Day 1: Amsterdam
So, I´m currently in the library in Amsterdam and abusing their free internet. Unfortunately, I can´t post any pictures as I don´t have access to the computer itself. Also, the punctuation on the keyboards is all fucked up. Other than the basics of periods, commas and apostrophes, everything listed on the keyboard doesn´t correspond to the right punctuating mark. Anyway, the flight and everything up to now has been pretty smooth sailing and the next big test will be what I do for getting down to Barcelona.
But let me start a little more chronologically. From the plane, I had a conversation with a lovely woman named Judith. She and her husband were just heading back to Holland from a two-week vacation in BC. They were in Vancouver and the Okanagan mainly. She was telling me a bit about Holland, her family and even helped me a bit with some pronounciations of Dutch. Worse comes to worse, I´ve made a friend that I can call or even randomly drop by her house if something bad happens here.
On the brief train ride from the airport to AMS centraal station, I met up with a few students from Georgia. They had also just graduated from university and were just starting a one month trip around Europe. In retrospect, I totally should have gotten a photo with them and me in it just to say address Morgan´s challenge of finding a girl for me and him. The two girls were pretty cute... for the record, the names were Kelsey, Jenny and Cameron I believe. Hopefully, I´ll run into them later as amsterdam is somewhat small... Sadly, I had to leave them since I needed to validate my rail pass and book a train from here to Paris. I´ll actually try to stop by for a few hours in Brussels and get a beer and maybe some moules et frites.
Waiting for the rail pass... which took something like 1.5 hours!... I grabbed some groceries to sate me for a day or so. Sandwich material and some bananas for ~7 euro. Much better than the 5 euro or so prices for a single fastfood meal. I´ll probably go to an actual restaurant tomorrow and then to a club after. Also while waiting, I talked to this girl from Australia. She had just gotten out of highschool and was making a point to travel the world before heading to uni to study musical theatre. I didn´t get her name before heading off to the counter to deal with my rail pass but her most memorable feature were her ridiculously worn in boots. They weren´t made for the 10 weeks of travelling she had done to this point... they were clearly quite fashionable at some point but now had mucho character in the holes forming in the leather.
Anyway, since then, I found a hostel pretty easily for 25. Not a bad location and seems pretty clean although there´s construction going on presently. I´ll probably try to crash in the train station and catch an early one friday evening. Unless Rose is amiable to me crashing on her couch. Rose is a friend I briefly met last summer who was working with Morgan and was on exchange from here. I just messaged her and miraculously, she does love in Amsterdam! Hopefully we´ll catch up some later tonight.
Wandering around Amsterdam has been pretty cool. We flew in to rain but since then, it´s cleared up quite nicely. Pictures will come at some point. The city centre is really well designed. I was talking to Ben a few days ago about the North American trend towards creating walkable-urbanism as opposed to the sprawling suburbia our city planning has followed for the last century. Amsterdam is the epitome of walkable urbanism. Admittedly, many of the cities in europe were constructed long before vehicles were made so it´s more a byproduct of centuries of necessity but regardless it´s really nice to be able to see almost everything without needing to even hop on a bus. I´ll probably rent a bike tomorrow but I think I´ve already walked around quite a bit of the city.
Anyway, I´ll leave the post here for now. Next, one more day in AMS, then a few hours in Brussels and a night in Paris - the city.
But let me start a little more chronologically. From the plane, I had a conversation with a lovely woman named Judith. She and her husband were just heading back to Holland from a two-week vacation in BC. They were in Vancouver and the Okanagan mainly. She was telling me a bit about Holland, her family and even helped me a bit with some pronounciations of Dutch. Worse comes to worse, I´ve made a friend that I can call or even randomly drop by her house if something bad happens here.
On the brief train ride from the airport to AMS centraal station, I met up with a few students from Georgia. They had also just graduated from university and were just starting a one month trip around Europe. In retrospect, I totally should have gotten a photo with them and me in it just to say address Morgan´s challenge of finding a girl for me and him. The two girls were pretty cute... for the record, the names were Kelsey, Jenny and Cameron I believe. Hopefully, I´ll run into them later as amsterdam is somewhat small... Sadly, I had to leave them since I needed to validate my rail pass and book a train from here to Paris. I´ll actually try to stop by for a few hours in Brussels and get a beer and maybe some moules et frites.
Waiting for the rail pass... which took something like 1.5 hours!... I grabbed some groceries to sate me for a day or so. Sandwich material and some bananas for ~7 euro. Much better than the 5 euro or so prices for a single fastfood meal. I´ll probably go to an actual restaurant tomorrow and then to a club after. Also while waiting, I talked to this girl from Australia. She had just gotten out of highschool and was making a point to travel the world before heading to uni to study musical theatre. I didn´t get her name before heading off to the counter to deal with my rail pass but her most memorable feature were her ridiculously worn in boots. They weren´t made for the 10 weeks of travelling she had done to this point... they were clearly quite fashionable at some point but now had mucho character in the holes forming in the leather.
Anyway, since then, I found a hostel pretty easily for 25. Not a bad location and seems pretty clean although there´s construction going on presently. I´ll probably try to crash in the train station and catch an early one friday evening. Unless Rose is amiable to me crashing on her couch. Rose is a friend I briefly met last summer who was working with Morgan and was on exchange from here. I just messaged her and miraculously, she does love in Amsterdam! Hopefully we´ll catch up some later tonight.
Wandering around Amsterdam has been pretty cool. We flew in to rain but since then, it´s cleared up quite nicely. Pictures will come at some point. The city centre is really well designed. I was talking to Ben a few days ago about the North American trend towards creating walkable-urbanism as opposed to the sprawling suburbia our city planning has followed for the last century. Amsterdam is the epitome of walkable urbanism. Admittedly, many of the cities in europe were constructed long before vehicles were made so it´s more a byproduct of centuries of necessity but regardless it´s really nice to be able to see almost everything without needing to even hop on a bus. I´ll probably rent a bike tomorrow but I think I´ve already walked around quite a bit of the city.
Anyway, I´ll leave the post here for now. Next, one more day in AMS, then a few hours in Brussels and a night in Paris - the city.
posted by Charlie at 7:50 AM
1 Comments:
I call dibs on Jenny.
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