In the weekend between July 11 - 13 Flavia and I visited Amsterdam, which something we had been planning for some time and now it finally happened :oP ...

 

Flavia arrived on Friday evening to The Hague where I work and stay generally Mondays - Thursdays almost every week. We then did a short walk around the center of this residence of Dutch government. Flavia was very excited about the Dutch architecture - red bricks and plain facade ... We saw the parliament and the governmental buildings. Then we made a decision to grab some food, and on the way towards my apartment we found a Greek restaurant that provided us with a Greek salad that effectively contained no feta cheese for some reason and a noodle soup, which happens to be probably something close to Dutch national dish I guess ... so nothing impressive in terms of authenticity ;o)) ...

 

On Saturday morning we woke up early to catch a train at 8.30am heading to Amsterdam. We safely made it just in time to catch the 9am train instead, but that had been anticipated (we're never on time ;o))) ... The return ticket from The Hague was 18EUR each, which I found was alright. In England we would pay twice that in pounds at best ... The weather wasn't great unfortunately and it kept raining on and on, so I couldn't have been expecting too much of our trip ...

 

The trip to Amsterdam took a little over an hour and there we were at the Amsterdam Centraal station finally ... first thing first though, our immediate goal was to gather some tourist info from the Tourist information desk. That turned out to be a good decision altogether with the purchase of the I Amsterdam card for 43EUR each, valid for the next 48hrs ... I can recommend that card to everyone as it gives free access to many museums and galleries (incl. Van Gogh & Rembrandt museum that were on the top of our list anyway), plus free public transportation, several discounts and free vouchers, i.e. bout trip around Amsterdam, free crockettes, free coffee, etc.

 

Just opposite to the Central station we could see the departure docks of the cruise boats and as it was raining fairly intensively we thought that a good idea to first get to know the city from the deck of the boat. The trip took an hour and it showed us the key sights that we then visited on foot within the next 36hrs ...

 

In terms of weather, we were somehow lucky, as it stopped raining after we left the boat at around midday on Saturday and it never really resumed raining anytime after that on Saturday. After we have agreed on the framework of our programme in a nearby cafeteria, we've jumped on a tram and left for the Albert Cuyp Markt. This market should be the one most famous in Amsterdam and it offers everything from toys to tulips to vegetables. We in fact got carried away and bought 2 huge mangoes that we couldn't possibly consume that weekend anyway, but I still ended up carrying the poor mangoes around Amsterdam for the rest of the day :oS ... We also bought chocolate, a wallet, etc. ... Variety of useful artefacts ;o)) ...

 

After the market, we bought this Turkish pastry with invisible feta cheese inside that made Flavia sick, and took a tram to the Van Gogh Museum that happened to be among the peak activities my signorina was crazy about ... she now has a picture standing in front of the institution, and we spent some valuable time there going through every painting. Over the course of the two hours I found my girlfriend capable of telling stories from Van Gogh's life. If half of it she said were pure facts, then she's got her head full of Van Gogh, or else I cannot explain how it came that she displayed so much knowledge on the subject ... ;o))) ...

 

From the Van Gogh museum we walked towards the Rijksmuseum that is currently being renovated and therefore cannot be accessed. That was actually fine with us. There's only as much time as one can serve geeking at paintings in one human day ;o)) ...Skipping Riksmuseum was a good choice I guess and we then marched towards a Bloemenmarkt that again raised Flavia's interest. We have quite a few pics from there. After that we took a short walk and found ourselves in the middle of the Rembrandt Plein, where we expected to find the Rembrandt Museum, but were proved wrong. No such thing happens to exist there, so we turned around and collected our free coffee at La Place Free market and I purchased a cake that Flavia totally appreciated (as usual ;o)) ...

 

After the cake magically disappeared, we left La Place and took a hike into the Amsterdam's old town around the Diamond Museum to the Red Light District overseeing a plentiful of coffee shops on the way. This area appeared to be where most of the local night life happens! And we really enjoyed it. Soon after that some more hunger caught up with us and we turned to a Chinese outfit for help. For 9.90EUR we got ourselves a roasted duck that looked better than what it tasted (but then we only paid 9.90EUR ;o))) ... And then the proper Red Light District tour came. We must have seen at least 5 sex-shops and also picked up the courage to check out a live sex show ;o)) ... something not many couples have done likely, hehe ...

 

We returned back to the Hague pretty tired at around midnight. The next day (Sunday) in the morning we again woke up early and did a bit of packing. at around 8.30 my friend Roy came by with his girlfriend Sara to collect Roy's BBQ. We made it down to meet them just in time and Roy was even kind to take us all the way to Leiden, which is some third of the way from the Hague to Amsterdam. So this saved us time and money and was a very welcome favour!

