After a week in chaotic, passionate Rome, we settled into a quiet, Frisian farm town — if Rome was a sharp intake of breath, Friesland was the slow, deliberate exhale. Although part of the Netherlands, this distinct region has its own language and culture separate from the Dutch.

Immediately after getting off our flight from Rome, the group took a train up to Friesland, the Northernmost Dutch province along the North Sea.

Weary from seeing so much in just 2.5 short weeks in Amsterdam and Rome, most of us were left exhausted mentally and physically; but, staying near the town of Leeuwarden brought us back to a simpler life, giving us a moment to recover. We stayed in a beautiful, renovated, traditional farmhouse (the Gast Op Stal) in the tiny community of Wyns — only 17 kilometres from the Waddenzee, almost at the tip of the Netherlands.

Every day we would ride our bikes into town, cutting through the cow fields, and across narrow bridges. Without fail, locals greeted us with a smiling, “Oy!”.

Those rides, day or night, were one of the most serene and memorable parts of the field school. With our backs against an old barn wall, looking over the Dokkumer Canal, we enjoyed the longest lingering sunsets of our lives.