Day 0.5 and 1 @ Amsterdam

Oookayh. So here we go the first part of my Ams trip.

I departed from Cork Airport and reached Schiphol Airport at about 7.45pm. We planned to sleep in the airport that night to save up accomodation cost. It was Easter Sunday and the accom price was very very expensive that day at most of the hostels. It turned out, the airport's overnite was so good! Thanks to Nabila, we didn't go out from the immigration and stayed in the arrival hall. It is soooooo big and to my amazement, it it complete with necessary facilities like restaurants, toilets, PRAYING ROOM, SHOWERS and LAZY CHAIRS to sleep. So cool right?? If I were to compare Heathrow and Schiphol, tch, memang Heathrow kalah lah wehh..

muka excited on the lazy chairs. hoho..

at meditation room. not spesifically for muslim to pray lah dia mix with other religions. tapi kiblat ada telekung ada AlQuran ada semua lengkap dia kasi :)

So we spent a night in the airport. Pillow talk skit..The next morning we showered, had breakfast and took train to the Central Station.

nampak MAS time tengah breakfast :'( nak balik....tsk

The first thing we did when we arrived in the city was to book for the excursions. We just chose from the ones offered from tour agencies along the Damraak. After some discussions, we made our mind not to buy the I Amsterdam card and opted for the normal pass instead. Siap segala urusan beli-membeli and drafted out our plans , we went to the hostel to check in. LEPASTU SIAP TIDO SIKIT-SIKIT KONON-KONON PENAT. hahaha..

That evening we went around the streets. Went to China town to search something to eat and "accidentally" went to the Red Light District. Tak plan pun nak pergi on that day because it was supposed to be on Day 3 of our holiday (saya pergi dengan madam strict okay, kena patuh ikut jadual :P)...terkojuittt mak tiba-tiba ada perempuan berbaju kurang didalam tingkap. Ada yang muka boring je..ada yang muka pasrah dengan kehidupan..ada yang gobu-gobu and ada yang tak muda langsung!

sebab pakai tripod cinonet, jadi banyaklah dapat gambar angle-angle begini :P

For the rest of the day, we went to Flower Market. Dekat je dengan hostel kitorang. Ohhh so interesting! They sell souvenirs and flowers' seeds. Tulip's bulbs tu rupa dia cam bawang jee...Tapi keluar-keluar jadi cantekk gitu. Other than Flower Market, we also went to the S** Museum. It's Amsterdam people, Amsterdam...:P Ada apa in that museum? Nothing interesting pun. Geli lagi adalah. Nasib 4euro je ticket. We then toured around the Dam..Lepastu jalan-jalan cari makan..

Cannabis siappp. Everything is legal in Ams, remember?

tulips bulbs!

muka teruja tengok pretty flowers

*geleng kepala*

at one of the "shopping mall" tak best pon..

We called it a day quite early as we were quite tired (Nabila tak dapat tidur kat airport sebab lazy chair tu tak menepati cita rasa sleeping position dia) Lagipun the next day we'll be having a full day so kena dapatkan rehat secukupnya supaya tiada siapa-siapa cranky :P

Berehat sebentar bersama NidNad

Entry on Amsterdam will follow through after this. Nak masukkan entry bukan-bukan di tengah jap. Tak nzrasuffian.blogspot la kalau tak mengarut/mengomel kan :P

I have exams in a week. Tapi wah wah otak nih berkarat macam dah 6 bulan tak belajar. Lempang laju-laju kang. Lepas tu pulak rumah kitorang sekarang ada tetamu. They are very interesting entities :P Kira very the refreshing lah kan selama ni dok tengok muka samaaaa je sekarang dah ada variety. I enjoy their presence very much :) Pulak tu kerjanya asyik bantai menyanyiiii je sepanjang masa lagilah I sokaaa...

Tapi sekarang tetamus and housemates are in town pergi bersuka ria. I had to bow out sebab sedar diri ada exam. Been trying to study..tapi progress is very slow. Ada macam nak menangis pun ada neh. Nak enjoy tokleh. Nak study tokleh. Lempang laju-laju boleh?

Oklah oklah dah. Nak update pasal Amsterdam plak.

kthxbai

Amsterdam - the overall review.

I'm gonna start off with the overall review of Amsterdam before I go with the details since a friend of mine is going soon. So here you go :

The city

This is from what I remember la eh I can't guarantee this is 100% true. Ingat-ingat from what the guides told us during the excursions je. Ada part of Netherlands is located below the sea level. The Dutch ni macam create a new land from sea adalah using their techniques. Google sendiri for the details. lols..One of the reasons there are lots of windmills in Amsterdam is for the land reclamation ni lah. Some of the area used to be watery area, and most of the part of the Netherlands ni flat. So nak naik basikal tadehal lah takde penat naik bukit.

Netherlands is part of EU, so the currency is Euro. Population tak sure, but ada banyak gak Muslims so we can find mosques in this country. They said there are a lot of Indonesian here tapi I didn't see that many pun maybe they live outside the city kot. Malaysian kat situ tak surelah ada berapa ramai tak pernah jumpa pun yang reside kat situ, tourists ada lah a few.

