I assume that after such a senti intro, its kinda redundant to reiterate the fact that we had a great trip :-) It was totally draining (I assume my frenetic plans might have had something to do with it) but we really did get to see quite a bit of Dutch-land, and had a lot of fun along the way as well.
It started with a trip to Eindhoven on Friday night, which is sort of midway between Aachen and Amsterdam. Its a fairly nice city, very modern-ish since large parts of Eindhoven were destroyed during WWII. It's more famously known as the home of Philips, the light bulb guys. Spotted no particular historical eye-candy except for a large Church which did look all pretty in the night.
We also wandered down the central walk which looked no different in complexion than others on a Friday night - filled with drunken undergrads, overdressed chickitas and gawking tourists.
Sadly though, the copious amounts of alcohol consumed ensured that we got up much later than planned to make our trip into Amsterdam. Combined with the fact that they had no direct trains ONLY on that day into the city, we finally crawled into Amsterdam only by around 2ish in the afternoon. But as they say, a plan is a plan, so we trotted onto the first item on the Dutch agenda.
Amsterdam is a city of canals and houseboats, so its horribly mandatory but kinda charming to do the much reviled 'canal cruise' through the city to check out the sights.
Little difficult to appreciate from this view, but the idea is that when you're sitting in the cruise, you can see this sorta 'oldish' pov in your direct line of view. Guess in the night it should look fairly nice ...
A set of flats - yes, flats - complete with living rooms, bedrooms etc etc ... pretty sure I wouldn't recommend for anyone with a wee touch of the seasickness :-)
Drat the Chinese!!! They're everywhere!!!
Don't know if you can make out - but if you use your x-ray vision, you can clearly see a huge ship which is actually a ship museum of some kind. Amsterdam is potty about their museums, you'll find a museum in the same frequency you'll find a coffeeshop (the regular kinds, not the 'fun' types :-) - a potty museum is possibly the only thing they don't actually have. Hmm. I smell ... a business opportunity.
Canals, canals and more canals. The boat guy executed some fairly alarming 90-degree turns and u-turns with fair nonchalance, but I guess he could do this ride even if he were smoked up to the gills. Which he possibly was I guess ...
There's tons of stuff to see on the waters ... the bachelor party (movie below - apologize for length, we sort of drifted out of view), the various boathouses (and believe me, its just brilliant to look inside and see complete HOUSES with offices and bathrooms and kitchens ... phew)
Some more pictures from around the canals ...
Loved the houses in Amsterdam - an arthritis patient's nightmare most definitely though - they are long and thin. So its nothing unusual for your house to have a living room on one floor, a bedroom on one, another on another level, and then an attic.
The obscene line outside Anne Frank's House in Amsterdam. It seems you sometimes need to wait almost 2-3 hours to get in.
A giant yellow clog shoe boat. Too cute. Sort of like owning a yellow Nano.
Phew. That's it for this post. Tons more pictures and videos on the next. On the media front, have been listening to the new 'Lafangey Parindey' soundtrack ... quite funky and interesting, and seems like a fun film. Would definitely recommend a dekko / suno. We also saw the new Park Chan Wook film (the guy who made the Vengeance trilogy including OldBoy remade as Zinda) 'Thirst' ... was a little tired of the vampires theme ... nowadays it seems any film has some sort of lycanthrope or bloodsucker thrown into it to get the teenage girls in the audience swooning. But was worth a watch - interesting plot line since it makes the resident vampire a Father as well (church-walla) and there's a fairly hot chick in it, who actually has a substantial role to play. A little morbid at times, and also since its dubbed, it doesn't have the possibility of Oscar-winning lines like this one ...
Oh well. You can't have everything. Cheerio guys.
2 comments:
i love the beginning of the post.. it's not senti.. it captures what a city of your dreams should be. did u smoke up there?
Thanks Goldbug - I can't think of a better and more public forum to answer that question .... uff.
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