Tyara's Home

For many times I kept saying to myself "I need to write our summer holiday in Netherlands and France", but I was so lazy to do that haha. So, after a year, I decided to just write it out. My little brother (Afif) and I started our wonderful holiday exactly a year ago! Well, I intended to post it on August 3 since our flight was on that day, but I was so sick yesterday that I couldn't even sit and stare my laptop. Anyway, I did it. Here I wouldn't write many words, but posted pictures instead. I tried to explain or describe for what happened in the pictures :D

August 3-4, 2015
There's funny story when we're at Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Paris. We only had 1-hour transit to catch our flight to Schiphol Amsterdam, but only we knew that 1 hour from landing to boarding at CDG was not enough! The airport was really huge, and the security checks were many, so then when we arrived at our gate, it was closed! The funny thing was, I and my brother thought it's not open yet. Yes, we're ridiculous indeed, we knew haha, so we sat instead and took wefie (middle picture, above 'I amsterdam')! Then suddenly I realized it couldn't be still closed, so we asked the people at the gate to find out that it's already closed! Dang! Fortunately, we still could board, not missing our flight. Such a relieve!

After 2-hour flight from Paris to Amsterdam, we arrived! It's at Schiphol around 10.30 am, our family picked us up. L-R: Kevin, Me, Binda Uci, Amanda, Om Jan, Afif.

At home and wandered around in Veldhoven on the same day as our arrival, as it only took 1,5 hours from Schiphol to Veldhoven.

August 5, 2015
It was our mom's birthday, so my brother asked us to made birthday greeting on papers, and took the pictures in front of the house, then....

Happy BirthDay Mama

And after we finished our mission, we're cycling and having so much fun around Veldhoven: visiting Kevin's school, eating ice cream, playing at playground, and taking weird photos everywhere.

Those were the weird -and nice- pictures that we took :p

August 6, 2015

Amsterdam!!! So crowded here, really different compared to Veldhoven. We went by train by the way, and it's quite pricey. Here, we're having a very big lunch at chinese restaurant (we ordered a lot), shopping, walking around, buying french fries (the queuing is no joke), etc

Having coffee -and juice, and snack- time at Bijenkorf. Here we found wifi, finally!

August 7, 2015

We went to Eindhoven, visiting PSV Stadium, going to mall, having dinner, and playing at Funfair.

August 8, 2015

So, this is it! The legendary Windmill :p I mean, if you go to Holland, you seriously need to see the windmill, right? So here we were, in Rotterdam! It was seriously beautiful, the sun shined brightly with breezy wind. It was perfect!

It's Markthal, Rotterdam. After we finished our tour at the windmill, we had our dinner in this very artistic place. It was super cool and nice with sooooo many food! Couldn't be better!

On our way to go home, it's Feyenoord Stadium we passed by. The fancy thing was the horse, of course!

August 9-10, 2015
On August 9, we just stayed at home because we already spent a whole day yesterday in Rotterdam, and on August 10 we would go to Paris!!! So, we prepared everything we needed, such packing, and ready to go. We went to our hotel in Noisy le Grand (a city near Paris that we could easily commute by train/metro) by car for 5 hours, including having lunch at the rest area. However, we just parked the car at the hotel and wandered around Paris by walking or taking metro, and it was very very satisfying!

This was what my brother did at a hotel lobby, while we're having our tea time in the evening. No, he couldn't play the piano, if you're wondering.

August 11, 2015

Paris here and there: Pond des Arts, Metro, Champs-Élysées, Seine, Place de la Concorde, etc.

Louvre, of course!!! To be honest, for me Paris is not Eiffel Tower, it's Louvre. I mean, what I seriously want to visit when I go to Paris the most is always Louvre. So, my dream came true! I was soooooo happy that time haha :D Ah, and it's not far from the Notre Dame. We just went here walking from Notre Dame. You also would pass Pond des Arts while walking by the way.

Place du Carrousel and Tuileries Garden. It's very near from Louvre, you can say it's actually in the same location. So beautiful!

