Day 15: Trip to Breda

Waking up this morning (okay, well at this point yesterday morning!) I looked out the window to see a fresh layer of snow upon the ground! "Finally". I had been expecting it to snow all week (according to Weather Channel.com).

Today I had planned to travel to the nearby town of Breda with my two travel pals, Bali (Singapore) and Mathea (Slovenia). This had been a long anticipated trip, as Breda is the town in the Netherlands with an IKEA! I've had a running list of things I need (okay, wanted) for my new room.

So we departed around 11am for the Tilburg West train station, a 5-minute walk from our Verbs apartments. The snow on the ground was too tempting, and we stopped for several minutes across the road to make snow angels and have a mini snowball fight. The "undisturbed snow" became a scatterplot  of footprints and angelic figures after we came across it.

We took the train to Breda, a 15-20 minute ride. It was nice to look out the windows of the train and see all the snowy fields, buildings and icy lakes...so much different than home! It was also nice, because the sun was out all day today, so it was relatively warm despite the snow!

After arriving at Breda, we visited the VVV (the Netherlands information center found in each city) nearby the train station, bought some postcards and got a map of the city. We headed toward the City Centre to take a look around. Breda is a quaint little town, known for its historic buildings (such as the castle) and nature. We first walked through a gorgeous park. Even though everything was covered in snow, it was quite a sight to see the expansive landscape, trees and wildlife.

Through the clearing, we came to the historic castle at Breda. Unfortunately, we were not able to enter it, as it is now a military academy. But, nonetheless, it was a sight to see! We also came across another magnificent Church (they seem to be plentiful here!) before stumbling upon the shops in the City's Centre. We roamed the streets for a bit and got a quick cup of coffee at the Netherland's version of Starbucks (at least according to us :-). Then we followed the street signs to the Breda Museum of Graphic Design. I really enjoyed this museum. It had some really fascinating history of graphic design in the Netherlands (in English as well as Dutch!) and gave me a new appreciation for the little things that I take for granite everyday, such as signs in the airport and grocery store logos.

We stopped in a few more shops and got a quick snack before heading down to our final destination and the highlight of our trip to Breda...IKEA!!! We took the bus to IKEA, since it is on the outskirts of the city, and it was snowing, and it was getting dark, and it was below freezing. We walked past yet another KFC and McDonalds on our way to the IKEA from the bus stop. It was so nice to be at IKEA. I felt like I was in Atlantic Station! Except I had been so excited all day to get a cinnamon bun at IKEA, only I realize that they do not make cinnamon buns at the IKEA in the Netherlands :-( This was a very upsetting realization, but we were able to find many of the things that we had wanted to buy at IKEA, so that made up for some of my disappointment! I purchased a small rug to jazz up my room and a pair of slippers.

Afterwards we headed back to the train station and our flats in Verbs. Mathea and I ran to Albert Heijn real quick and then joined Bali for some tasty (and warm!) pasta that she made for us. We have decided that we will take turns cooking for one another about once/week so we can enjoy each other's company and try each other's specialties! This should be interesting....

Tomorrow (actually today!) I plan on doing laundry, relaxing, attempting to jog/bike (in the snow), and  preparing for my first full week of classes in the Netherlands!