So in August I went to the SHA2017 hacker camp in the Netherlands. At the end of the camp, when it began to rain really badly, my friends and I decided to stay a night in Utrecht, an absolutely lovely city in the Netherlands, instead of being flooded out by the rains.
Unfortunately, I was not able to take very many photos (and cannot post any of the ones with friends in them without their permission) due to my phone battery being terrible, but I managed to get a few nice shots that I figured I'd share with you all.
Firstly, we have a windmill. Windmills are practically synonymous with the Netherlands, and while we were wandering around after a visit to a "coffee shop" named "Coffeeshop Pleasure" (where we picked up some beautiful shrubbery), we came across this magnificent example within a short distance of the city centre. We were a tiny bit stoned at this point, and it was an absolutely beautiful day, so we spent a while taking in its magnificence.
On our walk around, we stopped for a bit of lunch, at some random cafe, and I managed to get this beautiful Moroccan mint tea. I have become quite a fan of this kind of tea lately, it really hits the spot of "nicely refreshing", and is really pleasant to look at :)
On our travels, we came across an Irish pub named "Mick O'Connells". These folks had a decent few examples of some of my beloved pub-sign art going on, so here are some examples of it for your amusement.
Naturally, me being a big fan of Guinness, and this being an Irish bar, I absolutely had to do a bit of Quality Assurance to ensure that their pints of the black stuff were up to scratch. It was a fairly decent pint, poured properly, seemed like the beer-lines were kept clean, just took marginally longer than usual to settle, which usually indicates the gas mix needs tweaking.
The bar also had a nice, cozy interior and was super relaxed, it also had a nice indoor smoking room. They didn't seem to mind one of my friends rolling up a small joint to smoke outside (he didn't want to smoke it inside as that would be taking the piss.)
For dinner, we went to a nice place called "Gauchos Grill" on the canal, for some absolutely bloody amazing steaks. The picture legitimately does not do the steaks deliciousness any justice. It was pricey, but it was absolutely worth it. Sides/etc not pictured, but it was paired with a delicious wine. I am not usually a wine drinker, but whatever the hell it was that they gave us a bottle of was well worth the while.
Finally, before leaving to go to Rotterdam to get a ferry, we visited a tobacconist to stock up on tobacco supplies, as they are vastly cheaper in the Netherlands than they are in the UK. So I treated myself to some decent and incredibly inexpensive cigars as a celebration of a totally unplanned adventure that worked out totally fine.
I'll probably be doing more travel around the place soon, and really hope to revisit Utrecht for longer than ~24h in the near future, as it is a fantastically beautiful city with loads to explore. It also has excellent nightlife, probably because there is loads of young people around with an enormous student population.