Nate and Kara Buchanan bike through Utrecht's canals after taking a break from vlogging. They try Dutch snacks like bitterballen and stroopwafels, rent a pedal boat, and navigate the waterways, though they miss their planned sunset at the windmills.
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Do we look refreshed?
We just did something that we haven't done this entire year. We took three full days off of vlogging just to, like, rest, relax, get caught up on work, have a semi normal life for, like, three days. And it's been really nice.
You won't know that we took days off, though, because we're really behind on vlog uploads, so. So we won't actually take days off from uploading.
So just picture, like, we got into Amsterdam last night and now we're going to explore.
We got really behind because when your two best friends come across the world to visit you in Greece, you don't take time to work. You just socialize.
Plus, we have a conference coming up in London that we needed to prepare for. And then this terrible thing happened. Our website got hacked and there was, like, porn on it. And it was this huge, terrible thing. It's still not fully situated. The porn is gone, but the website still doesn't work. So that's taken up a lot more time than I wanted it to. Today we are going on a road trip to Utrecht. I think that's how you say it. All the names of these cities, except for Amsterdam, are extremely hard for us to pronounce. And then after that, we're gonna go to the town of Kinderdijk. I think it was kind of something like Kinderdijk. Anyway, there's supposed to be, like, some really cool old windmills there. So, yeah, that's the plans for today.
Nate's getting us some gas. I'm gonna do a little recap. We've been in the Netherlands for three days. We're staying at our friend's apartment while he's in Thailand. And he lives in this little town called Zeist. And it's basically all we've seen. And it's so cute. It's fall, and so there's all these little streets with the leaves changing. There's bike lanes and sidewalks everywhere. It's just this quiet little residential town, and it's adorable. I really think we could live here.
Pretty sure I paid for it. That's something about a receipt, but I don't know.
You think we could live here?
Yes. During the fall, I think we can live here.
Ride our bike everywhere.
Yeah.
Walk to Aldi.
Yeah, we need a bike. Driving a car scares me. I'm really scared. We gotta make hill biker today. Bikes are like the kings of the road.
We made it to Utracht.
Kara's been practicing her Dutch.
We came here because we heard it is a smaller and less touristy version of the Amsterdam canals.
First thing on the agenda is finding some lunch.
We've made it a grand total of like 20ft and we've already stopped to take pictures and video like 10 different things.
It's so pretty.
This town is absolutely beautiful and it smells like fall and it looks like fall.
Kind of feels like.
I thought we were going to miss this season this year. And I'm really happy that we get to experience at least like a week of it.
I think we have to do that later. You want to pedal a boat down the canals? Yes, lunch. Pedal a boat down the canals. I love this place.
Look at this car.
Sa.
We just found this fast food place called Free It Winkle. I'm sure I'm butchering that word, but all we have are french fries.
Our fries are ready. Yes, please.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
So all they have are french fries and these really yummy fried balls and other fried snacks which we read are very Dutch. These are basically like croettas chipotas, which I fell in love with in Spain. And then we got French FR.
With.
Pumpkin ketchup and some organic mustard.
Oh, tell me what it's called First.
Bitter. But what was it?
I think it's a bitten ball.
Bitten ball.
Yum. It's like this perfect gravy meat onion mixture inside of here and the outside is so crispy.
All right, let's go find a more scenic place to eat.
It wasn't our healthiest decision we've ever had, but we've run the last three days, which is more than I've ran all year.
Now we're gonna go pedal it off.
Can we get two tickets? Yes. So we just rented a. What's it, what do they call them? A river bike. And apparently there's a loop that you can do in an hour and a. That goes like all the way around the city. Seems like a great way to see the canals.
Here we go.
You gotta steer. You steer us.
Oh, gosh, that's terrible.
Don't run us into a wall.
I really don't want to be in charge.
Why are we. Why are we going into the bike?
Reverse. Reverse. Go forward. Go forward. You gotta get us through there.
I can't.
Yeah.
Quit. We're gonna seriously gonna run into it. Steer straight now put. Make us go straight. Just hold it. No, just don't steer it. I assume we'll go straight. No, get. You gotta hold it. There you go. There you go. Alright, we're gonna do it. We're going in the tunnel slow. Are we gonna make it fast? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Just a nice little bump.
Okay. I think we're under control.
We're off to a very embarrassing start. We did a few circles inside the canal.
Who knew? What is it called?
I don't know. Maybe a canal bike.
Who knew these things were so hard?
They're much faster than we are. They started way behind us. I'm embarrassed.
Every time we try to use the camera, we end up spinning in a circle. Takes a lot of focus to keep it straight.
I'm just kidding. It's really not that much harder. I think you've just been resting your legs on the pedals. It's just making it harder.
So we're. Who knows how long through this paddle boat ride. It's taking longer than it should have. And we both just came to the the realization that last night was daylight savings time. We had planned to go out to the city that starts with a K with cool windmills for sunset. That place. And it's less than an hour till sunset. It takes an hour to get there. And we're still not off this boat.
I think we're missing the sunset at the windmills tonight.
We're gonna call it a day here in Utrecht.
Maybe we can get some more of those meatball things.
No. I do think we're burned off all of our fries and meatballs though. Our legs have done thousands of rotations.
We're back. How long did it take us?
I don't know. I can't remember when I left. It may be close to two hours. I think we went over our one and a half hour limit.
Do you think you can be able to turn this around?
No. This is going to be embarrassing in front of a lot of people.
They require you to back in so that you embarrass yourself on the way out and on the way in.
Thanks. No problem. It looks like froze. My legs feel like jelly now.
We ended on a much better note than we started.
It is like 5:30pm it's already dark outside, which is depressing. We're calling it a day here in Utrecht. Did I say it right?
That time went to the grocery store for dinner. I got sushi because can't help myself.
And I got stroopwafels for dinner because earlier this year when we were in Kenya, our friend Bob, who is from the Netherlands introduced me to stroopwafels. And they're like the most delicious thing in the world. I've already eaten two, and I'm probably gonna eat the whole bag tonight.
This guy's fighting trees. Oh, got it.
According to Snapchat, we are cruising at an incredible speed of 1.9 miles per hour.
My feet come off the pedal.
