After an early Christmas celebration with my family on 22nd of December, we had an early start to catch a short flight to Amsterdam the following morning. This would be my second visit to the Netherlands having visited earlier in the year. The weather was far cooler, the nerves weren’t quite so jittery and there was a similar abundance of food!

Skating at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

We spent the day in Amsterdam, trawling the shops to find 10 presents for 3 Euros each for a game played by Nadine’s family every christmas – suffice to say there were some interesting souvenirs that made the cut! Having spent the day in Amsterdam we caught the train to Dordrecht, about an hour and a half south of Amsterdam to stay with Nadine’s sister before travelling to the Limburg region in Southern Holland to spend Christmas with her parents.

Having hibernated for a couple of days over the Christmas period we made our way to Maastricht on the 27th of December.

Christmas markets, Maastricht.

A church converted into a bookshop in Maastricht.

De Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw – Catholic Church, Maastricht

Gettin’ lit for Christmas.

Maastricht sunset.

For my Christmas present from Nadine, I received a snowboarding session at the world’s largest indoor snow facility; SnowWorld – a place that puts Nadine’s largely insignificant hometown of Landgraaf on the map and hopefully gave us a taster for a potential snow holiday in the near future!

I was very sad to leave Landgraaf, it’s a place that thanks to the unbelievable hospitality of Nadine’s family, is starting to feel like home.