A Night out in Amersfoort, Netherlands

A Night out in Amersfoort, Netherlands

The much awaited Europe trip was planned between 28th October 2016 to 7th November 2016. I was accompanied by 2 of my closest friends Madhu and Kripal. My wife Akshatha missed out on the trip as she had just recovered from Typhoid and was not very confident of making it. It was a tough decision for me as well. My cousin Gachu (Ganesh Shetty) works for TCS client in Amersfoort. Hence, I choose Amsterdam as the port of entry and exit and main destination as well. Well, I must admit the trip was bit aggressively planned.

The trip itinerary was as follows: 

28/10/2016: Arrive in Amsterdam - Amesfoort, Stay at Hotel Logement De Gaaper

29/10/2016: Arrive in Paris, Visit Places, Stay at Hotel Ibis Massy

30/10/2016: Arrive in Rome, Visit Places, Stay at Hotel Ostia Antica Park

31/10/2016: Arrive in Amsterdam, Visit Places, Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

01/11/2016: Visit places in Amsterdam, Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

02/11/2016: Arrive in Hamburg, Visit Places, back to Amsterdam - Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

03/11/2016: Arrive in Copenhagen, Visit Places, back to Amsterdam - Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

04/11/2016: Arrive in Brussels, Visit Places, back in Amsterdam - Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

05/11/2016: Visit places in Amsterdam, Stay at Hotel Ibis Budget

06/11/2016: Travel back to Mumbai and then to Bangalore 

As crazy it may seem, I wanted to make the most out of the trip. We left Bangalore on 27th October evening at 10;00 P. M to Mumbai. The Amsterdam carrier was Turkish Airlines via Istanbul Ataturk. We reached Mumbai Sahar International airport at around 1:00 A. M. We were all exhausted by the time we cleared immigration. Out flight was to take off to Istanbul at 5:30 A. M in the morning. We did some window shopping at the duty free zone and had some chilled beer to drive away the exhaustion. Finally after a long wait, the flight took off and we just crashed over. We reached Istanbul in the afternoon around 1:00 P. M. We had a transit time of about 3 hours. We had a traditional Turkish lunch with some good beer. The flight took off to Amsterdam at 4:00 P. M.

We reached Amsterdam Schiphol airport at around 6:00 P. M. The landing was spectacular with lot of canals and windmill sightings. We were all super excited for one more reason. Mavis, another close friend in our group had recently relocated to Eindhoven (Netherlands) and had planned to join us for the Paris and Rome trip. Gachu and Mavis had come down to receive us at Schiphol Airport. We cleared immigration within no time. Once we came out, we met Gachu and Mavis. The plan was to travel to Amersfoort where Gachu stays. Schiphol Airport has metro station within the airport complex. We took an intercity metro to Amersfoort which is approximately an hour away from Schiphol. Once we reach Amersfoort, it was decided to first check in at Logement De Gaaper where my friends were to stay for the night and I were to stay at Gachu's place. His house was just 15 min away from the hotel. Logement De Gaaper is located at the city centre at Hof Square. Amerfoort is a very peaceful town. The hotel closes down by 7:00 P. M. I had dropped a mail to the staff that we would be reaching late. But they made some arrangement and it was easy to follow.

The rooms were a bit expensive but they were fabulous. We checked in at the hotel and headed to Hof Square where there were lot of pubs and eateries. We partied the whole night and did some serious pub hopping. 

As we were to return back to Amsterdam after out Paris-Rome trip, we decided to keep our main luggage at my cousin's house and carried only some essentials. Next day, we kept our luggage as planned and left to Schiphol. 

Our flight was at 2:00 P. M to Paris. We had a crazy incident at the Amersfoort metro station, where Mavis and I missed the train but Kripal, Madhu and Gachu made it. We were all recharging our metro pass at Amersfoort station and realised that it was just a minute left for the train to start. We all had to sprint but Mavis was left behind. I too slowed down so that we could move together. Once we reached near the train, these 3 guys got in and shockingly metro personnel just closed the door and the train started moving. For a moment, I lost my senses but luckily Mavis had a local sim and could connect to Gachu and this really saved us. I was almost sure that even if we were able to catch the next train, it would be a close call. Airport was fully crowded and Murphy's law worked perfectly. We were delayed in the security section. It was just 15 min for the flight to take off. Having reached airport early, Gachu helped to get the boarding passes. Schiphol airport is quite huge and it takes considerable amount of time to move from the security gates to the boarding terminals. We asked Madhu and Kripal to be at the boarding gate. 

Once we cleared security, Mavis and I just rushed to the boarding gate where Kripal was already waiting for us with a puzzled face. Soon we realised that Madhu had gone missing after the security clearance and his phone was not reachable. It was just 5 min for the flight to take off. To our worst fear, Transavia staff informed us that the boarding gates have been closed and asked us to take the next flight. We pleaded to the staff and somehow after lot of argument they allowed us to board the flight. I requested the staff to wait for Madhu before closing the boarding gates but they were absolutely furious and just asked us to get in. We boarded the flight with lot of anguish and to our biggest surprise, Madhu was already inside the flight. All of us just looked at each other and laughed out so loudly that all the passengers started staring at us. Quite a bit of drama in the beginning of the trip, Wow! Finally the flight took off to Paris, our second destination. Throughout the flight journey, we were discussing about the series of incidents that took place and started making fun of each other. But all ended up well and we had great story to tell back home.