 

The weather on Sun morning was a bit more positively tuned and we managed to do quite a lot of walking - so we got to see the historical replica of the Amsterdam boat, we've walked around the Nemo building shaped into the front of a ship. We also checked out the exhibition of ships at the Ships museum. THe next step was to get lost on the map, but fortunately we prevailed and found ourselves again a few minutes later. And then it was time for the Rembrandt House where the Dutch have done an amazing job renovating this old property of their prime artist. This visit is something I stronly recommend to everyone!

 

From the 17th century house we found our way towards the famous Skinny bridge and then from there we slowly continued towards the Rembrandt Plein where our free crockettes were already waiting ;o)) ... but that amount of food didn't suffice and we helped ourselves to some more food - in Flavia's case to healthy stuff, in my case I tried something remotedly healthy ;o)) ...

 

When the late lunch finished, my signorina and I followed a similar track from La Place to the one we took the day before, although this time we took a different turn at the entry to the old town and brought ourselves to the Dam gate to the city. The place also offers a market that we declared to be unworthy of our attention and walkng slow by all the fun spots of Amsterdam we finally found the Sex Museum. The place is cheap, but also not necessarily full of things to see ... so in some 15mins we were out of there and then we only completed one little last step of our visit to Amsterdam, which was to purchase a McDonalds ice-cream and then we went on to catch a train to the airport where I said good-bye to my girlfriend and continued back to the Hague ...

As my previous blog suggests, I spent some quality time in Naples with my Italian tesoro (treasure) ... I didn't get a chance to enjoy such pleasure on the way back. But when it comes to travelling, I should as well start from the very beginning when I travelled from Amsterdam to Naples and then I should zoom in on the unbelievable whereabouts of my return trip.

 

So, my flight to Naples was to begin in Amsterdam on the wings of the Italian flag-carrier Alitalia, which is one of the Italian businesses constantly taking headlines of European newspaper where everyone is speculating the apocalyps of this monster. The plane was easy to locate - even if it wasn't coloured white & green, one could simply look out for the oldest machine at the airport and you would certainly board the same airplane, believe it or not ;o)) ...

 

When we all boarded with a symbolic 20mins delay and the crew let us sit around checking our watch every other minute wondering what's going on that the engines are still quiet and nothing was reminiscent of a soon-to-be departure, finally an announcement was made by the pilot saying that we didn't pass a technical check, as some part of our landing set fell apart and a new was ordered, which will take another hour at least ... I was still ok with it (although nervous) because I had 3.5hrs gap in Milan to board my flight to Italy. In about an hour another announcement was made that the part has been delayed and when it arrives, we will need to schedule another technical check and then wait for our slot to take off from the Schiphol airport. Well, by the means of it my gap was effectively gone and I was basically running late!

 

We arrived to Milan just in time for me to check in on the next flight to Naples. I arrived at the gate 33mins before the flight and no-one was to be seen there. Fortunately for me, the staff at the nextdoor gate informed me that I was asking 3 minutes too early, so yes, I was to shut my mouth and wait, which I did. 20mins later two ladies in green appeared all confused pointing at the sign saying Naples. Next to that we were all marching across to the other side of the terminal where another group heading to Athens was ready to board. Flight numbers and destinations were quickly swapped, people confused pushing their ways around and when the field was clear, we could start boarding. By that time we had about 15mins to go. One of the two computers suddenly broke down, so only one gate could be used for a fairly large aircraft. Then our bus couldn't leave because the driver didn't have a clue where to go. The first bus was well on the way, so we waited for it to come back and then both buses left at once ... that made me realize that swapping the check-in gates didn't make any sense as both of them required that the buses take the travellers to a far-away plane, but well ... better not to think too hard ...

 

This was already an AirOne plane. The airline is owned by Lufthansa, so the planes are all new and beautiful, but the staff absolutely incapable. When we were slowly falling behind schedule, an announcement was made that there are two more people on-board than expected. An investigation got under way and we fell 1hr behind schedule when the crew gave up and decided to leave with those two folks :oS ...

 

I arrived in Naples alright and my luggage made it too, which was a pure luck I reckon ... But this all was absolute piece of cake to what was awaiting me on the way back to the Netherlands ...

 

On Monday 3pm I say good bye to my Flavia at the Naples airport and promise to let her know when I reach Amsterdam. Then I progress through the customs queue, luggage already checked in and having nothing to do for another hour, I open my book and lurk around the departure gate waiting for the boarding sign. At 4.30pm (half an hour before departure) no staff is at the gate, which looks normal by then in Italy, so I have no suspicions as to whether there's anything going on ...

 

At 5.10, 10mins after our scheduled departure, things turn weird. The gate next to us in the meantime boards travellers going straight to Amsterdam with Transavia. We wait another 10mins and finally some staff appears announcing that the flight has been cancelled and that there's nothing we can do about it, but stay in Naples over night. I ask them to put us on the flight with Transavia, they make a stupid call and say that it's too late ...

