I had been sick this week and last week for a week and half was away for training in Madrid, Spain. Along the way, I took the opportunity to stop by Amsterdam to visit one of my good friends - she is working at Philips in Netherlands.
I took advantage of the long weekend from Deepavali and spent a short 4 days with her at Amsterdam. The last time I have been there, it was on a tour, and it was probably at least 5 years ago. This time, it was a free and easy trip, as I had wanted to honor my promise to visit ML my friend this year.
One of the things we did was pretty different - we rode around Amsterdam for half a day on a bike - the only thing was that the bike I took was a tiny bike she owned - a "for fun only" bike she bought from China where her previous posting was. Whilst she rode around in a city bike with twice the circumference, I peddled furiously for 3-4 hours all round Amsterdam in the biting cold and freakish whether in this tiny wonder.
Still, it was a different way to see Amsterdam. And a pretty good overview tour with the DSLR as well (the backpack on my back).
Yes, this is the first time I took my DSLR on a training/side trip. Carrying the DSLR and notebook in a dual function bag I just bought - this was pretty cool, but it meant I could carry nothing more! I will still rethink to do this, the Sony camera was ok as well - when I post the link to the photos, you wont be able to tell the difference between both the cameras.
A summary of Amsterdam :
- Beautiful city, wonderful autumn countryside, freakish whether or I'm getting old and the cold gets to me
- Saw a 10km race in one of the towns when we went there, running in those beautiful countryside, I am sure it will increase my pace 2x, the coolness will help too
- Love the donuts - oliebollen, and the hangout places by the square - a lot of atmosphere in the city
- Nearly everyone owns a bike, they even go to work riding bike on a suit and take the bike into the office (foldable bike) - I was shocked ...
- Good spoken english, polite and very helpful if you ask
- Library was stunning (why was I in a library? heheh) - I guess when they do something, they do it extremely well
- Feels like a liveable city if not for the freakish whether, lots of different cultural exposure places to visit and hangout
Don't ask me why I always end up going places only during winter... I only decided to do this with about a week's notice since I managed to maintain the training schedule... but I'm glad I did this, as I had long not met up with my good friend and take a break at the same time despite the short stop.
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