Click here to read Part 1 : The Dream
Bam! It's Amsterdam
18 June 2022
That is how we ended up in the flight to Amsterdam. All those initial hiccups would only mean that we will have a smooth vacation, right? Well, if it had been so, I might not have had to write this looong post.
We landed in Amsterdam and took the shuttle to our hotel. After checking in and freshening up, we didn't waste much time and hired an Uber to Amsterdam city. From Amsterdam, we took an ‘IAmsetrdam’ pass for 3 days, which allowed us to use unlimited trains or buses within Amsterdam. After spending some time in the city and having dinner we headed back to our rooms and crashed.
19 June 2022
After having an amazing breakfast, we headed out to explore Amsterdam. The first plan was a windmill tour. Since we had the 'IAmsterdam' pass, planned to travel via bus. We waited at the bus stop to catch the bus number 195. After giving us some time to click photos, the bus arrived, and we hopped in. Google maps told us that our destination was the 6th stop from where we boarded. The bus wasn't very crowded, and we enjoyed the view outside. After a while, I checked the map to know how many stops were left. What? It showed 8 now. The bus stopped at the next stop and continued. The map now showed 9 stops to our destination. That is when it struck. Bus 195 goes both ways. And we were travelling in the wrong direction!!
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| Eagerly waiting at the wrong bus stop |
What next? We decided to get down at the next stop and go back.We would end up wasting some time because of this silly mistake. When the bus stopped, we got down, only to be surprised by what we saw. There stood a solitary windmill. We crossed the road and walked towards the windmill. It also had a windmill tour. Isn't this amazing. The silly mistake turned out to be a perfect mistake! We sandwiched the windmill tour between our photo sessions. We did learn a few facts about windmills and as done with school education, quickly forgot those. 😜
After having lunch, we visited other places like De Zaanse Schans where they had the wooden shoe workshop and more windmills. This time, we were careful with boarding the bus. We went to Amsertdam Centraal by evening, the time when the city starts to vibe. We roamed around, walked a lot, had all the food we could. Personal Record Alert -Amsterdam recorded my most expensive pee ever when I had to pay half a Euro (~Rs 40) for it. A record, I am not very hapee about.
The day ended and Rotterdam was excited to welcome us the next day.
20 June 2022
Plan of the day was to visit Rotterdam. We planned our travel perfectly this time as we did not want to make any mistakes like we did the previous day. We had a free shuttle from the hotel to the airport (which is one of the reasons we booked that hotel in the first place). We took that shuttle and reached the airport. Then our 'IAmsterdam' pass gave us complete travel freedom. What a planning!
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| Iamsterdam |
After checking which train goes to Rotterdam, we quickly boarded that train. The train journey was smooth. But one fact led us to a small doubt. There were no stops at all. Was this some special non-stop train that we actually weren't supposed to board? Our doubts got cleared when we got down from the train and tried to exit the Rotterdam station. At the exit, we scanned the QR code present in our 'IAmsterdam' pass and the turnstile refused to budge.
Yeah, the doubt is cleared. 'IAmsterdam' pass was only for roaming within Amsterdam city. Rotterdam is outside of Amsterdam city limits. We were not supposed to travel Rotterdam with this pass. We were lucky that a ticket checker was not present in the train we came, or else we would have had to pay a hefty fine. Now, we cannot exit the station as we do not have a valid ticket. We could go back to Amsterdam in a similar train, but then there could be a ticket checker this time. Which means we could not go back either. We were trapped!
Now what? All our collective brains started to work, and we identified Praveena as the person best suited to handle this situation. She put on an innocent face and walked towards an official who was standing there. We all stood a little bit far away carefully observing. She put her innocent face on and told the official that her QR code wasn't working. The official checked the pass, then explained to Praveena how she shouldn't have used that pass to travel to Rotterdam. However, since it was an honest mistake, the official used her card to let Praveena out. Praveena proved her honesty again, stating that it was not only her, but 4 other passengers including a kid and pointed at us. The official looked at us and frowned. She couldn't let all of us exit for free. She asked Praveena to go to the ticket kiosk outside, take 4 tickets from source to destination as Rotterdam, and then use that ticket to exit.
Praveena, who was outside the station now, called us and we walked towards her. She conveyed the news to us. It was a fair ask for us that we had to book the tickets now, rather than paying fine.
'Okay, so we have to book tickets from source as Amsterdam to destination as Rotterdam, and then use that ticket to exit Rotterdam.', got it. We checked the ticket rate from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. Close to 19 Euros per person. Which costs ~76 Euros.
We asked Praveena not to book tickets and to wait outside. We took a while, booked the ticket, and used that QR code to exit the station.
'Finally,', Praveena exclaimed when we got out and met her. 'What took you so long?
'Well,' we replied, 'We, software engineers, analysed the 'requirement' again, We understood that we could book tickets now, which means our source could be the previous station as well, which is Rotterdam Alexander. The ticket price from there to Rotterdam is less than 3 Euros. And since you already exited, we didn't need 4 tickets, but just 3 tickets from that station to Rotterdam, which comes to ~9 Euros. Which means we save ~67 Euros.'
'What!?, And did you do that? Didn't you purchase 4 tickets? Did u just book 3 tickets from that station to Rotterdam?'
'We just pointed out a technical possibility. We won't say what we did..because...'
'because?'
'..because we are damn hungry, and we can't talk!'
We searched what to eat in Rotterdam. While having a sandwich, we looked for activities in Rotterdam, and found this bicycle rental place. We rented a bicycle and did the Rotterdam city tour in bicycles. We particularly loved the child seat, which was attached behind the cycle where Nachu sat, and she too had an amazing city tour.
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| Nachu got a nap in this comfy seat |
We enjoyed the Cube houses, and the other amazing modern architecture of Rotterdam.
By evening, we exited Rotterdam as it was our last night to continue exploration of Amsterdam. This time, we made sure we booked the right tickets!
The third night in Amsterdam, we made sure we covered most of the city, ate most of the trending food there. We were so full, yet when we saw a big crowd in front of a French fries eatery, we too stood in queue to buy and try it. It cannot be missed if it is so popular. It indeed was good. Late night, we bid farewell to Amsterdam city as we would be travelling to Zurich the next day.
We left Amsterdam with some good memories..Lot of blunders which ended up as funny incidents, lots of learnings, lots of city tour, food, and lots of new experiences.
These were just the starters; the main course is awaiting in Switzerland!
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