My trip in Holland - Part 3

Simo&Davide in Wonderland

After coming back from the club in Downtown A’dam at 5.30 a.m., we slept almost 2 hours before taking the tram to the railway station. It was Saturday 9th December, we had to go to Eindhoven to take the flight to Italy. That was our plan but we never were so wrong before. When we woke up it was just the beginning of our adventure…
In our coach there was a group of “old” people which was taking a trip and, as a group of young scholars, they were shouting and screaming. Now, if you are in the mood, ok, there are no problems. But if you are a bit tired and nervous because you slept just a few hours, then…but “take it easy” was our motto, even if Davide was complaining all the journey... Suddenly, in a station somewhere between Amsterdam and Eindhoven, the train stopped and we had to take a bus to go to the airport. We arrived and after the check-in, we waited or our flight in the airport. Then, a voice from the speakers said “Attention please, the flight to Milano was cancelled”. Noooooooooooooooo, and now??? We went to the Ryanair desk and after a 1 and ½ hours of queue, we had to decide between leaving Eindhoven on Wednesday (eheheh, are you crazy???) or going to Frankfurt and taking the flight the next morning. Obviously, we opted for the second opportunity, but it arose another problem: how to get to Frankfurt? Fortunately, there was already a group of Italians who had to go there, so we joined them and we waited for the bus. When it arrived at the airport, the driver had a little problem: he didn’t know the way to go to Frankfurt? What the hell??? Are you a driver? After one hour, we left Eindhoven to (maybe) Frankfurt. Three hours of trip, but finally we arrived to Hahn airport, 120 km away from Frankfurt. Because we had to take the flight next morning, so why don’t go to a little hotel for sleeping and resting that night? Ok, we asked for a room and the information desk reserved one for us. And then, it started another adventure. It seemed to us like entering Wonderland, as Alice did in the famous book. We were wondering if we had met the White Rabbit, or the Caterpillar, or maybe the Mad Hatter, we didn’t know. But we enter a situation that was unreal, like a dream. An old and gentle man, speaking only German, came to the airport, and took us to his home, somewhere in the middle of an infinite flat land. Then, his wife gave us something to eat, we could not speak at all, we were trying to explain what we needed, but we were speaking only English, not German…We went to our room, and then the final surprise…Davide opened his bag and asked me “Who put this stuff in my bag?”. “I don’t know, - I said - it doesn’t look like yours…”, then, we looked each other and thought “Nooooooooooooooooo”. It was not his bag, there was an exchange of bags at the airport, the bags were exactly the same, so it was impossible to distinguish them…That was the last thing that happened that day, we were really thinking “Ok, maybe we are dreaming, we are not here, tomorrow we will wake up and we will be already in Italy…”. So, we went to the bed, with this hope…Next morning we got finally the flight, and we arrived in Italy. At the airport, we found the original Davide’s bag left by the other man in the company office, and then we went home.
That was the end of our trip, a wonderful and unforgettable trip.



The driver looking for the airport...



Going to Frankfurt



Davide in the German house



Some objects



Finally, the flight...

Soundtrack : Toxicity (System of a down)

My trip in Holland - Part 2

Sights of A’dam

That’s the way we called Amsterdam. There you can find people from every corner of the world, and every kind of people, from gentlemen to dangerous people…But that’s typical of cities like it. We arrived in A’dam the evening of Wednesday (7th December), and just out of the railway station, a wonderful sight. On our back the amazing Railway station building, on the right the Old Catholic Church and in front of us the main street with many many tall buildings. So, we went right to our hotel, in Leidsenplein, the square of the night life in Amsterdam. We ate, then a bier and we decided to visit one of the most popular sites in A’dam, i.e. De Wallen, the Red Light District. Contrary to what we thought, it’s a crowded place, visited by tourists of all ages, from young to old people, men and women, without any distinction. What surprised us is the fake atmosphere you can find there. It’s a non-place, where you can find transgression but the fact itself that the transgression is so overexposed made it so normal that it becomes fake.




