#16. Amsterdam

in the morning (well, if 11ish is morning) ron took us to TU Delft. and he parked his car near the Industrial Design faculty. maaaaaan!!!! it's very cool!! i think it just made me want to go there even more. argh! hope that luck will be on my side again this time.

anyway.. right after that we went to this German store and bought beers (for the guys) then went to Ron's place to pick up Fabian. the four of us went by the bus and train this time and what amazed me was, these two guys were so eager to drink beers they carried those 23 cans inside a bag. (but that's really cool)

we went to Amsterdam for the queen's day. the Dutch say it like Konninginedag--sorry if the spelling's wrong--and it's actually a celebration of theire previous queen's birthday (if i'm not mistaken) and it is a tradition to wear orange ANY orange stuff to the 'party'. Mia's the only one in our group that owned an orange thing. the first thing we saw when we got off the train was some drunk people all over the station (by the way, that was just 3ish in the afternoon) but once we got out of the station, i saw a spectacular view. the whole street was almost orage from the shirt or ornament that people wore. the street covered in bottles and beer cans. everyone's saying something it was hard to listened to anything. but it was really fun.

that was one of the best day i have in Holland actually. thank god we went with two guys so they could stand before and after us to open a little path for these two little girls (compare the Dutch). we're heading to Museumplein but once we're there i had no idea how to break through the crowds. Fabian led the way and sudenlly we're right in the middle of the Plein and right in front of the stage.

the rest happened like every other carnaval. loud, blurry, fun. but i was very happy that i kept saying to Mia "i'm so greatful we're here, in Amsterdam for the queen's day". thank you Ron and Fabian, for being our 'guide and bodyguards'!!!

#15. Amsterdam

today we're planning to go to Keukenhof from the morning, but of course, that's only a plan. actually we're ready at around 9 but my Aunt and I were kinda eager to show Mia Zanse Schans (the place i came on my second day) to show her the windmill. this time, we got bike! yeah, my Aunt's bike finally fixed and we could experience how it felt to be the dutch. despite Mia's slender body, she's really heavy! and i couldn't carry someone in a "duduk cantik" cantik position, so i think mia also hurt her butt. i didn't dare to cross the main road without getting off the bike at first, but after gotten myself used to it,the ride back home was far waaayy smoother than the first try.

next was Keukenhof. according to the brochure we have, Keukenhof is a flower exhibition that only happens once a year during the spring. the purpose was to show off the tulips the Dutch are very proud about. to go there we had to go to Schipol first to buy our tickets. Mia took a lot of picture of herself in Schipol, she said 'although i didn't landed here, but it's nice to pretend that i landed here.' well, so be it.

the Keukehof trip took 30 minutes from the airport, and thank god both of us aren't big fans of flowers so 2 hours was enough for half the park. i have to admit though, it WAS beautiful. i was a bit disappointed that no one's taking the lousy pose pictures near the flower fields (you know, the laying down on the grass with flower that just plucked from the tulip field slipped in their ears).

our next stop was Delft. i made an appointment with Ron, my Dutch friend that i met in Indonesia (he did a student exchange program last semester). we got on the wrong train, but it was going in the right direction, but because of that we had to change up to three trains and wasted 20 more minutes to wait for the train that'd take us from Den Haag Centraal to Delft.

Ron picked us up with his funny car. it's Citroen something 1989 and what i remember from the picture he showed me a long time ago, the car supposed to be red, but this time it was yellow and blue. we accompanied him grocery shopping and went back to his place. he's a nice host actually, he cooked(didn't want me to help him because apparently i didn't look like a cooking princess to him) then we ate, his house mate joined us, his name was fabian (if i'm not mistaken) he's a greman guy who stays in Delft for a semester (again, if i'm not mistaken) and i just know that the Dutch eat Fla (the one Indonesian pour on pudding) just like that. just the fla itself.

we called it a day, we thought we're gonna sleep on the couch (it was couch surfing after all) but Ron was too kind and offered us his room while he'd be sleeping somewhere in the house. well, goodnight. i have this lazy mood when i'm in NL, and i don't know why.

#14. Amsterdam

really enjoyed our time here. in the morning we just sat and relax with coffee and bread. then we headed out at around two. mia went in to the sex museum and i just waited outside because i wasn't interested (i'd prefer to use the money to shop), then we entered Kalverstraat before mia had to met her friend at Dome Monument (?). we saw a pasar kaget in the middle of centrum. it wasn't there the last time i was here (a week ago).

after mia finished we were planning to go to Museumplein to find this famous ï amsterdam" letters, but we're stuck in the huge and good book store. and once we finished it's almost time for our dinner meeting with my uncle and auut, so we went the red light distric instead.

not much to tell from today actually, which i kinda like. i like having a great time to lay back for a day or two from a full schedulled trip. And to me,Holland is just the perfect place for that.

