Amsterdam: Day One

Friday, March 11 started off in the freezing cold of Treviso Airport, north of Venezia. We decided, because we were told there was no way to get from Venezia to Treviso at 6:00AM, to cancel our hostel in Venezia and sleep in the Airport. This seemed like it would work out fine, except that about midnight when the last flight left Treviso for the previous day they turned off the lights and the heat, leaving our travel group and two Italian military guards to occupy the frigid cold warehouse/terminal of tiny little Treviso airport. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep. The night dragged on and on until finally the flight staff started showing up around 5:30AM, and the lights and heat came back on.

The flight over the alps was amazing of course


Another amazing view of the Alps from the air

We spent a little while in Brussells, first driving through on the bus, then hanging out in the train station.

Brussells had an interesting mix of old and new architecture


This complex is the main train station in Brussells


The inside of the train station

After a bit our train arrived to take us to Holland. I have to say I was really impressed with the train system in Northern Europe. The trains and the stations were all much nicer than Italy. I've said this a couple of times but I personally find it very interesting that Italy is part of the G-8 (The world's seven wealthiest nations plus Russia) and the people here are very proud of that status among the economically elite nations of the world. That said, Italy is pretty run down and dumpy compared to the United States, and even compared to Northern Europe. Our arrival in Brussells was my first real experience of any country outside Italy, but the hour drive through the countryside (to get from Charleroi to Brussells) revealed a very different character from what we had gotten used to in Italy, and this surprising increase in the economic conditions was only going to continue as we moved into the even wealthier nations of Holland, Germany, and Austria.

The train ride into Holland took about four hours, and we arrived to greet the city of Amsterdam on a particularly nasty, rainy day.

The Amsterdam train station as we entered the city

We headed town the city streets toward our hostel, stopping a couple places along the way to see the sights and sounds. We passed a tremendous number of shops, and were pleasantly surprised to see the Dutch don't take a four hour siesta every day. The city was very active, lots of people walking amongst the numerous stores and restaruants. After about twenty minutes we arrived at the Hostel.

Our group entering the hostel

One major problem with this Hostel... it wasn't the one we were booked at. Turns out the city had two hostels called "Stay Okay", and while Daniel and Wesley had booked this one, Brett, Jon, Jason and I had booked the other one. Thirty minutes later we found the correct hostel.

That's the right hostel


And this is us walking in


Our room was on the 6th floor, so we had a cool view

After checking in and getting settled for a bit Brett and Jason left to go discover some parts of Amsterdam that Jon and I weren't interested in. We found a bite of dinner and went to explore for a while, then ended up going to an Irish Pub we found and playing a couple games of pool. After a while we came back to the hostel and hung out at the hostel bar for a little while, were we tried this interesting concoction they called "nachos." It was like... chili powder on Tostitos with sweet and sour sauce to dip the chips in. People in Europe just don't understand Spicy food. Ugh.

At this point we crashed for the night, thus wrapping up day one in Amsterdam.