Transportation

Amsterdam, in my opinion is not that big. So kalau larat, you can rent a bike to get around the city. There are a lot of bicycle rental service in the city. At the central station itself, you can see about 5000 bicycles. Kalau lebih larat lagi, pun boleh jalan jugak. Takdehal...

You can travel to the city from Schiphol airport by train. It costed 3.80eu per single journey. If you are flying with Ryanair, you'll land at Eindhoven airport, dalam 1++ hrs from the city so kena la naik bas nak pegi central. Menyusahkan, so I chose to pay more for conveniency and flew with Aerlingus.

To travel within the city, other than bike, you can buy the city pass at the ticket centre. Unlimited rides of Tram, Metro or Bus. 24hr pass - 5.50eu, 48hr pass - 11++ eu, 72hr pass - 15.50eu.

You can also buy the I.Amsterdam card IF you are interested with museums and etc. Ada 24hr (38eu) pass, 48hr (48eu) pass etc. With that you can get free entrance or discounted price for museums, tapi tak boleh pakai for all museums, discounted price at certain restaurants, city pass and free 1 hour canal cruise. The main museums like Rijskmuseum (spell check, malas nak google) or Van Gogh museum tak boleh pakai in I'm not mistaken.

Accomodation

We stayed at Stayokay Stadsoelen Youth Hostel. Location not too bad and safe, like 5 minutes walk from the tram. Security - good, takde orang mabuk ke high ke apa. Since both of us has the Hostelling International card, we get 2.50eu off from the price of the rooms. So 3 hari stay dah bleh jimat 7.50eu not too bad la. We paid 25eu for the private room (2 nights) and 19eu for the dorm (1 night)

Food

Searching for halal food is not a problem. Ada je you can find big HALAL signs in the restaurant. One of the popular food in Amsterdam is french fries. Bunyi cam bosan je kan but I recommend you to try 'em. I was skeptical at first but actually it was so good. Makan pulak dengan the oorlog sauce fuuuuh terbaikkk..

Things to do

I recommend you to join the excursions offered by the companies. The tickets can be bought at Damraak (located like 2 mins from the Central Station, ada lagi tempat lain jual but that's the easiest place to buy lah) and from there you can choose from the many excursions offered. Buy online also cann..

We chose 2 excursions, the Keukenhof (tulips and pretty flowersss) and visiting cheese & clog factory, windmill and fishermen's village. Keukenhof excursion costed around 32eu, lasted for 4.5 hrs including the journey while the second excursion costed around 33eu, with the same duration as the previous one.

Banyak boleh dapat from the excursion because the tourist guide will explain/membebel non stop about the history of Amsterdam etc during the journey. Baguslah for people who are too lazy to read the history like me.

On top of that we bought a canal cruise ticket for 7eu. For an hour, the cruise brought us around the main canals of Amsterdam.

Other than that if you are art lovers boleh pergi to the museums there. Boleh jugak visit the Red Light District just for the sake of going lah :P Keep in mind you'll be seeing lots of nasty things jugak in Amsterdam so open your mind lah ye. Lepas otak dah rosak pergi tempat bukan-bukan pergilah tengok the tulips to clear up your mind :P Dekat area Van Gogh museum, Rijskmuseum semua tu ada park where you can just hang around.

Yang lain-lain, would be choosing a right time to visit. Pergi time spring, around mid April like that would be the best. The flowers pun mesti akan full bloom, and the temperature would be just nice for traveling. The people there can speak English so communication is not a problem at all.

That's all I can write about for the time being. I'm not at my best condition now coz I'm super tired so macam tak boleh nak come out with better ways to explain. Hope this helps :)

I Amsterdam-ed :)

I am back from Amsterdam ;)

By far, this is the best holiday I have ever went. Days full packed with lotsa interesting activities. Alhamdulillah, the trip went okay and the weather was being nice to us.

I definitely recommend Amsterdam for holiday. Not your typical the-only-attraction-are-buildings place. Amsterdam outdone London BIGG time baby! haha..exaggerate much?

I'm gonna come back and try to update as quick as possible as I need to rearrange my life back to normal again. So...stay tune people!

The starting of my easter holiday

This might or might not be my last post before I leave for Amsterdam. :)

For the past 2 days, our friends from Galway came down to visit. So I was kinda busy with them. I had so much fun since we get to see new faces with mixes of unique and very entertaining characters. Eventhough I'm a bit worried with my abandoned books and notes, I seriously enjoyed this 2 days very much. Pergi tengok laut dah. BBQ dah. Menyanyi dah. Memboyan pun sudah.

I'll be going to Amsterdam tomorrow at 5pm and will only be back in the morning of the 8th. I hope I'll have a safe journey and really really really hope the weather will be just nice for us. Semoga none of us will get cranky throughout the journey. hahaha...Oh anyway it'll only be me and Nabila in this trip.

Back from the trip, I wanna forget everything unpleasant that is going around. I want to make sure I came back with stronger heart. Hati kering. Hati batu. Hati segala-gala lah!

Wish me luck and safe journey :)