En Route to Amsterdam

“Oh, take the train to Amsterdam. It will be so relaxing and enjoyable.” Yeah, right. The first train I was supposed to connect to was coming in 20 minutes late, which meant I would miss my connection in Oberhausen, so they put me on a train to Enschede, which arrived seven minutes late, so I missed my connection to Amsterdam (which had a six-minute window). I got on a train from Enschede to Hengelo, and actually made a connection to Amserfoort, where I will have five minutes to make the connection to Amsterdam.

Long story short: instead of getting in at 1:25 p.m. with two hours to get to the venue, I will get to Amsterdam at 3 p.m. and hope I can get to the venue by 4 p.m.

This is the very last time I will ever take anyone’s advice to relax.

In Amsterdam

Well, I did make the Amersfoort connection with only two minutes to do it, and got to Amsterdam, and finally got to the meeting place at 4 p.m. Luckily, the group had another speaker scheduled as well, so he did his thing first while I caught my breath [after running from the tram station to the IBM building where the meeting was being held].

My talk went well. I then decided to stay for the business part of their meeting. After an hour and a half, all conducted in Dutch, of which I understood maybe 10%, I excuse myself, went to the hotel, checked in, and went downtown to sample the night life. had a schwarma sandwich; it wasn’t as good as I remember them, but it may not have been the best place in town either.

As I was preparing to go back to the hotel, the Turkey vs. Croatia soccer game ended, with Turkey winning, and naturally every Turk in town was driving through the downtown area with their horns blasting. It was very exciting.

Back to Hamburg on the train again today; there is only one connection to make, and I have 19 minutes, so maybe it will work out fine.