To the cheese farm

On the way to the Oudekerk aan de IJssel (Authentic Dutch Cheese Farm), the bus driver made a wrong turn down this tiny one way street.  The streets here are surrounded by buildings and even narrower than back home, so you can imagine what this was like.  He finally made it out, but he couldn't take the turn he needed, so we had to make this 12 point turn or something.  It took about 20 minutes and we had a crowd watching.  It was enjoyable for me.  During all this commotion we were watching Lethal Weapon 3.  Those are really good movies!

Upon arrival at the cheese farm, we were all taken back by how small the farm actually was.  I was expecting a huge cheese farm, but this was basically one small house with a barn.  We went inside and they gave us coffee or juice and we sat through a home made movie on how they make cheese.  The owner was there and narrated the movie as it progressed.  After the movie was over they passed around some different cheeses and then they opened the floor to questions.   Of course somebody asked something about "cutting the cheese."  You can see what kind of people we have on this trip hahaha.

I guess you had to be there.

After the movie we went out for a tour of the barn and we got to see the actual basin where they make cheese.  I have pictures of it and also of some cheese in water.  Then we went to see the cows.  I sat down next to one to get a picture and it tried to lick my head.  Stupid cow!  Then I went to the gift shop and bought a little wheel of cheese.  I haven't eaten it yet, but I'll be sure to tell you how it is (its Gouda farm cheese which is different from just Gouda cheese which is produced in a big factory). 

Oh I forgot to mention something about the beach.  While I bought a huge tennis ball another kid bough a fart machine and another one bought some big glasses with a fake nose on them.  We the fart thing was probably the most fun we have all had.  We would walk around and talk about something right next to people, and then we would make it fart and my goodness it was a good time!  I guess you had to be there.

After the cheese factory it was off to downtown Utrecht, which is known for its large student population.  We checked into our new hostel and MY LORD!  This was terrible.  It was run by a bunch of hippies.  They had tons of instruments just lying around for the traveling bands and all kinds of other weird stuff.  They had drums, guitars, mandolins, and other weird instruments that I had no idea what they were.  So we got a nice 10 person room and everybody else was in a 30 person room or something like that.  We even had a private bathroom.  Then the hippies realized that they didn't have enough room, so they put 3 more bunks in our room which made it very cramped.  Plus it was random people we didn't know.  We we had to hang out in this hole in the wall for an hour before we left for dinner.

They always tell us the walk is going to be 10 minutes, when in reality it is usually longer.  So we walked and walked and finally came to this restaurants.  It was an italian greek restaurant but it didn't not seem to have the seating capacity for a party of 70.  But they moved people around and finally we all got a seat.  Luckily we sat with on of the dutch people so they could translate the menu for us.  I ordered this random greek dish which was about 2 pounds of meat (including pork and gyro meat).  It was really good.  We asked the dutch girl what they typical jokes were about americans and all we got was that we were loud and we could only speak one language.  That was kind of interesting.

After this it was off to the bars.  We went to this first bar, but the music was only ok and so we left shortly after.  We ended up at this more upscale bar and we didn't really fit in.  So I decided to order a Whiskey Sour, but they didn't know how to make it so it turned into a Whiskey on the rocks.  Then when I got to the last sip, there was a fly or a bug of some sort in it.  I was discussed, but I didn't bother complaining.  So then we were off again to another bar.  This one was nice.  We had a couple tables and we actually sat around.  It was a lot of fun.  I talked to one kid about Arrested Development for a long time (its a TV show).

It was getting late so I started to walk back home.  When I got back there was 3 people I didn't know already home.  They just stared at me when I went in.  So that was awkward.  I just got ready for bed and put in my ear plugs because I knew everybody would be loud when they came home.  There was another american there who was talking about these breathe right strips.  Some italians were interested and tried them.  It was funny, but the kid I actually met a few days later and he brought his guitar from home and were going to have a nice little jam session sometime soon.

I fell asleep after a little while, but then of course I was waken up again later.