Zwolle and Kampen

I started today. I went to the train station and activated my eurail pass. So starting today I have 3 months of train travel to play with. I debated waiting to activate it until the end of the month so the 3 months would get me through to the end of June but I wanted to go somewhere and, heck, if I need to buy a 15 day pass for the last half of June I will.

I didn't want to go anywhere too far and I dawdled in the morning getting go so I knew it had to be somewhere close. I checked my travel book and figured Zwolle would work, and should I get through town quickly I could head to Kampen another town close to Zwolle.

I'd love to tell you about the history or what I saw but I didn't really read much more than "this is a great location for a day trip." Sometimes reading about everywhere just dampers the excitement of exploring. Sometimes it makes what you see more meaningful, but whatever.

Being Monday, most of the stores were closed and the streets were pretty dead. That was ok with me though as I wasn't planning on doing any shopping and dead streets means I can take pictures of things without people in the way.

The weather is really warming up. I feel like Winter was here one day and the Spring arrived. It was just suddenly nice one day and the flowers started to bloom. Strange. I'm expecting that it'll get cool again but I don't know if that will really happen.

Both cities - well I don't know if Kampen qualifies for a city - were quite adorable and generally small. It was nice to just be able to walk around somewhere new and so easily.

One great thing about handing the people who check tickets a eurail pass is they immediately know you're traveling - I got a few "you're far from home," "what are you doing all the way over here?" kind of comments, and english immediately, what a treat. ha.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to Rotterdam, its about 2.5 hours and one train transfer away. It was destroyed by bombing in the war so I hear its quite modern from the rebuilding. Near is Kinderdijk a UNESCO World Heritage sight where you can see windmills in the Dutch country side and I guess the best way to get there is via boat. Its also supposed to be 15 tomorrow down there. I'm looking forward to it.

As for my weekend, I didn't do much. Some homework, all my laundry - I really need more clothes because I have to do laundry all the time - (what a hassle), watched copious amounts of Mad Men (season 3 gets really good), bought groceries, tried to book hostels in Normandy for next weekend but couldn't (frustrating), etc. Nothing much else than hanging out accomplishing nothing.

Here are a few pics from my day (check facebook for more!):