A trip to Amsterdam

A couple of weeks back I got to go to Amsterdam for 36 hours or so for a radionet meeting (on a project called Hilado). The meeting was very interesting and we talked about lots of radio astronomy computing – something I’m always very happy to be doing. Though in some respects the highlight for me was going to the Netherlands. I’ve been through Schiphol a few times before but never actually entered the country. I was quite suprised just how easy it was to get from the airport in to the main town. I stayed up in Zaandam in a really weird looking hotel:

We flew over to Amsterdam with EasyJet and got the normal delays. Though it was almost comedy on the way out. Firstly, the police needed to remove a dude of the plane. No one came forward with the name they were suggesting so they had to go through all of our passports on the plane. They found the person and took him off. Was very strange. They then had to get us all to indentify our bags but in parallel one of the overhead compartent catches had to be replaced… but that took a while – oh the joys.
Anyway, once in Amsterdam I had a good time and even managed a bit of time post the meeting for a wonder around. I think I’ll have to go back for a weekend at some point – lots to see and well a couple of hours wasn’t ever going to do it justice.
The area around the hotel in Zaandam, was quite nice:

but I do think I saw everything there is to see in Zaandam in my hour walk after breakfast (apart from going down to the wind mills – which were too far away but are probably the main attraction).
As I said I only did a whislte stop tour around Amsterdam central and it was heaving with people. I’ll have to go back again.


More pics over on flickr.