struck down my sisters and I (with the exception of Lily, who is an adult, and who also has no concept of solidarity it seems (later on she told our parents that we were all on our phones, which was not the case; Allegra was reading, Olivia was napping, and I was quietly listening to the Hamilton soundtrack). Anyway.) and Allegra, the first unlucky victim, handed over her phone as Olivia and I shot sympathetic looks but frantically checked our times.
It was bad.
But upon arrival at the station, we realised we had a half hour walk before arriving at our brunch place. Lily just about died upon hearing this, and decided to speed walk.
A sight to behold.
It was as if all the inhabitants of Paris (notoriously fast walkers) possessed my sister. It was like I’ve never seen before: she weaved seamlessly through tourists and tables; she smoothly stepped between poles and trees; she seemed effortless in her speed and precision. And, it would seem that she not only inherited the speed from Parisians, but also their unstoppable disgruntlement at literally everything: loudly complaining about tourists despite being one herself.
And that unstoppable force met an immovable object when we passed the hotel where mum and dad got engaged, and we had to turn back and take a photo. Of course.
But then Lily and I headed forward, I tried to learn from her for next year, and so we sped through Amsterdam as the others got to see a great sight: Prik, the gay club that Colin goes into in the Amsterdam episode of Ted Lasso. I was sooo jealous. Thankfully they got a picture.
But we made it to the lunch place, well brunch I suppose, and honestly the food was quite tasty, I drowned my pancake in chocolate sauce, it was bad.
But so delicious.
In the streets of Amsterdelphia, which we wandered for the rest of the afternoon, I tripped about a hundred times. No one else tripped, but I kept slipping and tripping and I don’t know why. We visited a tulip market. We entered two english bookstores, in one of which Allegra bought a “blind date with a book”, which is a wrapped up book with only a brief description of what the book is about, so you don’t know what you’re buying.
Based on the maybe four indications, Lily made a guess that it was Dance of Thieves, a book Allegra already has. Allegra refused to unwrap her book.
Mum and dad concluded that they weren’t enamoured with Amsterdam, and Lily wholeheartedly agreed, but I was completely of the opposing ideology. I was already planning my move in to an Amsterdam house, student life, I mean, I have never felt more at peace and relaxed in a place.
That could have been all the second hand weed that I was inhaling, but potayto potahto..
After making some jokes (such as max vercappen, or dudududu, niet instappen), we headed to our final destination: a library. Lily was scandalised that we didn’t know joe and the juice. Does anyone know joe and the juice? Anyway.
In the library, no one wanted to visit it, but Mum wanted to, and seemed rather sad that no one would go with her, so I volunteered.
It was fairly boring. I mean. It’s a library.
But as we came downstairs, defeated, mum turns to me and says, “let’s tell them it was really cool”, and I say, “yeah. It was awesome. There was a waterfall.”
We shared a conspiratorial laugh.
So we showed up, like “yeah, there was a viewing deck, and a waterfall, and they were serving like, little free drinks and some pancake stuff” and everyone was sooo annoyed that we had to tell the truth.
But me and mum laughed. It was worth it.
After that, it was train home, thankfully we were near the station. We picked out a magnet from the shop inside, and got on our train. It was at the terminus, so we had to wait, and while we waited, Allegra opened her “blind date with a book”, and, lo and behold, it was Dance of Thieves. Lily supremacy. Allegra annoyance: she already has this book, in hardback.
But then unhappiness grew as the train we were sitting in got cancelled, and we had to switch to a train leaving in 20 minutes.
We still managed to get seats. We are the best.
Luckily this train did leave, and not much happened. The only thing I wrote in my notes of things to include was the moment I began to ask “is it fair-“ and Allegra cuts me off, saying “no. There’s a life lesson for you!” And we all laughed.
And we complained about tourists. Yes, we know we are tourists.
No, that will not cause us to refrain.
Oh, and there was definitely a strong critique of manspreading.
When we got back to the hotel, we relaxed, and this was the moment spoken about earlier, where I listened to Hamilton, Allegra read, etc.
I also decided to learn morse code, and as I write this blog now, I can recite the entire alphabet. It is so fun, and sadly, like everything that interests me, my sisters hate when I talk about it.
Allegra was right. Life isn’t fair.
We then got back up to go out and get some dinner, because the hotel doesn’t have room service. After taking the bus, we picked an Italian restaurant, which was called Christiani’s.
Two things you should know about Allegra is that she is hilarious, and probably dyslexic.
As we walked into the place, she says “Christians 1, atheists nil”. Because they won us over, you see. However, we were turned down, and had to walk of shame back out. Allegra comedically says, “Christians 2, atheists nil”. We then inform her that it is called Christiani’s, at which point she questions her entire existence, and says in wonderment, “damn. Christiani’s 1, dyslexics nil”.
It was all in the timing. Maybe you had to be there. In any case, Allegra is hilarious and dyslexic.
We ended up getting takeaway vegan burgers and nachos for me, wandered around a supermarket (Lily concluded that since they had a wide selection of beer, Amsterdam might not be so bad), then headed home. We realised we didn’t have a bottle opener, but dad impressed us all by opening it on a lamp.
As we ate, we watched Ted Lasso, as always an amazing show, and then had a yummy desert of chocolate cheesecake from a supermarket.
We were fairly chill as I began to write this blog, but sadly tomorrow morning we have to get up really early and so mum and dad made us pack our clothes.
One thing about my sisters is that they are not organised.
It was chaos.
But somehow we managed, and then it was off to bed as I wrote this here blog (not my best, but damn am I tired) and the twins talked and Lily (can you guess it?) watched f1 (you guessed it!!) telling me about the worst of the crashes, and talking about our fave, Sir Lewis Hamilton (who, we looked up, was knighted by the Prince of Wales in 2022 when he was 36, though not the youngest; Andy Murray the tennis player was 29. However, the youngest person who received damehood was the sailor Ellen MacArthur, at 28 years old, so take that, men. Anyway funfact.)
And so this is where we pause our trek up Mount Olympus, folks.
Debate of the day: is manspreading rude or understandable? Is it a double standard?
Bye family!!!Meer informatie
ReizigerA little bit of both, man-spreading can be chill
ReizigerI AN REALLY FUNNY
ReizigerAnd dyslexic
ReizigerDann and I are both dyslexic. Dex is probably dyslexic. .. I did have trouble spelling the word dyslexic as I wrote this, but none the less -Dyslexics are the best!
ReizigerIt has to be said