Zwolle

On Tuesday, I got an email that my residence permit was ready and that I had to go to Zwolle, about an hour away by train, to pick it up. Conveniently, Wednesday was our first day off! I slept late and enjoyed a bit of a lazy SUNNY morning, then headed to the train station. There, I ran into the other North American girls (one from the US, one from Canada) who also had to get their permits. We hopped on the train and were off.  It's a straight ride to Zwolle, so we relaxed until the ticket checker came and we discovered that the Canadian girl's ticket had absolutely vanished. We checked everywhere! The ticket later mysteriously showed up in the Zwolle station all on its own...But the ticket guy didn't come back around before we got to Zwolle, so all was well. We had to go to a boring industrial area near the station to grab the permits, but now I'm officially a resident of the Netherlands!

I had checked the map and decided that the rest of Zwolle might be fun to explore for the rest of the nice sunny afternoon, so we (just the other US girl and me-Canada had to go) headed into town. So glad we did! It was a really cute town in a classically European way-small windy streets with cute buildings and nice squares and churches.  We had a nice outdoor lunch in a shopping district and then wandered all over town. We also stopped for olliebollen, which are basically large balls of fried dough covered in powdered sugar, very much in the funnel cake style. Delicious!

I really loved Zwolle. It felt very different from Groningen, which I think has decided it wants to be a big city (since it is the largest one in the area) and so doesn't really feel cute and small and European the way Zwolle did. I do, however, need to explore more of Groningen before I can pass final judgment on it. I just need some free afternoons! This whole going to school in Europe thing is really getting in the way of my ability to just be in Europe.