Flowers, Cheese and Hagelslag: Eindhoven

So on monday, yesterday, I got to go to Eindhoven. And when I say that I "got to go" I mean that I needed to go. I needed to visit the office of the IND and get a sticker in my passport saying that I can live and work in the Netherlands for 3 months. So I dipped out of work early and took the train for the first time since coming to this beautiful country.

Buying my ticket was highly annoying. I went to the automated machine, and checked the ticket price, it was 17.40 Euros there and back, I then counted the cash that I had on me, and it came in just under 16 Euros, not enough to pay in cash *sigh*. I made an executive decision and instead of trying to pay interac and get charged some ridiculous fee for my 18 Euro purchase (they didn't have M/C), I would withdraw a larger sum from an ATM.

So plenty of cash in hand I returned to the automatic machine, to discover when it had said "pay with coins" it meant actual coins, it was not a translation error as I had hoped. Well did I have 18 euros in coins? no sir. At this point it was closer to train time then i would have liked, so i bit my lip, inserted my debit Visa card, and hoped I could pay Visa to avoid fees. Well here's another fun fact, apparently my chip card doesn't work on their machines.(I am not sure how wide spread this is) So, I then decided to swallow the 50 cent service fee, and buy my ticket at the desk. After standing in line, watching the seconds and minutes pass by, listening to an old lady ask EVERY possible question to the teller (I couldn't actually understand her, but I could tell the type) I FINALLY got to buy my ticket. for 17.90 Euros, with two minutes to spare. The platform was easy to find, it was the only one with a train on the tracks. In retrospect I did have about 11 Euros in change and could have just bought a one way ticket (the 2 way didn't offer any discount) but alas, I was not that smart.

The train ride was super awesome. but if you know me at all, I am not exactly objective when it comes to trains. (I really really like em) It was about a 45 minute train ride, I was in a silent car, which was pretty cool, because that meant that I got to read and look out the window :)

(Venlo Station, about a 5 minute walk from my house, or less)

Maas (River), from the train

Once in Eindhoven I got my sticker without a problem, from the hooghuis. it was quarter after 4 once I was finished though, so i decided it wasn't worth it to go back to work. Starving, I decided to treat myself to a real meal before heading back to venlo. I ate outside on a terrace and had fish and chips, it was quite yummy (I haven't had french fries in a while). I took a quick look around the city, and snapped some pictures (I even busted out my SLR). And so my big city adventure ended and back to Venlo I went. The train I took back was a older train, and by this time there were alot more people on the train, so it was slightly less awesome as well.