Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Europe trip part 1: The Netherlands

7th July: The arrival
For some crazy reason, Kaz decided to fly a solid 30 hours via Shanghai to Amsterdam. Coincidently I was in town and decided to train up from Delft to meet her. The meetup was great. It was really nice seeing her directly through my fleshy eyeballs rather than through a 240px camera resolution. After an hour long commute back to Delft without experiencing any lag or WiFi issues while chatting, we decided to quickly drop her bags off at my place and head out for a quick dinner. Since my entire diet while studying at Deft consists almost whole heartedly of cereal, I was just as surprised as her to see all the food available in the city center. We settled on some half German, half Dutch, half Italian (Gerutchan) restaurant. I was equally as tired as Kaz after dinner because I had stayed up till 4:30am the previous night making sure all my assignments were completed so we were both pretty keen to call it a night.
8th July: The red light mission
We woke up and decided to take the world by storm by bike riding to Rotterdam. We had originally decided to go to Den Haag, but I reckoned the bike ride to Rotterdam was much better. After purchasing a mobike subscription we were on our way! The ride was tough, the view was stunning and the sun was fierce. We parked out bikes at Rotterdam near a local lake and enjoyed a nice brie (the good brie, not the bad shit you get a your local super market) and baguette and some salad.  Once our stomachs were pumped with cheese we decided to waddle around Rotterdam a bit and see the sights. Shortly afterwards we hopped on the nearest train to head to Amsterdam to meet an old childhood friend of Kaz. Her name was Gwinie (Guinnie? Quinnie?) and she was very friendly. We met at Vondelpark, drank a few ciders and got to see a live band performance in the blistering sun. After exchanging pleasantries, banter and embarrassing childhood stories we decided to split ways and head to the red light district for some much needed red lights. Like children finding the porno section of a candy store, we wandered around slack jawed at every 99% naked woman pressing herself against the window. The red light district lived up to its reputation because once we got back we realized both of us were insanely sunburned.
9th July: The Errands
Today was an easy day. The accumulated effect of sunburn, lack of sleep and just plain bad planning made today a Delft day. We spent a large part of the day getting travel plans organized for Norway and cooking food. We made a nice lasagne and some pesto chicken wraps and enjoyed a relaxing time at the lake watching the ducks fight fiercely over  arbitrarily small patches of land.
10th July The Norway flight
At some point over the last few days Kaz had casually mentioned that she might be interested in learning to play a computer game. Needless to say, I made a big deal out of this and insisted she install Age of Empires II conquerors expansion so that Adi, her and I could all play a game together. The game was amazing! There’s a lot to say about the strategies I used to beat Adi while playing as the Vikings, so I’ll have to write it in a separate blog. After the AoE game we headed to Den Haag to walk around town. We enjoyed a good cider at an Irish pub and trip down memory lane by visiting a Games Workshop. After that we took the train to the airport to head to the Norway!

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