#13. Brussles

we only have 6 hours or less to visit this country, so first thing first, manekin pis. it's a statue of a little boy pissing in the corner of the street, and i personally still wondering why it has became famous.

we walked through The Grande Place (?) took some pictures--the kind every tourist has when they visit Brussels then we went souvenir shopping afterwards. on our way back, we spare sometime to bought ourselves some waffels. i't tasted good but when you had too much of it, it'll be eneg.

around 2 we headed back to our hotel, stopped in front of the metro station to see this comic book store. mia and i bought 1 each as a "souvenir", even if we don't understand French, there'll always be google translate.

as usual, we're almost late for our bus. we had to run through the station to get into the eurolines counter, and luckily, the bus was also 20 minutes late. so we hop on the bus in time to go to Amsterdam.

once i arrived at Den Haag centraal, i had trouble finding a way in, then sudenlly a guy came and offer me a ride to the 'new entrance' turned out he's hired by the mayor to take people from the old entrance to the new one until the restoration in the station done--he said it'll be done in around 2040 (the picture with yellow rickshaw).

#12. On the bus

So we went from London crossed a very to France and went to Brussels. We arrived at Brussels at 5-ish and this city was a real horror. Too many bad people during the dark. And we kept on watching each other's back until we could check in in the eurolines that'll take us to Essen, Germany. It's an exhausting day for us. We could barely find oursleves a good place to brush our teeth and face.

We went to essen to visit red dot museum, and after we went in we still think that the one in Singapore still look much better. I like the experience, but I hate the effort we had to went through just to get there.

After this we'll go back to brussels for a day. See you in brussels.

#11. London

Woke up at 10-ish, made breakfast (CRUMPETS!! oh yeha, english afternoon snack with tea) with butter and poached eeg, it was geeeeeaaat! Dispite the ugly name, crumpets tasted really good. In tried to make myself a coffee but only found a chocolate so be it, but what's written sugar on the can turned out to be salty so I threw my coffee away. After a quick packing, we went out to the city for the last time. This time we're just gonna shop.

1st, HARRODS. Haha. Finally found it. It's huge and expensive from every aspect. The back sound sounded like rich music for english dutches when they're having their afternoon tea, the interior was beyond luxurious, even the carpet was very plushy you could sleep on it, the bathroom's very cool and you got to sample free parfumes inside the toilet, the cashier there called me MADAME instead of miss. It was that expensive we could only afford a bread for lunch. We were hoping for a cheap postcard to collect, but noooooo, the cheapest we could find was these lousy pens and we decided just to ignore it and went out.

2nd, PRIMARK. now we're talking. It's so cheap for good value outfit. If only I went there last year when I got more money. But we managed to shopped some stuff that's we're eager to have but cannot buy in our home country. We shopped till we forgot the time and it's already late from our schedulled plan. We took abus ride home (that was stupid, london traffic didn't match anyone who's in a ruch of deadline). We're almost late for our bus to brussels, but thanks to the last ballance in my Oyster card, we could get on a Tube and made it to the Victoria couch station on time.

So bye bye london, hopely this isn't our last meeting..

#10. London

We're exhausted from the bus trip, we could barely feel our backs. Anyway we went straight to Old Street underground to meet Jani, Vie's boyfriend's sister. We're staying at her place for the night. But she had to leave to Germany this afternoon and she left us her whole apartment. After a few chats we decided to take a quick nap then 4 hours later we headed to the city. Our objetcs today: st. Paul's cathedral, millenium bridge, london bridge (we saw it oppedned and closed again), and next we're planning to go to the london eye so that mia could fly it, but once we got there it was too crowded. So we decided to just go home.

We went grocery shopping and cooked ourselves some pasta with penne, spinach, ground beef, and corriander. (ala kadarnya pasta, really) but we're having agreat time. Full stomach made us sleepy, so goodnight! I'm going to bed early tonight.

#9. Edinburgh

We got up at around 8 o'clock, had breakfast and a quick wifi before we checked out and stored our bags in the luggage room. Today wasn't as cold as yesterday but it's raining. We got all we wanted: fog, rain and that experience you can barely get in Indonesia--smoky breath because it's too cold. And at the moment we're dripping like wet dogs trying to get warm in Mc.D.

Today we visited every single free museum we could find. Tried to ignore all the cute stuffs around but in the end an Indian seller succeeded to sell me a scotland skirt (which I was planning to buy but refused because it was too expensive) he sold me the kids size--yeah lucky to be asian, we're petite--so I got the much cheaper price. I also bought a scarf (tourist trap) but I loved the color and it's wort as something to remember from scotland.

It's very cold! 7 degrees and bellow according to the news. But we're leaving tonight at 10 o'clock.

P.s: we had our worst bus ride ever! The space for our feet are very small, the back rest cannot be turned back, we stop every 2 hours, the toilet was a real traumatic experience for me, oh, and I saw someone almost gave a BJ to her boy friend on my to the toilet. Yeah. Real traumatic bus ride. See you in London.