Amsterdam baby!

Saturday

After barely getting the minimum amount of sleep survivable, I set off bright and early on Saturday to meet my aunt in Amsterdam. The train wasn’t pack this early in the morning (I caught the 7:27 train) so I was able to find a good seat so I can sleep for most of the 2 hours there. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame, was going on the trip with me.

Murphy’s Moment #1
Rating: minor annoyance

I always thought the 7:27 train was a direct train to Amsterdam. However, the train I was taking was going to be joining up and linking with another one at a later station, and I would have to get off, and move to the new “front” part of the train which will split off to go to Amsterdam, while the back end to the Airport. Luckily, a friendly Dutchman explained to me all of this, so all is good

Murphy’s Moment #2
Rating: Near miss

I got to Amsterdam station at 0930, giving myself 30min to conduct recon before meeting my aunt. It was at that point that I realised that Amsterdam Central station is larger than I imagine, so just meeting my aunt at the station at 10, is a much more difficult task in real life than planning it via e-mail. Unbeknownst to me, my aunt’s hotel was farther than she realised from the station and she had forgotten to take with her my cell phone #.

After conducting a thoroughly walkthrough of the station, and making a few assumptions, I planned a route that’ll take me through all the likely locations that my aunt may wait for me. At 1030, I finally found my Aunt (who just arrived) during one of my sweeps I been conducting every 15min. Crisis resolved =)

My aunt and I went to get lunch first before our Bus and Boat city tour starts at 12. We settled on a little Dutch café after finding the Japanese place we wanted to go to opens after 5pm. 29 Euros shorter (but full from Dutch pancakes), we set off to the bus tour. Amsterdam is the most international city in the Netherlands that I have been so far. English is abundant and there were tourists everywhere.

The bus drove around the city introducing us to the various famous museums, theatres, Canals, and other famous sites. One thing I didn’t know was that Amsterdam is known as the other Venice and the city has a wide network of canals and waterways. In addition, to accommodate these canals, there are numerous small bridges in the city. It was hard to take pictures from the bus with the window reflection and the speed of the moving bus. The bus made a stop at a large windmill found in the city. It was my first time to be near a windmill. All windmills in the Netherlands are classified as heritage sites and protected by the governments.

Murphy’s Moment #3
Rating: Slow & Lethal

It could be the lack of sleep these past days and the start of a particularly bad hay fever season in the Netherlands, but I woke up this morning not feeling the best. I started with a dull headache, a really runny nose, and sneezing. These symptoms will continue to get worse throughout the day.

Anyways, back to the tour. The second stop the bus made was the “Gannon Diamond Factor.” Amsterdam is the diamond capital of Europe (of the world??) and not Antwerp as I originally thought. We got a tour of the factory and educated on the transformation from rough diamonds to the finished products. I learnt all about grading of diamonds (from colour, craftsmanship, cut, Clarity, and Carat). Now I know that I’ll need to rob a large bank before I have enough money in my piggy bank to grace Connie with a River or pink colour, Brilliant cut (57 facets), FL (flawless) clarity, ¾-1 carat diamond. =)

The second half of the tour was in a canal boat and we saw many of the same thing as on the bus, but also some other neat things. For pictures, the boat tour was better since it was easier to take pictures without the interference of a window. Also, sitting on the starboard side (that’s the right side of the boat for you land lovers) turned out to be the best side since everything was on the right hand side. One of the neatest attractions is the floating Chinese restaurant on the bay. Supposedly, it is modelled on a bigger floating restaurant in China.

With the tour over, and after getting some coffee to wake us both up, we headed to the best part of the trip. My aunt and I braved the line ups and went to “Anne Frank’s House.” As most of you know, The Diary of Anne Frank is about a girl’s family in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands during WWII. It was spooky seeing how the family lived in real life and for so long before they were betrayed. It was very memorable experience and I recommend it as an excellent place to go when I Amsterdam.

For that night, my Aunt treated me to a traditional Indonesian restaurant. Indonesia use to be Dutch Colony, so the Indonesian cuisine in the Netherlands is among the best place for this type of cooking outside of Indonesia itself. We ordered a dinner special for 2 and it resembled something similar to a Spanish Tapas meal. We had rice, and 12 other small plates of food. None of the food was really spicy and some of them were really neat like ground up coconut and peanut that you put on your rice.

Unfortunately by this time, my headache is pounding and my runny nose was resembled a runny tap. I knew something was wrong especially since I didn’t really have to appetite, even though I really wanted to try Indonesian food. Therefore, after dinner, I declined the invitation for further sightseeing and a taste of the night life to go back home.

2 hours later, I returned home, and the girls took care of me to make me feel better. Overall, it was a nice time in Amsterdam, except for my stupid cold =(