Amsterdam – A Magical City

Some cities have magic in them, but the magic will always be different for each person who experiences it. To me, Amsterdam has a certain kind of magic that is hard to put into words. It’s not about being high, although that can certainly make the experience into something special for sure. It’s something else.

It’s the canals and the houseboats. Where people live on water and have a different outlook on life. A city where you’re always close to water.

It’s the crowded streets. The vibe from all the people, and not just the Dutch, but there are people from all over the world. As you walk through the alleys you hear so many different languages, and see so many different and beautiful faces.

It’s the restaurants, the cafés, and the vegan food. A city packed with cozy places to sit down for a meal, a coffee or a smoke.

It’s the atmosphere in this city that makes me smile just thinking back on it.

I guess magic is the only right word to really describe it after all!

During the next couple of days, I will be posting some reviews and other tidbits about my Amsterdam trip, and I can’t wait to share it all with you guys! The video from the trip will be up sometime later this week too, so stick around for that 💛

Now I’m going to get myself a much needed good night’s sleep!

Do you have a city that’s magical to you? Let me know in the comments 😊

 

 

Home is where the heart is!

I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and my parents moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I don’t really have one particular house that I think of as my childhood home. I have my hometown that I’m very fond of, and I always enjoy coming back to it, but there are other places that feel more like home to me. The weird thing is that the places where I’ve traveled to that feel the most like home are not places that I have any relation to. It’s more of a feeling that just comes over me whenever I’ve visited the first time, and that feeling persists for every visit.

London has always been like that for me. Every time I arrive in London city, I get this feeling of utter bliss. It’s heartwarming in a way I find hard to explain.

Copenhagen is the same.

I remember having that very same feeling when I used to travel to Amsterdam with my dad as a kid, and the very same feeling came over me when I arrived here yesterday. I’ve now been here for almost two days, and it feels like being in love. I small all the time, my heart beats a little bit faster, and it feels like I don’t have a worry in this world.

So maybe the saying is completely right, but for me, I travel with my heart on my sleeve and sometimes the destination is a perfect match. Maybe I have a stronger connection to some places more than others because it was somehow meant to be. I’m a strong believer in everything happening for a reason, and I think that some cities and I were meant for each other.

So here I find myself in Amsterdam, totally, utterly, unbelievably in love with a city. A place I hope to someday in the future be able to call my home for a while.

For now, it is home though, for a few more days at least❤️

That Airport Feeling

There’s something so magical about airports to me, and I marvel at the wonderful feeling of it whenever I experience it. It fascinates me that this feeling never goes away!

Maybe it’s the strong feeling of Wanderlust that I always carry that keeps this magic alive. Knowing that being at an airport is the first checkpoint for a new adventure to a destination far from home. It’s especially exciting whenever I’m headed to a place where I haven’t ventured before.

This time around, I’m not traveling to a completely new destination, but in many ways, it will be a totally new experience. I’ve traveled quite a few times to Amsterdam as a kid, together with my dad. The last time I was there was about 18 years ago. I remember it as a place where I felt very much at home, and the vibe was fantastic. Maybe it’s an unconsciously feeling of going back to my roots? I do have a Dutch last name, but it goes so far back in the family history that we have no other connection to the Netherlands, other than feeling at home there and carrying the name. But even so, I have come to love the language while learning it, and I always seem to easily connect with the people and now I get to experience it as an adult for the first time. Maybe my Dutch heritage is what made my dad and I live on a boat when I was a kid and has me dreaming of living on a houseboat on the Amsterdam canals (which I totally plan on doing sometime in the future) while being a free soul and live off of my creativity? Who knows?!

But here I am now, ready to finally explore and experience Amsterdam in a new way and I’m all giddy with excitement! I’ve been wanting to go back for such a long time!

So I’m sitting here at the airport, filled with Wanderlust and excitement while I’m taking in all of the impulses of the airport around me. The people, the sounds, the music, the coffee and the smells. But most of all, I’m very mindful of the feeling of gratitude for being able to travel on a trip like this. I feel incredibly lucky and for every time that I go on a new adventure like this, it becomes more and more clear that I’m meant to wander and to explore. This is one of the many ways that I grow, and like I’ve mentioned, 2018 is all about growth! So let’s go on a new adventure!

Zie jullie in Amsterdam💛

Dutch Has Taken Over!

Well, since I wrote the post about learning Dutch, I guess I could say that it has become somewhat of an obsession. My home has been taken over by Dutch words and phrases. Just to get these words into my everyday life, I have posted the words on lots of my everyday items. I even put notes inside my cupboards where I’ve added certain types of food and beverages.

Oh, and I finally got Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen as an audiobook as well! And I got Wonder by R.J. Palacio in Dutch.

I’ve been pretty active with my Duolingo as well, and I got a free audiobook on Audible called Learn Dutch: Word Power 101 by Innovative Language Learning. You can click on the cover photo if you want to know more about it.

So, saying that I’m taking this seriously might be the understatement of the year at this point. I have a tendency of getting kind of lost in projects that I’m passionate about, and this certainly is not an exception. It’s just a matter of keeping it up over time now!

I’ve already learned quite a bit, and now I’m really curious as to how quickly I could actually learn this language well enough to be able to communicate it. Not fluently! That would take a while for sure, but well enough to be understood and understand what’s being said.

I will keep posted! 

Een prettige dag! 

 

 

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Learning a New Language

For a while now, I’ve been using Duolingo to practice a new language. As you may have noticed, my last name isn’t all that Norwegian! But it is as common in the Netherlands as many of the most common Norwegian last names are.

My Dutch heritage (on my father’s side) goes pretty far back, and from what I know, none of us here in Norway can speak Dutch as of now. But I want to change that.

I started learning Dutch a few months back, and I’ve been doing it on and off. I need to get into a better routine of it, and I think one of the ways to do that is to listen to Dutch audiobooks and watch Dutch television. This has proven to be a bit more difficult to do than I first anticipated. First off, I can’t seem to download Dutch audiobooks on my Audible, which was a bummer.

My plan was to read and listen to the first Harry Potter book in Dutch. I bought the Kindle edition with that in mind, but haven’t been able to get my hands on the audiobook yet.

But as many of you know, I am going to Amsterdam in just a few weeks! There I intend to get my hands on some Dutch books, and keep on practicing. I don’t expect to be talking much Dutch while I’m there this time around, but I really want to try. So there might be some awkward video footage of me butchering Dutch words to be seen after the trip!

Do you have any tips for learning a new language? Any apps, games, books or movies you would recommend? Let me know 😊

Wens me geluk!