Blogs from Netherlands, Europe - page 388

here i am in the city of sin!! only kidding. only a tiny bit of it is bad. i'm writing this in the basement of our hostel - the nightclub. it's so cool. a little bit overrun with 16 year olds on school camp but that's ok. there's a group of 6 of us that are over 19 coz the legal age is lower here. it's pretty fun and internet is free. i arrived at 6ish tonight. went out for dinner - chinese - for the first time in ages and that was fun. then came back here and having a bit of a boogey on the dance floor. don't know what i'm going to do tomorrow but i think the next day i'll go to the haag. finally see some tulips maybe. should be good. ... read more

I have been in Amsterdam now for six days. It’s Sunday morning, cool with a hint of dampness in the air, birds were singing earlier around five a.m. when I first opened my eyes. The Dutch weather has been mostly ugly, cool to cold, blustery winds, gray skies for the most part and rain just about every day. But what did I expect weather-wise, this is Northern Europe and it’s only the first week in May. The trees are green and the tulips are up and outside my window right now in the quiet early time at my hotel, through the frosted pane of glass, there is a patch of blue up in the sky. Two young Turks, very nice young men, run my hotel. And the waitress at my favorite café is Polish. So—I really ... read more

Now keep in mind that by Day 3 of the 4-day weekend, I was pretty beat for several reasons 1) I walked more than I have ever walked in my life over the past 2 days in Brussels and Antwerp, 2) I only had 5 hours of sleep to rest up from said walk-a-thon across Belgium, and 3) I made the mistake of going out for a karaoke night at an Irish pub with Eugene and his party animal friend Ryan. Hungover at 9:15 in the morning is where our Rotterdam adventure begins. I make it out of bed and to the train station to meet up with 3 senior colleagues from Shell and their spouses only to realize I forgot my wallet. Great...10 minutes of jogging is the perfect way to shake a pounding headache ... read more

Edam is a small village in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. The town of 7,000 inhabitants is mostly a bedroom community for Amsterdam, but was once a thriving seaport. Now known for its cheese. After spending a few hours in Edam, it was back to Amsterdam for the afternoon and The National Rememberance Ceremony. The National Rememberance Ceremony took place at the National Monument on Dam Square at 8p.m. The square was closed for daily traffic from 4p.m. on. A few minutes before 8p.m., HM Queen Beatrix laid a wreath at the foot of the National Monument. At 8p.m. sharp, two minutes of silence were observed by more than 20,000 people who had gathered on Dam Square, a very impressive moment. The two minutes of silence were observed throughout the Netherlands.... read more

I toured the Escher Museum and the Gevangenpoort (Prison Gate) Museum. It was really great to see all the classic original Escher works such as Night and Day up close and personal. There was a Virtual Reality section of the exhibit where you were navigated interactively through some of the puzzling pieces done by Escher such as the one where all the stairwells connect in crazy ways. The Gevagenpoort museum was cool, but the tour was all in Dutch. I got to see something like 3 holding cells and 3 different torture areas. That's a high torture to holding cell ratio, I would think. They even had Delft blue tiles on the walls in the worst of the torture cells. Not so much for decoration as for ease of cleaning..yikes!... read more