2007.05.25 | the days in the dam

okay, this is a long one.

wednesday early morning found me on a plane heading towards amsterdam. since my arrival in europe i have not gotten out of bed earlier than 9h00, so in order to catch my 8h00 flight i had to break this fantastic trend. it's alright though because i hardly slept that night anyway.

at the airport (amsterdam schiphol airport that is, which now does weddings), after walking about half a kilometre across several terminals, i meet gareth at his baggage collection hall. seeing as we didn't plan anything other than the plane tickets and a place to stay, we started heading blindly towards amsterdam. we got there by train from the airport's underground station (which was surprisingly easy to organise). the trains are quite amazing. they have two types of trains; the sprinter (which despite it's name, stops at every station) and the intercity (which is a double storey train that only stop at the bigger stations).

on the train ride into amsterdam my first impression of the netherlands was of how amazingly green it is. but that's no surprise seeing as how much water there is. if you disregard the fact that they continually have to fight the ocean and floods which steal their land, they are really lucky to have all that water.

unfortunately we could not stay in the hague (as advertised earlier) as gareth's friend had problems getting there in time, so we booked a hotel about 18kms from the city centre (in wormerveer) for the three nights. the hotels name is the hotel-restaurant huis te zaanen. our check-in time was only in the afternoon, which left us with some time to wander the city before going to the hotel. this also meant that we had to carry our baggage with us while doing so :/. without any sort of direction in mind we set off into the city and we ended up finding a coffee shop quite quickly where we decided to kill some time. by "coffee shop", i actually mean a place where you can buy weed... and, of course, coffee. you can no longer buy alcohol there as the government has implemented a weed or alcohol policy. there are coffee shops in the traditional sense but those are hardly as interesting :). if you're ever in the netherlands, you can distinguish between the two by a green and white sticker that says coffee shop on it. the ones with a sticker are smoker friendly coffee shops. you do also find bars that sell alcohol that allow smoking which is nice if you want to have a smoke while enjoying a cold beer.

after checking in at the hotel we had a few heinekens [nl|en|wiki], which contrary to my experience in south africa, tasted fantastic. later that afternoon we headed back into town for dinner and a look around. we ended up at an excellent italian place and had some amazing pasta. after which we took some beautiful night shots of the city. unfortunately the trains in the netherlands only run till a little after 01h00 so we walked around till then. we then went to the train station to catch the last train on the platform from which we expected the train to leave. the thing is that the platforms are not only separated by number (i.e. tracks), but each platform can also be separated by a letter (i.e. some platforms have multiple trains leaving from different locations on the same track). this we did not realise till the third day. anyway, after getting concerned that our train was late and the station would close, we hoped onto to a train. our first clue should have been that it was an intercity train, but we were in a panic and got on anyway. despite the fact that the train was heading in the right direction, it was not destined for wormerveer. even if it was headed down the right track it would not have stopped at our station as we needed a sprinter train, so we ended up in haarlem (not to be mistaken for harlem :). after the panic of us being in the wrong station subsided, we waited outside for a taxi. we ended up in a mercedes taxi, which seems to be the norm and i must say is soo much nicer than the camrys of south africa. the taxi driver didn't speak english and seemed to talk to himself (turns out it was a headset for his cellphone) but we managed to get to our correct train station. what an expensive mistake, but well worth it. a night at the station would not have been fun and a trip down a dutch motor way was interesting

the next day after breakfast, we headed into back into amsterdam. we only had enough time to roll a few joints at a coffee shop before we had to catch our train to 's-hertogenbosch (den bosch). it's nice to take an extended train ride like that because you get to see a lot of the country's beautiful and interesting scenery. check out the photos for day two to see what i mean. after about an hour or so, we arrived at den bosch. we didn't really plan how we were going to get to the pettelaarse schans for the party so we just started walking in what we felt was the correct general direction. by the way, the 17th of may was a public holiday in the netherlands and so there was some sort of fair or carnival or festival happening in den bosch and as a result the roads were packed with people. after wandering for a while we asked a few people where to go and eventually made it to the star shaped island. tip: bars and restaurants are good places to ask questions as everyone there speaks english.

the music was pumping and we could hear it from some distance away. the venue was amazing, and the weather was perfect. it was overcast but not too cold. there was a huge tent set up and a large area outside the tent was cordoned off. inside there were some food stands and inside the tent were long bars. only after we made it through the people into the tent did we learn that the bar did not take cash but instead used non refundable plastic tokens which you buy. you got four and half tokens for 10 euros and each beer cost one token so it wasn't all too expensive. one thing you will find in netherlands is that they love to drink their beer with a head. you will normally only have about three quarters beer and the rest is head. they call a beer without head a "big beer". anyway, the party was brilliant. the music was amazing and the crowd was fantastic. best party i've been to yet and it'll be hard to top. it seems that europe just does everything better than south africa. after the party we followed some people to the station and made our way back to wormerveer.

