So 2 thursdays ago (this shows how far behind I am with this blog) I went into the city to meet up with one of my friends from Cork who I worked with at Camp Marist last summer up in Ossipee, NH. She was up visiting family and going to a lecture while on holiday, so we met up to catch up. Turns out that one of her friends has a radio show at Trinity College every Thursday night. So we headed over to Trinity, up to the top floor of one of the buildings just inside the gates into a small, two-room station outfitted with 4 mics, headphones and a switchboard; not very different from the Radio station at Holy Cross where I’ve had a show for the past two years. So we get into the studio and jump onto the air as if we’ve been part of the show the whole time. “Two Sirs” was the show’s title. The two DJ’s, Darragh and Donnagh, met each other when they literally bumped into one another at a park in Dublin, and both excused themselves to the other by saying “sorry sir”, and a beautiful radio friendship was born. I never would have expected for my night to turn from a quiet pint in the city to “havin’ some feckin’ banter” with two hilarious DJ’s and their friends. It has been one of my favorite experiences in Dublin thus far, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be back on Trinity FM again soon.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The land of the bike...and the windmill...and legalized marijuana...and many other things for that matter. These are all common connotations of Amsterdam, but there's so much more to this city that made it a lot of fun to visit for a weekend.
So typical of RyanAir, we flew into Eindhoven, about an hour train ride south of Amsterdam, and made our way to the Amsterdam Centraal station (not a type-o, just dutch). After taking a wrong turn and practically half way to Belgium, we met an American couple that set us straight. After getting settled in our hostel, we went out exploring, finding our way down to Rembrandtplein, a square with a bunch of bars and coffee shops. The weather wasn't too bad, overcast most of the time, but boy was it windy. There's good reason for all those dutch windmills across the countryside.
The next morning we set off to accomplish all of our touristy endeavors, starting first with the Van Gogh Museum. I'm not a huge art enthusiast, so I didn't know too much about Van Gogh besides the fact that he was an impressionist, lived in Holland and France, and cut his ear off at some point in his life. It was amazing how prolific his work was. I guess if all you do is paint for your entire life, you can rack up a pretty decent collection...and that he did. It was also interesting to see Van Gogh's progression of work. I could've painted some of his first works (and I can't go much farther than a sophisticated stick figure). By the end of the tour, 4 floors and maybe 2 hours, we were all pretty exhausted. So what better way to perk up than the Heineken Brewery!
Actually it's referred to as the "Heineken Experience", the original brewery was once located there, but no longer. They've converted the old grain silos and kettle rooms into a huge, multi-media bonanza of beer brewing. They covered the obvious: how they brew it, the history of the name, the evolution of the yeast strain, etc, but they also had all of the multi-media that went along with the Heineken name: The history of their commercials over the years, movies the beer has been featured in, teams/events they've sponsored (i.e. The Heineken Cup- a huge rugby tournament that has been going on recently). And of course, a couple free drinks at the end of the tour. I never liked Heineken all that much before, but now I don't mind it too much.
That night we explored around the city a little bit more, went to the red light district...confirmed that it is actually a real place. Bizzare place, that's all I can say. No photos...they will literally come after you if they see you taking any pictures. One girl we were traveling with went to take a picture of an empty front window, which turned out not to be empty, and a girl came out and almost got in a fight with her...yikes.
The best part of the day the next day for me had to be the Anne Frank House. It's hard to say "I loved it", or "it was awesome", because really it's quite depressing. It's unbelievable to see how they lived, for years, with pretty much no sunlight. It just made everything seem real, compared to just reading it in Anne Frank's Diaries.
Our trip back was harrowing in itself. While on the train back to Eindhoven to catch our flight, we were sitting on the upper level of the train, and about 10 minutes into the ride we start to hear a person screaming bloody murder (in Dutch) on the lower level, banging against windows and the ceiling up and down the aisle. All of a sudden, the train came to somewhat of an abrupt stop, in the middle track, coincidentally right next to a station platform. We asked people behind us what this person was yelling, and they said that she was screaming "stop the train, stop the train". Once it stopped, she started yelling "make the train go! start moving!" Obviously she was on something, or mentally not right, but anyway, the Police ended up coming and taking her away in cuffs...things went back to normal, and luckily we had left enough leeway to make our flight back to Dublin.