 

Then we went through a pile of incompentence upon incompetence and eventually a bus taking us to a hotel in Naples left the airport after 8pm, which represents 3hrs of waiting around for someone or something to get shit done ... The hotel was of the NH Hotels chain that I'm not very fond of as everything in the hotel is freaking expensive and services minimal. The airline pre-paid dinner, but didn't worry about internet ... anyway, we were to catch the first flight to Milan at 7.10am, so I was better off going to sleep. I had tried to get myself to Milan that night, but was told off 'cause allegedly there were no more flights to Milan. Aparently no flights apart from the three advertised on the departure board ... but whatever ...

 

Next day (Tue) we're picked up in front of the hotel by a bus at 5am. The bus was on time, we got to the airport, checked in luggage, got our flight tickets and queued up in front of the gate. At 6.30 there's no staff to check us in and at 7.10am the departure time is changed to 7.55am! I went to complain, but nothing I could do about it. Then at 7.55 the time is changed to 8.15, and then always at the planned departure time it was always shifted by 15mins, so that we could go complain about it. No representative of AirOne bothered to update us on what was going on ...

 

The night before we couldn't fly because the crew was tired and worked over-time, so aparently bad management of the airline kept us grounded. Surprisingly the crew was to fly the same next day, but neither showed up, so I missed my flight from Milan to Amsterdam. I arrived at Milan Malpensa at 10.30 and my flight was gone at 9.30, so no, I didn't make it by far ... The next flight was 12.20, so I went ahead and tried to complain, and I also try to get my tickets ... well, that didn't happen, because a KLM staff told me I couldn't board the plane without a luggage, whcih was god knew where after I missed my scheduled flight. She sent me down to the lost & found and said that if I don't return in 20mins, the flight is gone ... so I ran down, passed the customs, claimed the luggage, but was late anyway. At one point the lady from lost&found said that I was to run upstairs because the airline is waiting. So I ran back. When I got there, all KLM check-in folks were gone, so I approached their back-office and they laughed at me thinking it was funny that I could request that the whole plane waits for me half an hour ... so I missed this one too and the next flight was to leave at 3.30pm ...

 

I went back to the AirOne stand to have them explain the situation, but their manager wouldn't speak to us. After having argued on the phone for 10mins he finally agreed to show up and help me out to obtain our boarding passes and secure the luggage. Inbetween I was accussed of falling asleep and apparently missing on my flight, which I objected to! Anyway, the guy has spent some extensive time explaining that the luggage is in transit, not lost of course ...

 

When I finally reached Amsterdam, I found the luggage lost of course and so it was until Fri (another 3 days). On Friday that week, I was already in London without my bag and someone calls me from the Netherlands saying my luggage got found and that they're sending it over to London. Nothing arrived that day, and neither it did on Saturday morning, so I tried to call KLM in Holland to explain. Unfrotunately there was an unbeatable queue and after 20mins on the phone I gave up. On Sunday morning I finally reached the Schiphol's lost & found and was told that the bag is still in Amsterdam because they forgot to send it. And that was just about all I needed to hear. On Monday (this week) morning I flew back to Amsterdam and picked up my bag from the airport to end the pain ...

 

Believe me, if I ever again have to fly with Italian airlines, I'll have a good reason to worry :oS ...

On June 21 the city of London was hit by street exhibition of architectural concepts. For my girlfriend Flavia, who happens to be an architect, this of course represented a must see, so we'd left my flat on that Saturday morning to meet many of her friends and to enjoy the exhibition.

 

We first took a tube to Kensington where we intended to see the bit on Chinese modern design, but that turned out to cost some £8 just to get in and we all were keen to give it a miss all of the sudden ;o)) ... Then we launched into the streets to see what the presenters had to say there. The exhibition was accompanied by various music performances ranging from folk to hard rock. The hard rock one wasn't bad, so I got stuck in there for a bit while my signorina went on analyzing what the authors wanted to say ;o)) ... I was happy to find out that it wasn't really only my limitted imagination that didn't catch up with the event, but also everyone else's, hehe ...

 

Later we arrived in the German Goethe institute where German sausages were on offer (cool stuff ...) ... the venue also offered some free music, so we hung around for a bit to listen in. The first band was quite sad, but the second one lifted the mood a little bit .... although still, there was no discussion around how come that none of these performance became famous ... simply the reasons were too obvious :o)) ...

 

The next stop was Hyde Park where semi- techno / rock music was performed and that I found quite interesting. After that we all wrapped it up and headed for a pub where Netherlands was to lose to Russia in extra time 3:1 and one of the big surprises of the EURO '08 was to become reality!