I amsterdam!

Gouden Dag!

Yesterday we arrived at 00.07 pm at the mainstation in Speyer.
It was such a wonderful trip, everybody of us finally 12 people (Sophia managed to stay with us all the time) enjoyed it so much and we had a pretty marvellous time all together!!:)



"Amsterhamster" is great! The "Grachten" like the famous Prinsen- or Herengracht, the nice houses, "Albertheijn" our supermarket, fantastic places like Leidseplein and Königsplein and the Dutch people, who were so helpful and charming made our trip to an unforgettable experience
and I am really grateful having sampled all this:-).



"Amsterhamster" is an outstanding city. I can draw the conclusions that this nice capital is a mixture of Berlin and Mannheim, hehe;-)
Yeah, it is really like that. Let me explain it:
On the one hand side "Amsterhamster" is a great multicultural metropolis. Probably the half of Barcelona's population is living here:D. Apart from that you can find British, German, (South-) American and many Asian folks, it is wonderful and you can feel the so- called "big city life". That is may be also a reason why especially Franz and me talked most of the time either in English or Dutch..:D



On the other side "Amsterhamster" has an unique charm and atmosphere. The capital is not that big but well- aranged and the laid- back "Amsterhamster" spirit is omnipresent- not only because of the weed you know;). The "Amsterhamsters" do not know the word hecticness, they seem to be really satisfied, no wonder this city speaks for itself:) Oh, I cannot stop to swarm about it^^.

"Amsterhamsters" love to go by bike and they decorate their bikes with flowers :) Your first thougt might be: Oh sure, this expresses their coolnes and appeases their aggressiveness. You can say this concerning all the other actions of Dutch people in which they behave really easy-going, but in riding their bike they do not see any fun, it is a mentality, a FRANTIC mentality who makes every biker ignoring poor little pedestrians:D!



In the next days/weeks/months (?) a detailed journal and pictures of our journey will follow.

See you,

kind regards and Tot ziens from "Antje":)

Finally..

Yeah finally we did it! After a long time of scaduling now our trip is safe. Travelling with Deutsche Bahn on the 20th of April and acommodation in Bulldog Hostel Asterdam. Not just the thing that everything works out but there is also a marvellous announcement to make:


Sophia is joining us for 3 days! Isn´t it great. I hope she will be a funny addition to our nice group, but Im pretty sure. So welcome Sophia and see you in Amsterdam:) It just 2 days left and Im already pretty curious.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown...

That was a meeting..oh..maan :D After having admired our nice Amsterdam blog, we finally began to plan our voyage. First I called Anne, she provided us with some very useful information..Anne without you, we would be nothing ;-)However the call with her turned out to be quite difficult...the hyper crowd did not want to be quite..ahh^^ Of course Anne found again a great offer with DB..probably we will succeed in travelling beneficially to the city of our dreams :P

The next step was the hostel..

We have the following options:

1.flying pig which has a quite questionable as well as funny video

2.bob's youth hostel..it appears cool and easygoing ..but it has also a kind of " jail atmosphere":D
3.bulldog..citation:"Lots of loud, stoned Americans. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not for everyone! Good location and good security though."(nov. 2008)

Well,... Barega wrote some witty emails to each hostel..we hope that at least one of them wants to accommodate us..all of us are really excited about this whole thing!

Shit happens...

Oh, it is such a pitty! Yesterday Anne told me about the possibility to travel with Deutsche Bahn to Amsterdam...first I was doubtful. I had not anticipated to find a cheap offer by train..and due to this fact we thought, a flight would be perfect and the most beneficial thing...But then Anne - the master of finding some fantastic bargains- found the bargain of the season!!!! 61 Euro per person by DB...I thought..It's sheer lunacy!

But as you can imagine, this "dream" will not come true...apparently this offer is sold out ...today..damn..Today we looked for some other possibilities by train..however it seems to be hopeless..well, I think now we have to take amsterdam airlines...

This evening we will have a meeting again. I hope we will succeed in finding a nice hostel, a cheap way to come there and in defending last doubts concerning the city....Alex, Amsterdam is it, maaaaan;-)

I'm really looking forward to get to know Amsterdam..it will be marvellous!

Airplane Crash

I have to say I was really shocked to hear about this Message in the radio this very morning. Just arriving in an other plane I was so grateful to be on terra firma again. But what about our trip? Totally confused I did have problems to grasp the possible dangers of a flight by plan which are normally put aside.

But I really don't want to spread panic. Travelling by plane mantains... statistically the most secure means of transport. To read further details about the crash I provided a link a short newspaper article...This may become an excellent feature story...right Crummy?



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7910189.stm

A Turkish Airlines plane has crashed on landing at Amsterdam's Schiphol international airport, killing nine people and injuring 84, six critically.

The plane, carrying 128 passengers and seven crew, crashed short of the runway near the A9 highway. It broke into three pieces, but did not catch fire. Witnesses spoke of seeing at least 20 passengers walking from the wreckage of Flight TK 1951. Officials said it was unclear why the plane, en route from Istanbul, crashed. There were conflicting reports initially about the number of dead and injured, but at a press conference at Schiphol a couple of hours after the crash, the airport director confirmed nine people had died. (Source : BBC News - Europe)

FIRST SCHEDULING

Today we met at the Maximilians in Speyer which was basically our first serious encounter concerning our trip to Amsterdam. We had a great time discussing our trip about...5 minutes. The rest of the time consisted of Yildeen's and Barega's conversation about Australian Aborigines and the marvellous Wiki which deals with this topic.