Our arrival to Utrecht was slightly turbulent, as we arrived late in the night and had to walk through the city with all of our stuff. On a side note, we have walked insane distances with all our baggage during Europe on Track 9, according to Pipi’s app the daily average is about 20 thousand steps… My back and feet agree but in my mind that’s insane! How, when did we walk that much?
Back in Utrecht, we were welcomed by Danee at the train station, where we also said our goodbyes to Johanneka from AEGEE Leiden. As it was still Easter, even though late in the night, the city was full of life! We arrived at our accommodation only to stay for a few hours and as soon as we woke up we took off to Danee’s house! Then, we had a city tour where we got to learn some nice fun facts about Utrecht and discovered all the cool and hidden spots we’d otherwise miss.
Utrecht’s canals are unique. It is one of the few places in the world where you can find canals this deep, with restaurants below the actual pedestrian streets. We decided to head there for lunch and enjoy watching all the dogs on the boats passing us (we count more than 20). In general, our first day in Utrecht was a great chance for us to recharge our batteries and work a bit on some tasks we’ve been neglecting.
Somewhere around this point, we changed our accommodation once again where we got to stay at Arianne’s place! We were surprised when we found out that Arianne actually has a pet parrot called Emily- named after the mathematician Emily Noether and who is probably the cutest bird I’ve seen in my life.
The following day it was finally time for our 2 workshops! After renting bikes, we headed to the University of Utrecht in the most Dutch way possible- though we probably still looked very out of place. Our first workshop was “creating safe spaces”, unfortunately, we didn’t have enough participants to run it as planned, yet we still managed to have an interesting, engaging discussion!
Once the workshop was over we had some free time, so we headed to the university’s huge botanical garden. Due to some implications with the paying system, we got to go in for free! (I’m still wondering if the clerk at the ticket booth ever managed to get our thank-you-post-card). After a quick taste of being a student at the University of Utrecht campus, we ran the “gender-equality in the post-pandemic world workshop”, where we also had a few but very active and knowledgeable participants. 
As the workshops went smoothly and the weight was off our shoulders, we decided to go for a chill, nightly bike tour in the narrow streets of Utrecht. It may sound like a simple thing and yet it recharged our batteries, if you find yourself there, you have to try it!
Thank you Danee and Arianne for hosting us and showing us around Utrecht!