One of the reasons why my sister & I were back in London way before term time was so that we could travel somewhere while it was still summer. Initially, we'd wanted to go to Budapest, Prague, and Vienna, but
a) we didn't have much time during the raya month to plan a proper trip to 3 different places,
b) a lot of our friends were planning to fly back to the UK a bit later, and
c) since it would be just the 2 of us, our dad wouldn't let us travel there considering the refugees crisis surrounding the areas.
We've got other places on our To-Go lists but we're saving most of them to visit with our friends later on. So, long story short, we ended up having Amsterdam as our destination.
Accommodation
Our plan was quite last minute, actually: we booked our accommodation merely a few days before the trip. We stayed at QBic Hotel which is located at the World Trade Centre, so I felt quite safe. To me, business area = serious people = fairly safe. Hahaha maybe it's just me though... But the place is really convenient la 'cause it's literally like a minute away from Amsterdam-Zuid station and also a tram station.
It's called QBic sebab the furniture setting is literally cubic. I don't know how to explain it properly so nah, gambar:
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| Picture credit: qbichotels.com |
Our room didn't look like this. Ours was smaller – just big enough to fit the cube (with the bed on one side of the cube, a mini kitchen on another, then the bathroom on another, and then a wardrobe). Pretty cute. But more importantly, the whole place is clean. Even the hallway smelled of sanitiser and the bed was organic. As someone who's always (silently) anxious about bacteria everywhere, I was just so puas hati. My heart was practically smiling! One miiiiinor thing though.......
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| Picture credit: qbichotels.com |
The bathroom doesn't have a door. Just. WHY. But in our room, thankfully the bathroom's side is parallel to that of the bed. So when one of us was in the bathroom, the other was simply forbidden to enter that half of the room. (I would've been more grateful if there was a door though hahaha I felt so freakin' exposed. Now I feel like thanking the bathroom door at home every time I close it.)
Other than that, I loved the hotel. You can include breakfast in your booking but we didn't opt for that. We could have hot drinks (& fruits) as much as we liked, though, which was good enough for an avid hot chocolate lover like me. This is how the lobby looks like:
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| Picture credit: qbichotels.com |
The staff at the hotel are super friendly & helpful too. One of them even helped us to find tour tickets online! So nice.
Day 1
Najwa & I didn't have any solid plans for the trip so we decided to take it easy. Kononnya. We got the 72-hour travel pass (for trams + metros + buses + trains) for €16.50. So worth it, in my opinion. It gave us the liberty to be lazy whenever we wanted.
We went to the central in the morning and rented bicycles to explore the city. Najwa loves planning & organising trips, so our lack of planning for the short getaway sort of threw her a bit off balance in the beginning. Me, on the other hand..... My motto that day was: "The best way to explore a city, is to get lost in it."
So in other words, YOLO.
Being the confident little navigator that I am (not), at first I thought I could use the canal as a guide or a landmark.... until I looked at the map and saw.... that the canal.... was all around the city.....
So ya we did get lost for a while la. Najwa kept on asking "Kaaak, where are we going?!" or shouting "Kaaak! Wrong way!" Hahaha. I zoomed here and there and paid little attention to where I was going because I was trying not to get run over by a car/tram, or cycle into a car/pedestrian or, more possibly, lose my balance & fall off my bike. I'll tell you something, if you hate driving in KL, try cycling in Amsterdam. Damn stressful I tell you!!!
Amsterdam's really pretty. I love how the same row of buildings have not only different colours, but also different shapes and sizes. Not to forget the framed windows and colourful shutters! So cantik!
After about an hour or so of cycling aimlessly, we then decided to head to the Rijksmuseum (Najwa led the way this time). And discovered the famous 'iamsterdam' sign that everyone just lovesss. But there was a huge event going on beside it at the time and we could only take pictures from a short distance away from the sign. It was super crowded too, so the pictures were all quite pathetic.
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| E for "Eh eh, comel juga awak ni." |
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| Look at all those humans |
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| F this, I give up |
Afterwards, we returned the bikes and headed to Anne Frank's House. The tickets were sold out online, but we only had to wait for about half an hour in the queue so it wasn't so bad. (I've heard that the wait is usually longer than that, so if you're planning to go, try to get the tickets online to save time.)
It was a really good experience; so surreal to be in the exact rooms where the Franks (+ a few others) used to live in hiding from The Nazis. I got goosebumps and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I hadn't even expected myself to get emotional, to be honest, but seeing the actual place, the handwritten letters & the diary entries was a bit overwhelming I suppose. Nobody deserves to live in that condition. Visitors aren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, unfortunately. So.
That pretty much covers Day 1 of our trip.
I'll write about the rest of the trip soon insyaAllah. My eyes are tired of staring at the screen already. See? Already juling.
Talk to you soon! Goodnight xx
