Europe Escapade Day 1 Netherlands/ Amsterdam

Day 1 - 18 April (Friday)
Singapore to France (Paris) to Netherlands

The day is here where #EuropeEscapade commences!

Us onboard #airfrance had been scooting too much and nearly forgot how it's like on board regular flights. Free papers, drinks (not having to worry about going thirsty on board and feelig the pinch to buy drinks. Pillows, eye masks and blankets to use while not forgetting the in flight entertainment. Not complaining since #Scoot still gives good value!  

Was told some airlines had free wifi onboard and use point to charge phone, unfortunately,  didn't find it on air france. :( service was pretty good nevertheless. 

13 hours and I managed to finish Running man, Frozen and Hunger Games 2 onboard! Not bad, thought I would sleep all the way. Wished the seats were more comfortable though, back was aching and I didn't remember being this bad on our past #SIA flight to South Africa. Perhaps I'm getting old.

Now for the onboard food menu, we were given choice of either beef with rice and Asian vege or fish with mash. Was an obvious choice.  Fish was a little 腥 but mash and the side apricot cake was good. 

Forget about the preservative filled apple coleslaw and harden cut fruits. 

Breakfast was bread and butter pudding with banana and vanilla sauce probably due to Easter! It was a little hard as compared to what I had earlier in the day at TDR but acceptable. Was a big serving and didn't have much appetite to finish the rest. Crossiant and bun was hard and cold :( thankfully for the thick hot chocolate!

Touched down at 7.30am-ish to a cold 15°c #Paris! Checked out and quickly got out luggage to get in touch with NB's bro and gf via our new walkie talkie! 

Best choice to get that as we didn't log on to wifi at the #parisairport (although free but it was only valid for 15mins) by that time we landed, his bro has used up the time limit! We might have missed each other if not for our walkie talkie! Heh!

 

On the train to Paris Nord that cost €9.75 each. It was a straight train that takes about 35mins to reach. Not the most comfortable ride and definitely expensive! 

 

Touched down at 7.30am-ish to a cold 15°c #Paris! Checked out and quickly got out luggage to get in touch with NB's bro and gf via our new walkie talkie! Best choice to get that as we didn't log on to wifi at the #parisairport (although free but it was only valid for 15mins) by that time we landed, his bro has used up the time limit! We might have missed each other if not for our walkie talkie! Heh!

Arrived at Paris Nord station and got overwhelmed by the directions! Haha! We headed over to take the intercity train to Amsterdam! *brr* the air was chilling and had to don on my Uniqlo windbreaker! 

Encountered a lady carrying a baby and asking us if we speak English... was warned against such cases and had to shake our head and headed off... saw a couple of tourists doing that too...

Took the 10+am Thalys train at platform 8. 

Here we have our snacks all laid out on the table in front of us for the 3 hrs ride! Heh! 

It was a very comfy class 2 comfort seat and we managed to get the seats facing each other. Thumbs up! 

The train passed by Brussels!

We went from Sg to Paris to Brussels to Amsterdam all in 1 day!  Too bad we didn't manage to stop by there this time.

Slept for about and hour, blogged, gamed and took a slice of bread while enjoying the scenery outside the train. 

Seats was much better than the plane and NB slept for about 2 hrs! Haha! There were also power points on board so we could charge our phones.  ;)

Damage: €35

Journey: About 3.5 hrs

Rating: 8.5/10 Good, clean and comfortable seats!

Now here we are at Amsterdam and this, a shot of our train at the platform. 

First thing, COLD! There are strong breezes and we were struggling in our 2 layers clothes! My feet blade was exposed and just 1 layer legging didn't help! I need my boots!!

The inside of the train station! Love the interiors, don't get to see such architecture in Asia of course.  Can't wait to see more of such in Italy!! 

Welcome to Amsterdam! 

At the Amsterdam Centrale, we walked around on search of the place to get our maps, 72 hours travel cards and collect our cheaper tickets (Disneyland and Switzerland - Basel train). After asking the Information counter, we were directed to the service centre at the right side of the station (standing from the inside)! 

72 hours Unlimited travel card (there are options of 1hr, 24hrs or 48hrs as well) cost us about €16.50 so do your sums to make sure it's really useful for you before purchase. Else you can just get a normal card (like our ezlink card) for your ad hoc travels. 

Our airbnb host told us Amsterdam is pretty small and you can walk around visiting the attractions and amenities. 

Beautiful city

We took the trams (or metro) outside the station to our #airbnb. Interesting experience, the trams timings were pretty on time and regular which is good but we also noticed that since its scheduled, once the doors are closed, they don't open no matter how you press the button outside. So make sure you are punctual! It's like our bendy buses except longer and the entrance and exit doors of the trams are fixed to facilitate the flow of passengers boarding and alighting. I.e. 2 entrances from the front and middle and the exits in between. May be a little confusing for 1st timers but you can check out the stickers in the doors to see if entry is allowed.

 

Off loaded and took out my saviour!  Long Time no see #furryboots it was a last minute decision to bring it cause it's bulky and we only had 1 luggage. Thank goodness I did!! Kept my poor feet warm!  My shoes of the day #SOTD

 
Our neighborhood for the week!

Lunch was at 3+ local time after the check in and to kick start the trip was McDonald's! Haha! 

The above set us up at €12+ consisting of a chicken mustard Mcwrap (2 fried chicken patties with cabbage, tomatoes, spinach and cheese) meal with salad replacing fries, Mc chicken sensation (similar to wrap just that it's without cheese, spinach and uses burger instead) and a white kit kat Mcflurry. 

The mustard mayo sauce was sinfully good, wished Singapore had wraps as well! Nothing fantastic about the Mcflurry though.

Next stop was to take the Blue Boat canal cruise.

Do you know Amsterdam is also known for their canals? I thought it was only Venice! Haha. So imagine Amsterdam like an onion with it being the heart of the island. 

Surrounding it was these canals that were built in the past centuries to protect the city. We had to put on free ear piece and plug them into this voice machine right on the table in front of us and have it narrate to us as we stream along the canals.

 

Sailing down the streams for 1+ hours hearing about the history of Amsterdam. pretty joyful experience! There were boat houses along the canals and we heard the government was no longer giving out licenses for that and thus making demand for such houses high I.e increasing the worth of it! 

Took shot of this huge Heineken brewery! 

Understand that you can actually go for a "Heineken experience" but too bad none of us was a beer fan!

Damage for Cruise: €13 per pax

Rating: 7/10 not too bad, you can get some idea of some history and culture of the area!

Saw these strawberries along some street stalls selling fruits and vegetables.

 Lovely huge berries at just €1.50 per box or €2.50 for 2! Quickly grabbed them for our dinner :p

Before heading home, we went to the supermarket to get some food for dinner! Did I say I love visiting supermarkets overseas?  Surprisingly, prices are pretty decent! 

Lays chips, Rittersports chocolate, ice cream and yogurt cost only €1+! I like! 

So we settled with yogurt, tom yum cup noodles and some snacks to bring along for other day trips. 

Settled for an early night cause some of us had sore throat,  runny nose. Better to rest early and start off day 2 earlier! 

Damage for Day 1 = €90 (excluding supermarket snacks) per pax

Photo (all except those lousy shots taken by my mobile phone) Credits to Alexander!