The Netherlands: Arrival

I've neglected to do this for much too long. Holland has consumed me for over a week and only now can I sit down and write a blog.

I departed Saskatoon on August 25. Flying through Toronto and then Reykjavik, Iceland, on Icelandair, I arrived in Amsterdam just past noon on August 26 local time. The entire process took me around 14 hours. Arriving early in the day after having not slept is very detrimental to your biological clock.

Arriving at the airport in Amsterdam, I realized that all the signs were in English. Going through customs with my two extremely large bags, I was asked only a few superficial questions before being allowed to pass through.

My first purchase of goods using Euro was a Burger King meal at the airport. Sleep-deprived and alone, I hauled my luggage to the railway platform for the incoming train to Rotterdam. I was told to not take the luggage carts onto the train platform. Of course, I asked for directions no less than three times just to make sure I was going the right way.

As the train sped off from the underground station at the airport, the scenery on a beautiful afternoon in Holland gradually began enveloping me. This is the part of the trip where your mind is not quite sure where you are. So this is Europe? After all, I had just spent the last four months on the Canadian prairies.

I started to notice all the differences. Some not so obvious, but some jumped out at me. First it was the small vehicles, with their shiny yellow Euro license plates. Here, there are no SUVs, no big trucks. The European brands began screaming at me as the train zoomed past city streets and suburban buildings. And then, once in a while, a windmill would pass right by. My eyes would instinctively follow these medieval-looking structures - seemingly out of place in the modern urban cityscape. Then I realize - this is the Netherlands.

The train ride to Rotterdam, the country's second-largest city, only took about 45 minutes, passing through two other Dutch cities - The Hague and Leiden. It takes longer for a Torontonian to go to work than for me to zoom through four large Dutch cities.

I stepped out of the train station from a underground tunnel into a beehive of activity. Construction on a nearby building was just in the groundbreaking stages. All kinds of people crisscrossed the businesses outside of the station, some headed in a particular direction, some just loitering around. Street graffiti was also visible in random places. Signs were in Dutch. I came out of Central Station in Rotterdam completely blind, looking like a dumb tourist constantly turning my head. With a hostel address I hastily pulled from my laptop and a local information booth nearby, I tried asking people directions so I can plan my path from point A to B. It turns out the hostel had moved locations in the last few months. Looking around, I spotted a booth selling SIM cards for cell phones. The guy tells me that its 2 SIMs for 5 Euro. Deal. Bought it, slid it in my phone, and then called the hostel directly to get directions.

After some more struggling with luggage and arranging for a taxi a few streets over, I show the driver the directions on a ripped piece of paper with the address of the hostel. He didn't speak too much English; he took me in circles on the confusing city streets and then informed me that the address was not accessible by road. We went a total distance of less than 1 kilometer. 8 Euros later it was more luggage pulling and randomly inquiring passersby where the hell I was going, and if they knew of a hostel. I was getting little luck with the directions.

Luckily for me, the hostel was situated right in the Cube Houses of Rotterdam - apparently a tourist attraction. Basically there were these cubes tilted diagonally and somehow standing upright in the midst of a busy city intersection underneath. After about half an hour of dragging around luggage, I duly navigated several sets of stairs to finally discover my hostel - orange in colour and populated by students like myself.

It was time for some rest. Local time: just past 4.30 PM.