Good Old Baarn
Well, now that you seen all of the big attractions, I guess I show you the city where I did most of my hanging out. Baarn is located about a half-hour from Amsterdam in the direction of Amersfoort. I must admit that it was a comfy little city where people all seem to know each other. The people that I got familiar with were the baker (at the Kuiper bakery), the people in the ice cream shop, and some of the people in the music store. If I could say just one thing about the Dutch, it would be about their friendliness.
A street in Baarn's shopping district is significantly different from one in Amsterdam or Den Haag. You can actually walk down the street and not have to push through people or get mugged. Baarn was nice because it allowed me to experience everyday life in the Netherlands outside of some metropolis. The only thing that I wish it had was an A & P supermarket like the neighboring city of Soest.
When I didn't feel like waking up to go the St. Fransiscus in Amsterdam, I would just ride my bike into Baarn and go to Nicolaaskerk (St. Nicolas). This little city had some pretty large churches, but like most of their churches they're very nice.
This little shrine (or whatever it is) was in the rear of the church. I believe it is a statue of Our Lady of Baarn. One of the parishoners told me the story behind it, but I really couldn't understand what he was saying, so I just smiled like an idiot. It seemed pretty important to all of the parishoners because every family would always place a candle in front of it as they left after the Mass, so I added my own candle too.