Sunday 1st May: Leaving Berlin, arriving in Amsterdam

I left Berlin. I arrived in Berlin through Shoenfeld airport (some kind of spelling) and am leaving via Tegel airport. I had a lazy start to the day. I could have run around and seen some things for a few hours, but I just felt like taking it easy.

I spent the morning talking with the guy from Portugal and the girls from Italy.

Then I caught some trains to Tegel airport. I got there and then had a comfortable time sitting around. Then I checked in and the guy told me that I had not paid for any checked luggage. I'm fairly certain that I did and I later checked online that I did pay the 7 euros for that. I had to pay 15 pounds extra for that. A bunch of other people had to pay as well. It didn't seem normal.

I didn't really take any photos this day.

At the airport I met an old guy who says that his brother lives in Australia coaching a soccer/football team. He advised me to be careful in Amsterdam. He lives in Rotterdam.

I got to Amsterdam. I couldn't figure out the train situation. So I turned on my computer and found that they have an hour of free internet. I got some directions about which trains to take by using that. I was supposed to go into Amsterdam Central and then take some train in some kind of direction and then get off at one of the stations. I got to Amsterdam Central but then I couldn't find where I was supposed to take the next train. I was in the regional part of the train station and there didn't seem to be any other section. Some signs were pointing toward somewhere, but I couldn't find where they were supposed to be directing. Then one sign was saying the name of the station where I was supposed to get off, pointing toward wherever that station was supposed to be. So I followed that. I got lost because the sign seems to just be a general "it's somewhere in that direction" and doesn't bother about giving you additional directions to make it the next 1.3km through twisting streets. But I asked someone and she told me roughly where to go.

I got to the hostel. It's a Christian hostel. I am not a christian, but the other hostels had reviews saying that it was a bit hard to sleep, whereas this hostel said that it was a good place to sleep. The people running the place seem nice. I am informed that I am not allowed to drink alcohol or consume drugs on the premises, but I can ingest nicotine, which is not a drug. I think what they mean is that some drugs which have been popularly termed as bad, are not allowed. I do not plan to do those things.

By the time I got to the hostel it was quite late. The sun was down. So I had a small walk around the place and then went to sleep. The town is quite strange. The hostel is right in the red light area. I have discovered why the hostels are all very expensive right now: it's the Queen's birthday celebrations in Netherlands. This is supposedly a well established reason to have a big party in Netherlands. It was quite busy when I was there.

When I got back to the hostel room I met some other people from my room. They seem nice. I asked them what they think of the place. One person said that he doesn't like it because he thinks that too many things are allowed here, and that there should be a good amount of things that are not allowed.