Davide floating on the canal



Buildings reflecting in a canal



Heineken advertising



A coloured building

The day after, we decide to become more Dutch, so we rent a bike to visit A’dam and the countryside. We walked around the city, then, in the afternoon, we took a boat at the station crossing the river that divides the city from the countryside. From there, we rode our bikes through one of the ways indicated in the traffic signs. Big canals crossed by bridges, windmills, land divided by narrow canals and sheep all around. It was like diving in a reality belonging to a century ago, just few kilometres from downtown A’dam. So nice. But also so cold…so, we came back home before the sunset and then, after a Thai dinner, we started to look for a party. It seems that A’dam has a lot of places where you can party, but if you ask someone the names, they just say “Oh, it’s plenty of clubs around here, just look or ask someone else…” Sorry, I understand that there are so many clubs and discos, but can you suggest me at least one of them??? It’s so difficult? Anyway, we found an apparently nice pub where there was an international student party. We went there, but the music was not so good, and the people not so friendly to us, because they already know each other…So, we went home, hoping that the next day would have been better at least under this aspect…and actually, it was.



A windmill



Davide and me riding our bikes



Street of lights

We spent Friday (9th December) going in the morning to the Van Gogh Museum (very interesting) and in the afternoon shopping and walking down the streets of A’dam. That evening we ate a pizza in an Italian restaurant where we found also two Dutch girls which were really nice to us. We talked with them about Italy and Holland. Actually, we also know from them why most of the buildings in A’dam are “sinking”. That’s because the ground is full of water and it is subsiding. We also know, from our guide, the reason of the building’s shape. In the past, in fact, the houses taxes were concerning the width of the buildings. So the smart Dutch people built narrow and tall houses to save money…Ok, after the dinner, we went with the two girls we met first to a club in downtown A’dam (a really nice club, called “Escape Deluxe”) and then to another place called “Cooldown Cafè”. We had fun until late at night, and the day after we had to come back, at least in our original plans…




Sinking buildings



"The Bulldog", the first coffeeshop



Me on the dance floor

Soundtrack : My humps (Black eyed Peas)

(End of the second part. The third and last part in 4-5 days…)

My trip in Holland - Part 1

The colour and the atmosphere of the South

It was more than a month ago that me and my friend Davide decided to visit Holland using the period of holidays in Italy (officially just the 8th December, but you know, in Italy one day of holiday in the middle of the week means almost all the week…). We have never been there before, so why don’t use our time to make us known in that country? So, we flew to Eindhoven last Tuesday (6th December) and from there we moved to Rotterdam. This is the newest city in Holland, actually it’s a kind of building yard, everywhere you can see some masons and cranes building houses and skyscrapers, with so many glasses windows reflecting each other and making a funny mirror joke. Unfortunately it was Tuesday, so in Holland it means no people around the city, and also the weather was a little bit crappy, but it was anyway funny. We had a dinner in an Indonesian restaurant (that we nicknamed “tasteless restaurant” because they gave us vegetables without any kind of dressing, no oil, no salt, no sauces, just peanuts cream…) and after we found a small pub where we drank something and met some crazy Dutch girls.


Building Rotterdam


Erasmusbrugge and the Renzo Piano's building (background)




Me in downtown Rotterdam



Next morning, we took a look of the Cathedral and than we took the train to Amsterdam, but we stopped before in Utrecht to visit that city.
Just one adjective about Utrecth : wonderful. You can see there the real atmosphere of Holland, it seems to be in a painting of some Dutch artist, with a slightly lighted air, streets made of lines of tall buildings, a canal that cuts the city creating many corners with characteristics views, and a gothic Cathedral that was in part destroyed in the XVII century by an hurricane. So nice city, full of young people, students (there is a big University), especially girls…



Houses and the canal in Utrecth




Me and a Dutch girl




The Cathedral of Utrecth




A view on the canal in Utrecth



It was a pity that we had to go to Amsterdam, we would have spent there at least that evening. But the hotel in Amsterdam was waiting for us…so, let’s go there…

Soundtrack : Hung up (Madonna)

(End of the first part. The next part in two days)