Friend was over while i do a fat thesis

I should have typed this story up when a friend was staying over for 4 nights. He’s from my hometown of Sydney, Australia and we went to same uni together.

He arrived on the 25th Jan around 4pm. So i arrived at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport at around 2pm. Walked around the concourse a few times going from one cafe to another. Then just around 3pm there was an announcement that a flight from Charles de Gaulle is about to arrive 15 minutes early.

I know the layout of Schiphol Airport pretty well since i go on and off this terminal when i travel around Europe. It’s a good thing i guess that i utilise this airport well.

So then i headed to Arrival gate number 2 around 3:30pm and sat down while twiddling my thumbs. In the end, he arrived about 4pm including the baggage collection and so on. He was surprised that there was no customs check-in as what normal procedure follows. I told him that when you’re in the Schengen European zone you do not need to be stamped as it is a ‘passport free’ zone.

Then off we went boarding the first available train to Amsterdam Centraal. He was feeling kinda unwell so we didn’t do much on the first day.

I had a thesis due on the 28th January so i was spending most of my time until then in front of laptop and typing away while doing research. I was kinda apologetic that i couldn’t spend much time with him while studying but he did notice my priorities. While i was studying he did go out and tour Amsterdam by himself. It was good that he did because the museums he went to i did previously been there, so it would be a waste of time to go again. Then at night he went to Red Light District visiting a club there and rang me back after the visit saying he couldn’t find the bus stop to get on a ride back home. We exchanged phone calls three times until he found out where the actually small and discrete bus stop were. Then on, he now knows the bus stop everytime he needs it.

On the 29th, i collected a bike from Maria who she will be heading to Chile. So i bought her bike and the bed from her for a reasonable price. Gave the bike to my friend to have a try around Amsterdam. He came back responding that it was fun and terrifying at the same time. He didn’t ride the bike for a long time and the fact that in Australia vehicles are driven on the left hand side.

On many occasions he bottled a lot of nostalgia. I knew the feeling because i felt nostalgic on the first month i personally arrived in Amsterdam. Naturally comparing Amsterdam lifestyle to Sydney’s. Amsterdam is only 1.2 million in a area only about 6km wide. Sydney is 4 million with 60km wide. So a pretty substantial difference.

After the completion of my thesis, we went out to Leidseplein to have a few drinks. He has taken a precautionary measure of not drinking many glasses. He he stuck with two beers for the night. Self-explanatory discussions included uni and the last Australian election. We did the final night walk back home, which took us about 45 min. It was a long walk but did i expected that it did give him a new perspective of what it likes in Amsterdam. Empty footpaths with bikes just zooming past in a hurried pace. No homeless in streets as there are housing scattered around this city.

Unisca pub meet with a lousy walk back home

Well, when you mix political discussion with couple of beer at a pub…then you know the true colour of characters. Discussions ranged from US Presidential Primaries to Holocaust collaboration in Netherlands and Israeli-Palestine issue. In the end, we agreed to disagree after more than 4 hours of continuous passion driven discussion.

Then after the meet, i walked back home. Public transportation were not adequate enough so i just walked…

Well what do you know…it was snowing once again. This time with wind to plummet the snow onto any surface. I was walking against the wind direction and my front part of my jumper was covered with white fluff while the back was just wet. The footpath are slippery after 20min of walk. Then it gets colder as you approach outer end of the city centre. Gets pretty miserable in the middle of night and gotta walk pretty diligently as well. Not many were walking as most streets were pretty empty except zooming cars splashing almost-freezing cold onto footpaths.

So i arrived back home smelling worse than ash tray and heavy as well. My hoodie jumper was like a giant sponge absorbing all those moisture from melted snow. Feet were heavy as well as the snow did get into the filters.

This is the second consecutive day of gale force wind. Bitter snow as well this time.

It was an interesting but challenging experience. It’s not the challenge you look forward to again i’m afraid.