Now I'm better rested, I can impart my wisdom on the subject of Amsterdam's excellent transport system. Excellent when it works, that is....
The trip to the International Broadcasting Convention started with a 5.00am pick-up from the Uni on Friday, and a minibus trip up to Manchester airport. After the usual large-scale removal of all of my metal items (belt, boots, keys, wallet, phone, camera, chastity belt) and the obligatory 'look of surprise' on the face of the passport checker, we boarded a Fokke 70 jet to Amsterdam. It's a plane best described as cosy, let's leave it at that.
The Grand Hotel Amstelveen was our residence for the weekend, and the hotel as a whole was very good. Air conditioning in some of the rooms, including mine. Great bar and restaurant, and an elevator that stopped between floors two and three with all five of us in it, and stayed there for twenty minutes until a nice engineer arrived to get us out...
The SnelTram system is similar to the Metro in Newcastle and Manchester. Except when they decide to do large scale track upgrading on a Saturday during the day, meaning that 200 passengers are decanted onto a 75 seat bus, and a forty minute journey to the conference took two hours.
The Tram system uses smaller trains that the SnelTram, and it give direct access to Amsterdam's Centraal Station from the RAI Conference Hall. Except on Saturday when there was a 'problem with the track' and we had to get off four stops away from Centraal, and find another way there. At least when we got there, there was the pleasant prospect of a boat tour, which we would have happily enjoyed if the boat hadn't broken down whilst we were waiting to get on it. By this point we're wondering which of us is jinxed. Luckily we decide it's not me.
To cap it all off, and to set our nerves at ease, our lovely Uni travel people had booked us to return on a lovely big 737. On September 11th.
We're back home now, that's all that matters!
Actually, I can't end this blog entry without a qualifying statement. Whilst our experience of travelling in Amsterdam was pretty choppy due to exceptional circumstances, I must say that the locals of Amsterdam were probably the friendliest bunch of capital-dwelling strangers I've encountered. Each time we were stranded somewhere, strangers would approach us without being asked, and would give us accurate info on how we could get to where we wanted to be - they were happy to help, and keen to make sure that visitors to their fine city were looked out for. If every city in the world was like that, the world would be a better place.
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