The Netherlands (Part II) - Utrecht & The Hague
When we arrived in Utrecht, and found Maud (who Matt had spent a bit of time talking to in Rome - I don't think I'd even met her then... 
), she took us out to our hostel, which being the absolutely wonderful person she is, had booked for us. And it was a proper hostel again - with other backpackers! Yay! Was a good feeling . Odd thing was when they gave us the intro spiel, we got the “if you want to smoke grass,go out the back”, and it was just part of the intro. Wasn't really expecting it - a bit of a surprise.
Maud gave us the tour of the town - she ended up taking us places that she'd never been before. Admittedly, she's only lived there for 3 months, but we've seen as much of the place as she has . Even though you associate the canals mainly with Amsterdam, nearly every town has them, and Utrecht is no exception (apparently over a 1/3 of the Netherlands is below sea level...). A few pretty coolbuildings, but nothing super exciting about the place. But, it was good to be there with a local, and also to have someone other than Matt to talk to . That night we ended up heading out (with another Rome survivor - Hanneke (pronounced Hannaka)) to a student union party somewhere, which was a lot of fun - pity about the 2am curfew at the hostel.
<P align=center>
</P>
<P align=center>Hanneke, Matt and Maud at the student union bash</P>
<P align=left>While we were there, we thought we’d better make the effort to go and vote in the Aussie election. So, we jumped on the train, and headed down to the embassy in Den Haag (aka The Hague). Left the station, and went “not another new city…”. So even though it was a new place, with probably a few cool things to see, we walked pretty much straight to the embassy, voted (now that was exciting), then straight back to the station. We got told off for not going to the beach there, but I really couldn’t be bothered… So, it wasn’t all that much of an exciting day. But after that, Maud, Matt and I went out to some bar for a while, which was fun. Matt piked pretty early, so Maud and I had a fairly deep conversation for a while. Was good.</P>
<P align=left>And then, it was time for the big cheese - Amsterdam!</P>
<P align=left>PS - if, once again, you’re bored, check out the photos of Utrecht, and photos from The Hague.</P>