Tuileries Garden where you could relax and have your lunch. We had our sandwich here before went to Arc de Triomphe by foot. It was quite far from here, but we enjoyed walking along Champs-Élysées -it's around 2 km by the way.

From Arc de Triomphe, we went to Eiffel Tower!!! We took metro, though it's not far actually, but we're already tired after walking all day. We started from Notre Dame around 10 am, and here it's already about 3.30 pm. We arrived at the top of Eiffel at 6 pm haha.. Yes, we queued for 2 hours, and for going to the top you need around 30 minutes, queuing again at the 2nd floor. The struggle was real, I knew! Nevertheless, breathtaking, wasn't it?!

Seine, from the top of Eiffel Tower.

I couldn't describe how cool it was looking the city from here.

So, 2-hour queuing under a very bright sun was paid off. It was magical.

Not to forget taking a picture under it. And we had our fancy dinner with the Eiffel as a background. Coolest!

August 12, 2015

We spent our 3rd day in Paris in Sacré-Cœur.  You could enter the church by free since it's still used to pray. You need to go up to enter the church, but be careful at the top of it because there are people who offer you bracelet by forcing it to your wrist. Don't ever let them wear it to you! It's so hard to remove, so you have no choice but to pay it.

For you who's curious what's inside the Sacré-Cœur. It's so pretty and of course you can take picture, but sssstttt, be silent, people are praying. You also can join if you want to pray.

The very pretty Montmartre. It was my favorite place in Paris, located behind the Sacré-Cœur. It's an artistic place in Paris, though overall Paris is artistic, but this place has its own charm. We enjoyed our ice cream while looking around this place.

It was really crowded here, so many cafes, souvenir shops, and many things.

Painters and Paintings are everywhere here. All were sooooo good, but yes it's pricey. Ah, they also can make a portrait of you, your family, or just someone from a photo. I saw when the painter made a portrait of a person, and wow it resembled her so much.

A stair in Montmartre. See, how beautiful this place was! So, I actually ever saw this stair from a picture, stated it's in Paris and I saved it on my phone because I liked it so much. I said to my brother a day before how great it was if I could find this place while showing him a picture. Then, to my surprise, I found it! This was the picture I took, and it was the most satisfying thing happened.

August 13, 2015
We went back to Veldhoven this day and stayed at home, resting haha.

August 14 - 17, 2015
It's nothing special happened. We mostly spent our days at home, leasuring, watching movies, series, reality shows. It's actually because the weather, too, was not really nice. It was raining all day and mostly the temperature was 12-15 degree celcius. Going out was not really tempting. But, there's a day when we went shopping, and a day when we went to Eindhoven to eat out. Eindhoven was very near from Veldhoven, around 20 minutes by car.

August 18, 2015

We visited Kevin's and Amanda's school in Breda, to look their dorms, too. Then, as usual we walked around, on a rainy day. It's a very nice city, I love it so much! And that black board though, hilarious!

August 19, 2015

Amsterdam for the 2nd time. We took the boat tour, and it was an hour sail! The tour guide was explaining about many buildings that we passed by, not forget about the history. It was nice for around 40 minutes, after that, I was really, really sleepy I hoped it ended soon hahaha. I was so sorry, but with the lullaby (read: history telling) and the cool breeze, I couldn't help :p

The canal. It's so Amsterdam I might say. We're waiting for dinner time, so we wandered around, and oh we went to the red district before!

August 20-21, 2015
It ended here, our vacation. I was sad and happy at the same time. It's so sad that we needed to leave because it was sooooo much fun it could be a crime! However, I was also happy because we're going back to Indonesia while bringing all souvenirs and chocolate we bought, and giving it to friends and relatives. We took 15-hour direct flight from Amsterdam to Jakarta, and only had one transit in Malaysia. We arrived in Soekarno-Hatta around 8 pm I guess.

Waiting to board at Schiphol, spending our last euro haha.

The End.

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P.S. You might be wonder how I could remember all the dates that happened a year ago. Believe me, I don't haha. But the pictures we took remember all. I mean, the pictures' name are the dates, so it states there. I just need to organize the pictures to tell the story. And anyway, writing this makes me really miss our vacation as I'm reminiscing all events happened.