All in all, a fun weekend. Amsterdam is a great city. I'd love it even more in the summer, especially the biking culture.
So typical of RyanAir, we flew into Eindhoven, about an hour train ride south of Amsterdam, and made our way to the Amsterdam Centraal station (not a type-o, just dutch). After taking a wrong turn and practically half way to Belgium, we met an American couple that set us straight. After getting settled in our hostel, we went out exploring, finding our way down to Rembrandtplein, a square with a bunch of bars and coffee shops. The weather wasn't too bad, overcast most of the time, but boy was it windy. There's good reason for all those dutch windmills across the countryside.
The next morning we set off to accomplish all of our touristy endeavors, starting first with the Van Gogh Museum. I'm not a huge art enthusiast, so I didn't know too much about Van Gogh besides the fact that he was an impressionist, lived in Holland and France, and cut his ear off at some point in his life. It was amazing how prolific his work was. I guess if all you do is paint for your entire life, you can rack up a pretty decent collection...and that he did. It was also interesting to see Van Gogh's progression of work. I could've painted some of his first works (and I can't go much farther than a sophisticated stick figure). By the end of the tour, 4 floors and maybe 2 hours, we were all pretty exhausted. So what better way to perk up than the Heineken Brewery!
Actually it's referred to as the "Heineken Experience", the original brewery was once located there, but no longer. They've converted the old grain silos and kettle rooms into a huge, multi-media bonanza of beer brewing. They covered the obvious: how they brew it, the history of the name, the evolution of the yeast strain, etc, but they also had all of the multi-media that went along with the Heineken name: The history of their commercials over the years, movies the beer has been featured in, teams/events they've sponsored (i.e. The Heineken Cup- a huge rugby tournament that has been going on recently). And of course, a couple free drinks at the end of the tour. I never liked Heineken all that much before, but now I don't mind it too much.
That night we explored around the city a little bit more, went to the red light district...confirmed that it is actually a real place. Bizzare place, that's all I can say. No photos...they will literally come after you if they see you taking any pictures. One girl we were traveling with went to take a picture of an empty front window, which turned out not to be empty, and a girl came out and almost got in a fight with her...yikes.
The best part of the day the next day for me had to be the Anne Frank House. It's hard to say "I loved it", or "it was awesome", because really it's quite depressing. It's unbelievable to see how they lived, for years, with pretty much no sunlight. It just made everything seem real, compared to just reading it in Anne Frank's Diaries.
Our trip back was harrowing in itself. While on the train back to Eindhoven to catch our flight, we were sitting on the upper level of the train, and about 10 minutes into the ride we start to hear a person screaming bloody murder (in Dutch) on the lower level, banging against windows and the ceiling up and down the aisle. All of a sudden, the train came to somewhat of an abrupt stop, in the middle track, coincidentally right next to a station platform. We asked people behind us what this person was yelling, and they said that she was screaming "stop the train, stop the train". Once it stopped, she started yelling "make the train go! start moving!" Obviously she was on something, or mentally not right, but anyway, the Police ended up coming and taking her away in cuffs...things went back to normal, and luckily we had left enough leeway to make our flight back to Dublin.
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| Bikes, canals, boats shaped like wooden shoes...must be Amsterdam |
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| Scrabble and Heinekens at a cafe in a park by the Van Gogh Museum |
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| The Heineken Experience- TV commercials over the years |
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| The best foosball table ever conceived by man |
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| The Anne Frank Haus-the two nearest ones |
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| windy day in Amsterdam |
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| Pretty cool motorized tricycle. There were a bunch of really interesting-designed bikes in the city |
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| Parking Garage for bicycles- unbelievable |
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