we spent the whole of day three in amsterdam. we essentially walked wherever we had the urge to go and took in as much of the city as we could. needless to say we stopped off several times for a quick smoke or a pint of beer. very relaxed day with no pressure or any sort of concrete plan of action. we found a fantastic pancake restaurant for lunch which makes savoury pancakes. they also served amstel [en|nl|wiki] (very few places serve amstel, and none serve both heineken and amstel) which is what attacted us to the restaurant in the first place. the amstel in the netherlands is in fact a pilsner and not a lager and is not as good as heineken.

the city is so different from what you see in south africa. the houses are all narrow and tall and many of them are leaning (i suspect they are sinking into the ground from all the water in the soil). it's quite amazing, the dutch seem to have two styles, the old quaint style and the ultra modern style. if you look at the older style, you see lots of circles and half circles, and now with the new style it's very straight lines with lots of glass. infact even the older style has lots of glass with big windows and most of the houses don't seem to have curtains. it feels like they've got nothing to hide. it's all so different that to me it felt like i was walking in a theme park and that every building, bike or boat was placed exactly where it should be. such as beautiful city. so clean. and it felt safe.

as it became darker we ventured into the red light district. if amsterdam isn't different enough for you already, then the red light district will hit the stop. really quite surreal with the working girls attracting customers through their glass doors. some rooms are bigger than other were as some are just a booth. when a client goes in, they close a curtain over the door and business begins. most of the working girls are foreigners (as far as i could tell). close by are many sex shops and peep/live sex shows down a road with a canal running down the middle. i read in our guide that it costs 50 euros for a "suck and fuck" lasting 10 minutes and 250 euros for an hour. i suppose it's up to the consumer to decide if the money is worth it. no photos are allowed to be taken in the red light district. you can chance it, but you'd probably find yourself confronted with a rather large man with every intention sinking your camera in the canal.

on the last day, a minor fuck up on my part resulted in half the day being wasted. after we checked out and were already in amsterdam at a coffeeshop, i realised that i still had the hotel room key in my pocket. we tried to call the hotel to enquire about posting it back but no one answered so we decided to head back to return it. luckily gareth's rather large suitcase managed to fit into a station locker, so we left all our luggage and were able to travel in comfort (unlike the beginning of the first day). after sorting out the key, we did some more wandering. we found this rather expensive looking mall behind the royal palace (you know what i mean when you see the photos). in fact it was the only mall type building in the city that we saw. also, we did not see anything that resembles a pick 'n pay or similar.

by that stage our legs were rather tired from all the walking and the seven hour party on the second day so we tested out the public transportation. the trams are something else. they are huge. they literally are mini trains that travel on the road. they are much bigger than the trams in poland. also many of the roads are split into three section; the outer edges on either side are for the bicycles, inside those lanes on either side is a single road for cars and the middle section is a road with a tram line. this special middle road is only used by buses and trams. travelling is charged by distance in zones where one zone will cost you 1.60 euro. the value of the euro is really strange, but that's a discussion for another time.

i can't believe it took me this long to mention the bikes. there are millions of them. everywhere you go there are bikes. they have special roads (which would be perfect from pedestrians) especially for bikes. on your average street you do not only have to look out for cars, buses and trams but also for bikes which have the ultimate right of way in the netherlands. if you don't watch out, they have every intention of inflicting grievous bodily harm onto the pedestrians. they have multi level parking lots, and at smaller stations they have undercover bike stands. despite there being millions of bikes, they are all of the olden day variety; not a mountain or road bike to be found.

so without being on one canal tour or in any museum, generally avoiding all tourist traps all together, we headed back to the airport and went our separate ways. what an awesome holiday (like unemployment isn't already fantastic :). i'd do it again in a flash. and if there happens to be another trance party near by, all the more reason to go. i totally recommend amsterdam for a visit.

and now for some mundane stuff. after returning back to poland i have received two invitations for job interviews. both job positions will be of a programming variety. the companies are accenture and samsung, of which the latter is more appealing to me. they will both have programming tests (which could go either way). more on that later.

and now for the axillary information: photos, videos and maps.

the days in the dam | day one	the days in the dam | day two
the days in the dam | day three	the days in the dam | day four

videos:
asot 300.2 | video 01
asot 300.2 | video 02
asot 300.2 | video 03
asot 300.2 | video 04
asot 300.2 | video 05
asot 300.2 | video 06
asot 300.2 | video 07
asot 300.2 | video 08
asot 300.2 | video 09
asot 300.2 | video 10
asot 300.2 | video 11
a boat on the canal
train to schiphol