Amstelveen and Den Haag

2nd day, 19th of November 2010. Amsterdam --> Amstelveen --> Den Haag.

I woke up 5 in the morning. I was really excited. I couldn't wait to have some breakfast because i felt so hungry. At 7 am, I went to the restaurant and greet the receptionist. When he saw me wearing hijab, he said: “Assalamu’alaikum good moslem!” Haha. Then I asked him how to say good morning in Dutch, but he didn't understand what i was talking about. He didn't understand English at all.

After that, I looked at my breakfast menu. There were bottles of white and chocolate milk, orange juice, and mineral water. And for the food they provided us some breads, cheese, meat, cucumber, and tomatoes. I looked at the meat and asked to the receptionist: “Is it pork?” and he didn't understand. So I asked again while pointing the meat: “pork?”, and then he closed a plastic wrap that i already opened and he opened the plastic wrap beside it. Ok, I think the one he opened is chicken or beef. So I took that meat and ate it right away!

After felt really full i had some conversations with a girl receptionist. She spoke English well. Suddenly she said: “Those meats are pork, I believe you don't eat them because you are wearing a veil”. AND THEN I WANNA VOMIT JUST RIGHT THERE! MAAAN I JUST ATE SOME PORK! Lesson learned, I don't wanna eat meat until I am really certain of it. After that I was wandering around the hotel.







Amsterdam in the morning


This day I had to meet the travel agent in Amstelveen. It’s quite far from Amsterdam. It was about errr 30 minutes i think to reach Amstelveen. So we decided to go there with taxi. Expensive, i know, but we had a lot of luggage and I'm not really sure that everybody could take the bus or tram with their entire big luggage. Mine is not really big anyway. I only have one medium size luggage, 1 backpack bag, and 1 handbag. That’s all.

However, I really love the view of Netherlands in the morning. There were no clouds, no blue sky, no sun (since it's already in the end of Fall Season). Just a flat gray sky, which at some point I really enjoyed that kind of view. Mystical yet beautiful. I took some pictures from the taxi and the result was not really good since the glass of the taxi is a lil bit dirty.

Amstelveen is small town. It’s really different from Amsterdam. There are a lot of farm, green scenery, and not really crowded. I love the atmosphere that Amstelveen gave me.








Amstelveen


Plan for this day was visit the Indonesia’s Embassy in Netherlands. It’s a little bit far from Amsterdam, approximately 45 minutes from Amsterdam to Den Haag.We went there by tram and train.










And voila! We arrived at Den Haag! Something happened while we were trying to reach the meeting point (with people from Indonesia's Embassy). My friend, Echa was left behind in the tram because he was late to pay the tram! We all were panic and tried to call Echa. And the good thing is a very nice man from Indonesia's Embassy picked up Echa in the next tram-stop. Fyuuuh, thank God.

After had a little chaotic situation, people from Indonesia's Embassy took us to a Chinese restaurant! We ordered Fried Rice, Bakmie, Cah Kangkung since we really missed Indonesian’s Food! We ate a lot and then we went straight to the Embassy.

In the embassy we had a really good discussion with Mr. Umar Hadi, the Vice Head of Indonesia’s Embassy in Netherlands. We were discussing about Indonesia-Netherlands relationship, as we know that Indonesia had been colonized for 350 years by Netherlands. We asked a lot about post-colonialism that happened in both countries. I asked about the tourism strategy that Netherlands used, because I saw a lot of Indonesian restaurant and Local restaurant that provided Indonesian Menu and use it as their tourism strategy.







with Mr. Umar Hadi


After long discussion we went back to our hotel. I felt a lil bit tired since I didn't sleep enough. By the time we arrived at the hotel, our tour group were there and we met our tour guide. His name is Luigi Pasqualle, originally comes from Italy. He explained a lot about tomorrow trip and I felt really excited for tomorrow morning!

Anyway, what I learned for today are: First, do not eat meat until you are really sure whether it's chicken, beef, fish or not. In my religion, pork is forbidden. I managed myself not to eat meat for a while, since pork are everywhere! I tried to drink a lot of milk and bread. At least I didn't lose my energy for only eating bread and milk. Second, there was no traffic jam in Netherlands. Even there were a lot of people walking around, there were not really much cars in Netherlands. And also for the train and tram, very neat! I have to say that Indonesia should have neat transportation. No one eat or drink in the bus, so there will be no rubbish there.

Ok, that's all for the second day. Just wait for the next day, ok? Btw, have you ever visit Amsterdam? If yes, please tell me, I would like to hear your story :)