Groningen

Groningen is a college town in the northern part of the Netherlands. Why was it our fall break destination? Because my amazing friends Charlotte and Hal - Hal was my analytical chemistry professor in college, and Charlotte was my adventure partner when they lived for a year in Zurich - are spending a 3-month mini-sabbatical there. I was excited to see them. 

We took the FlixBus from Bremen. I paid a bit extra for the very front seats on the bus so we'd have a good view on the drive, but I wouldn't do that again - there was very little to see and mostly we felt like we were eavesdropping on the conversation of the two bus drivers up front. 

News flash: it's flat in these parts. We did see lots of windmills.

This is how amazing Charlotte and Hal are: they met us personally at the bus stop and took us straight to a pastry shop. 

Cake!

And for a walk around Groningen, and to our hotel, and then they hosted us at their place for a very delicious takeaway-Indonesian dinner. No good deed goes unpunished, and all this hospitality was cause for discontent among the teenager in the group (cue grumpy voice: "If we're just going to hang out with *your* friends why did *I* have to come?"). Luckily it turned out that both Groningen and later Borkum were great places to send said teenager off to explore on his own when he was feeling age-appropriately frustrated about being "forced" to hang out with old people. Also, I should have taught my children social skills.

In any case, Groningen. So young, so hip, so Dutch. So many things to like. The Forum - 6 floors of indoor public space! Snack food vending machines with hot food, including Groningen's signature dish, the aaierbal (a boiled egg fried in curry-flavored batter - delicious and substantial)! Coffee shops open past 5 pm!! And of course charming buildings and canals, and lots of public art, and a rather stunning train station.

Some random cool details:

We spent a good long time contemplating this sun dial, which would tell you all sorts of things, if only there were any sun.

A real estate agency for ships! Check out Fikkers.nl!

Hot chocolate at breakfast. Forget those silly packs of powder, this is how it should be done.

Cool tiles.

When you visit Groningen, you do take the non-negligible risk being of run over by an errant cyclist. But we survived unscathed.

Charlotte writes two blogs, Claremontography and Glamping in Switzerland. Which is to say I'm going to defer to her pictures of Franeker and Leeuwarden, where we ventured on the train after we'd explored [at least the center of] Groningen.

This amazing sandwich at Barrevoets in Leeuwarden (blue cheese, grapes, smoked almonds, fig and date vinegar, and lamb's lettuce) made my year, food-wise. Dutch bread is so good!

And as for how things came out on the travel-during-puberty front, let's just compare and contrast these two pictures:

Charlotte and Hal [insert all the heart emojis here]

Chris with the hat he got in Hannover on the way home [ditto]

Maybe old people are cool *sometimes*...