One week later…
Back to work, back to college, back to my life … back to reality.
The alarm clock went off and the dream is over.
Except…
It wasn’t a dream. It was all real. Those 6 days were all real. And I am not allowed to complain. I have no reason whatsoever. Well, just that it all went by so fast, but I returned to my country a content young man.
After Thursday the 19th of May, the day of the Epica concert, I was in a state of disbelief, but at the same time in eternal bliss. It didn’t hit me that it all went down until a few days later when I was back in Suriname. That’s when I started to get emotional and wanted to go insane… the good kind of insanity 😉
My last few days in Amsterdam were nothing less than exciting; just like the other days have been.
On Saturday I packed my bags, because on Sunday I was going to sleep at my uncle’s house, who lives about 8 minutes from the airport. That Saturday I was also going out with a friend from Rotterdam, so I wouldn’t have the time to pack in the evening and I was afraid that I would be too tired to do so in the morning. I decided to do the packing sooner rather than later. Good thing I did.
As the night fell upon the sky I made my way to the centre of Amsterdam where I first met up with friend no. 1 from Amsterdam for drinks and later my other friend from Rotterdam arrived. It was the eve of his birthday of friend no.2 so we were going to party. I had a birthday present all the way from Suriname, which I’m sure he loved.
After the drinks, the friend from Rotterdam and I went to paint the town red.
It became a very late night and when we were done clubbin’ the sun was already up. I didn’t arrive back at my aunt’s house until 8.15 AM. Latest I’ve ever been out… 🙂
The main reason why I arrived at home so late was because the public transportation in Amsterdam doesn’t start driving until 8 o’ clock on Sundays and my OV-chip card didn’t work on the night-bus. My friend had already taken the train back to Rotterdam so I was all alone.
What to do? Sit and wait on the steps like all the other late night party-people did; waiting for the subway station to open.
On Sunday afternoon went to my uncle in a small town known as Osdorp, and spent the night.
The next morning I did a few last-minute-shopping at the supermarkets and by 11 AM I was at the airport. I had this little problem with one of my bags. The stitching started to come loose and I feared that it would tear more once it was sent to the luggage compartment of the airplane.
I made my way to the Seal and Go area of the airport and had to pay €30,- to put a strap around my bag and seal it. It was either that or buy new a new luggage bag of € 120,-
After checking in and received my boarding pass I decided to stroll around the airport shops. Bought something for a friend, bought a meal at Burger King and a bit later decided to go to the departure area of the airport. Once inside I had to sit and wait some more before we were allowed to board the airplane. On my way to the airplane gate I walked passed a Starbucks. I didn’t have many Euro’s left so I had to decide between buying coffee and snacks or an official Starbucks tumbler. I went for the tumbler. The price of the tumbler was EXACTLY the amount of Euro’s I had left with me.
At around 14.30 I had boarded the plane and at 15.00h we took off. On our way to Paramaribo, Suriname. The flight was 9 hours and 20 minutes and not the steadiest flight. A lot of turbelance. A few heavy ones too, but nothing too life threatening. I’ve been through worse.
During the flight I finally took out my SQL + databases book to study for the examination I had the following day. It was my intention to study during the vacation, but as we all know, studying during a vacation is barely possible. The following day it was back to work and later my examination. Please don’t ask how that went. I don’t know!!! I did what could :-/
So that’s it. I’ve had a mini-AMAZING-one-week-vacation in the Netherlands.
I’m well rested, distressed and ready to get back to it all again.
