In Bloem

Well, after an absolutely crazy week exploring Amsterdam, I woke up Friday morning and, more or less on a whim, travelled to Utrecht. After a half hour train ride, in which I only managed to spot 1 windmill, I found myself wandering through the confusingly large Utrecht Centraal Station, with my life on my back and not a single responsibility in the world.



So, my first day without booked accomodation, alone in a completely strange city, country, and continent. Made me happy to be alive! As luck would have it, Friday was a national holiday, Liberty day, and so was one of the few days of the year in which the Information Centre was closed! In the end though it was almost disappointingly easy to find a hostel, as the 3rd place I checked had a bed free. And as it turned out, 24/7 free food, including a whole fridge full of FREE CHEESE. 'Nuff said.

Joined forces with some of the great dudes from the hostel here on Friday night and went and checked out the "Bevrijding Festival". After some bad music on stage there was a semi-spectacular fireworks show... I say 'semi-' because I'm sure the fireworks would have been awesome if the crowd could have actually seen them through the trees that stood in the way! But everybody cheered and celebrated in animated Dutch fashion so it didn't really matter.



After a nice weekend partying and cafe-cruising I headed out Monday morning to a place called Keukenhof, famous for its tulip fields! Spot the tourist... Was a great day, choppsed up on the train to Leiden, caught a bus to Keukenhof, and hired myself a bike for the afternoon. Things are starting to warm up around here now, so it was a mighty pleasant afternoon in the sunshine. Finally made my way back to Leiden and stopped by a gigantic windmill to chat with a local student before heading back to Utrecht for some cheese.

Finally, here are the results of today's critical pub-crawl, as carried out by messrs Sam, Benedict, Riccardo and myself. Scores averaged over all four judges results, based upon the following criteria:

• Fizz
• Body
• Taste
• Head
• Temperature
• Foam Taste

Photos courtesy of Ben...

Beer 1: Dommelsch			46.6 / 100
Beer 2: Duvel (8.5%!)			60.0 / 100
Beer 3: Hoegaarden			61.25 / 100
Beer 4: Palm			71.25 / 100
Beer 5: Hertog Jan			41.25 / 100
Beer 6: Dommelsch round 2			52.5 / 100

Feel free to draw your own conclusions...
Tot snel!