Sunday, April 9, 2023

Belgium or Bust


Leaving Amsterdam was a bit of a stressful situation to say the least, although I did finally have a great night’s sleep which I think helped me stay a little less on edge. Driving around that city is a bit of a nightmare because of the bikes and pedestrians but walking to the train station would’ve been annoying with my luggage. The hotel concierge told me that Uber drivers often don’t accept the rides there because it is a short trip and I was canceled on three times before one accepted and picked me up. We took a super roundabout way of getting to the train station, but I had given myself plenty of time, naturally. I had thought my ticket was for the Eurostar and online it had suggested getting there 60-90 minutes early for security and customs so I was planning on 90 in case I had some direction issues in the station finding the correct gate. Luckily, because I had scoped it out yesterday, I knew where to go. Once on the platform, I asked the guys working (who were SUPER nice) where to go because it was just a regular platform and I assumed since going to another county, I had to do customs and security like I did when I took the train from Paris to London last year. I told them I had a Eurostar ticket and they pointed me in that direction, but when I got there, it was closed. I was about to freak TF out and then walked back to the guys who had helped me first and showed them my ticket and it turns out, I am an idiot and I assumed it was Eurostar, but it was just Rail Europe and the platform I was on was correct. I definitely didn’t have to be there that early and my 9:28 train was still over an hour away. However, there was an 8:28 train that they said I could hop on with my ticket. I was a little confused by that, but got on anyway hoping for the best and hoping it stopped at the station I needed. If not, I could just hop on a train to the other or uber to my hotel. I had initially picked this station in Brussels because it was only a five minute walk from my hotel.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

AmsterDAMMMMMMM


This year for my Spring Break I decided I wanted to go Amsterdam and Brussels. When I was in Paris and London last spring, I was disappointed I didn’t have more time to keep traveling (isn’t that always the case) and move around Europe a bit more. I had been to Paris and London on my first ever trip to Europe in 2013, and had been back to London in 2016, and then again last year (2022); it is one of my favorite cities ever. I had the same curiosity about going back to Amsterdam that I had with Paris, except Paris had piqued my interest more because of my binge watching of
Emily in Paris while I had COVID over winter break ‘21-22 so that city won out. 

This time around, it was time for Amsterdam and I decided that I would also head to a new country that was close…Belgium. Add one to the list baby! Flight prices were skyrocketing, but I really wanted to go and since hotels were reasonably priced (more or less), I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I had saved a bunch of money all winter not going out at all so that is how I rationalized paying for it. Once booked, minus the hotels and a day trip into the countryside, I really didn’t sit down to plan stuff out for a couple of weeks. I did some research and made a list for Amsterdam, but didn’t solidify anything; very unlike my super type-A self. I also remembered when I went there ten years ago, that I was able to get tickets for the Anne Frank House the day of and figured the same this time around for the museums in general.