Amsterdam
Hey guys,
After many-a-months waiting I finally was ready to leave to Europe. I flew from Calgary to London Heathrow. That is a giant airport. I haven't seen so many people and cultures in one place. It looked like the whole world was in one airport. After a five hour layover I flew to Amsterdam's Schipol airport. A much nicer airport, by-the-by. I had my first preview of Netherlands and Dutch people. I have seen more tall Dutch people that night then the rest of my life. The stereotype is true, go figure.
I managed to lug all my giant luggage through the Amsterdam train and tram. Note to future travelers: Do bring giant suitcases, especially if you don't need it. I had to ask a few Dutch residents for directions and advice on the way to my hostel. They are incredibly willing and helpful. I finally arrived to the Vondelpark Hostel which is right beside Vondelpark. This is one of several parks around Amsterdam. The hostel looked quite nice (In hostel terms) and had good amount of amenities.
I met up with my roomate Alex and we unpacked and got ready to check out the town (We have no concept of jet lag). We went to a few cafe's which are really small pubs that play dance music. They were really cool and had a lot of character to them. We met a really cool bartender in one of the cafe's who gave us the lowdown on Amsterdam night life. Turns out Paul Van Dyke is playin gon October 28th. You can count us on being there! At teh end of the night we had the infamous Dutch croquet. Which is like a fried corndog without the hot dog.....it's hard to explain. It had potatoey stuff in it...it was good regardless.
The next day Alex and I did some shopping at the popular Dutch grocery store Alberheid. We got a 24 pack for 7 euros ($10 CDN) and a forty of Jagermeister for 17 euros ($25 CDN)! Some incredible deals in Netherlands. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to catch the last tour of the Heineken brewery tour. We'll hit that up next time.
We met these really cool German guys. They invited us to this party they were going to at Westelpark. We weren't able to find it since we were all new to Amsterdam. So we came back and caught happy hour at the hostel. We then checked out the town and met some other cool int'l kids.
The next morning we managed to catch Dutch breakfast which is pretty good. Filled me up and thats a hard task in its self. Then we headed for the train and off to Maastricht. Maastricht has been a great time so far. What a city. But that will be another day. I need to have lunch and go play some tennis in the tennis courts right by the guesthouse. Going to be doing a lot of that. Watch out Andy Roddick!
Kean
After many-a-months waiting I finally was ready to leave to Europe. I flew from Calgary to London Heathrow. That is a giant airport. I haven't seen so many people and cultures in one place. It looked like the whole world was in one airport. After a five hour layover I flew to Amsterdam's Schipol airport. A much nicer airport, by-the-by. I had my first preview of Netherlands and Dutch people. I have seen more tall Dutch people that night then the rest of my life. The stereotype is true, go figure.
I managed to lug all my giant luggage through the Amsterdam train and tram. Note to future travelers: Do bring giant suitcases, especially if you don't need it. I had to ask a few Dutch residents for directions and advice on the way to my hostel. They are incredibly willing and helpful. I finally arrived to the Vondelpark Hostel which is right beside Vondelpark. This is one of several parks around Amsterdam. The hostel looked quite nice (In hostel terms) and had good amount of amenities.
I met up with my roomate Alex and we unpacked and got ready to check out the town (We have no concept of jet lag). We went to a few cafe's which are really small pubs that play dance music. They were really cool and had a lot of character to them. We met a really cool bartender in one of the cafe's who gave us the lowdown on Amsterdam night life. Turns out Paul Van Dyke is playin gon October 28th. You can count us on being there! At teh end of the night we had the infamous Dutch croquet. Which is like a fried corndog without the hot dog.....it's hard to explain. It had potatoey stuff in it...it was good regardless.
The next day Alex and I did some shopping at the popular Dutch grocery store Alberheid. We got a 24 pack for 7 euros ($10 CDN) and a forty of Jagermeister for 17 euros ($25 CDN)! Some incredible deals in Netherlands. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to catch the last tour of the Heineken brewery tour. We'll hit that up next time.
We met these really cool German guys. They invited us to this party they were going to at Westelpark. We weren't able to find it since we were all new to Amsterdam. So we came back and caught happy hour at the hostel. We then checked out the town and met some other cool int'l kids.
The next morning we managed to catch Dutch breakfast which is pretty good. Filled me up and thats a hard task in its self. Then we headed for the train and off to Maastricht. Maastricht has been a great time so far. What a city. But that will be another day. I need to have lunch and go play some tennis in the tennis courts right by the guesthouse. Going to be doing a lot of that. Watch out Andy Roddick!
Kean
posted by Kean @ 6:31 AM
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