My day in Utrecht was a rainy one, but I think the rain was almost a blessing. It stopped me from frantically checking sights off a tourist list. Instead, I chose to duck into the small shops, people watch with a tea under an awning, and take in the sights and sounds of this lively town.

The day before, when I told my colleague I chose Utrecht because it looked like a cute little town, he laughed. Utrecht is a city in Holland, and many people I talked to called it a small Amsterdam. It’s a university town, so there were a lot of college kids. It didn’t seem super touristy, which I liked.

I started my day at the flower market. Every Saturday, vendors come out and sell every different type of flower you can imagine. And, since Holland is the land of flowers, they were all so cheap. 15 peonies for 5€! Tulips were even cheaper! It made me so sad that I couldn’t take a bunch of flowers back with me.

After the market, I checked out the local shops along the canals. A lot of the shops and restaurants have store fronts on the street and back up to canals.

The people were super friendly. The language is a bit like German, so a few of the words were recognizable, but I also picked up some French and Italian sounds when they talked.

One thing I noticed was that, even in the rain, the Dutch continued to ride their bikes. I saw people riding and smoking, riding and holding an umbrella, riding and holding a tuba case; at one point, this very large woman in a long dress and high heels was biking beside me, and I was walking faster than she was biking. At that point, how does riding a bike make sense??
These people love their bikes. I was told that the Dutch don’t like the Germans because they took their bikes and rode them into Germany during the war (meanwhile, my German colleagues had never heard this before!).

I let myself get lost in the city, relaxed and absorbed the culture.