Dear Friends:
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to travel to Europe on business. My trip started in the UK, but I ended in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
I began my trip, like all sensible Austin people do, at the Salt Lick inside the Austin airport. The brisket and sausage combo just makes the long flights in coach a little more bearable...
I arrived in London, and made my way directly to Kings Cross Station. I'm sure you've seen pictures that I've posted before...I love the architecture and flow of this station. This is where I caught a train to Cambridge.
It was early in the evening and my hotel room wasn't ready, so I walked around Cambridge's city center, which includes some of the more iconic colleges of Cambridge University. I started with the best architecture of King's College - on a sunny day with blue skies. This is nothing short of a miracle in England:
The name Cambridge actually comes from the fact that the city center runs along the River Cam - and they built a notable bridge over the river. My hotel sat right on the river. A big activity there is "punting" - which is to ride shallow boats along the river, at a lazy pace.
There are many pubs in Cambridge. Perhaps the most famous is The Eagle. Originally opened in 1677, this is where Watson and Crick announced that they had discovered DNA at a lab across the street. This discovery in 1953 has had a HUGE impact on the world...including later research that led to synthetic insulin...something us diabetics are quite grateful for!
Every trip to the UK must include a stop (or two, or three) at Marks & Spencer. This is a department store that happens to have small grocery stores attached to many of the locations. The produce here is top-notch, and the cookies are TO DIE FOR. Especially the All Butter series. There's something here for everyone...and it's a good thing that they don't have these in the U.S. The cranberry and orange are a favorite...
Walking through the streets, I came upon this interesting sign. For members of my church, this is really bizarre ; )
I had a quick dinner at Nando's, which is another favorite in the UK. I had grilled chicken, corn on the cob and a delightful salad. A perfect way to end the day.
I spent the next day in several meetings, and I delivered a big presentation to my entire department. It went really well, so I was able to relax a bit. That afternoon, we drove to Stansted Airport - one of three regional airports just outside of London. We flew to Amsterdam, and checked into our hotel. This was a truly interesting place to stay. It's called the WestCord Art Hotel. There were prints of modern artwork all over the place:
My room was pretty awesome. I didn't spend much time there, but it was nice to return to - that's for sure!
At breakfast the next morning, I found these delightful like boxes at the restaurant. Apparently, they are flavors for toast. You put butter on the toast and then sprinkle these on top. They had "fruit" and both milk and dark chocolate. That's a pretty cool Dutch tradition:
Speaking of Dutch food traditions...I found these at a local store. The Stroop Wafels are awesome waffle cookies with a little bit of caramel in between. Super delicious...
The unique Dutch culture was alive and well, as I found these statues just outside our hotel. Cool by me...
This was hilarious. Basically, it's a tiny, tiny, car. Seriously...it's tiny. The owner actually put a chain lock on it, because a couple of strong guys could have carried this away. Unfortunately, it was on the sidewalk, and was ticketed (and given a boot). It's still cute, though...
We were in town to attend a game development conference for one of the more popular game engine companies in the world. They're called Unity, and the event was Unite Europe 2017. The welcome party was filled with all manner of hipster sights..including this band that was playing...
They had "salad jars" available. I'm not afraid to try any kind of salad, so I gave it a spin...what could go wrong with beets, black lentils, goat cheese, lettuce and a dressing from apples and onion?? Well, plenty. It was horrible. It won't stop me from trying in the future ; )
The next day was spent at the actual conference. It has been held in Amsterdam for a couple of years:
The venue was amazing. It's an old "gas" factory, that has been converted into a public park. It's just beautiful, and the buildings are unique - they were never meant for people to be inside them ; )
Most of the day was spent watching lectures/presentations on technical and game development topics:
In addition to the presentations, they had a good size "expo" hall, where other game companies showed off their latest technology, or games that were built with the Unity engine:
Nintendo was actually there, and brought several brand-new Switch console systems for people to play with. Nintendo is eager to have game developers create original content for their game system.
They had a photo booth, where you could take pictures with various characters and objects. Guess which one I was stuck with? ; )
One of the nice features of the event was free food trucks during the duration of the conference. These were great - there was a variety of cuisine, including a hot dog/brautwurst vendor, empanadas, and an awesome Belgian fries vendor. Yum!
I still couldn't get over how pretty the park was. It was such a delight to walk from the hotel to the venue each day...
If you didn't know, bicycles are really popular in Amsterdam. There are huge bike lines all over the place. The hotel rented bikes, so I decided to ride one to the conference on the last day. It was a nice way to take in the surroundings:
In the evenings, we were able to experience some fun places to eat. This one was Beer Fabriek (beer fabric), and the place was quite popular:
After dinner, we walked a little bit in the very center of the city. I tried on some Dutch clogs:
The store that actually sold these was impressive...look at the selection hanging from the ceiling!
Amsterdam is well known for being a "liberal" city - where just about anything goes. You can find all kinds of drugs and paraphernalia all over the place...
At the heart of the city is Dam Square - where you can find the old Royal Palace. This palace was converted to a city hall back in the 17th century:
At the square, I found another one of those cute cars. This one was actually driving through the square, right in the middle of where people were walking!
We returned to the site of the conference, where they were holding the farewell party. This was a really fun event. Upstairs, they had an amazing DJ that just happened to also play the violin. She would start a song playing and then jump out in front and play her instrument along with the music. It was really cool:
This is about as wild as I got at the party, fueled by water and Diet Coke ; ) They handed out some fun stuff to keep things going....
They had a huge karaoke set-up on the bottom floor. They took a ton of popular songs and had changed the lyrics to include video game words and ideas. It was popular with the game developer crowd. Then, at one point, these puppeteers appeared and moved puppets through the karaoke crowd. This was definitely a surreal moment:
On the last day in Amsterdam, my colleagues flew back to London. I had to wait for a flight back to the U.S. in the morning. I decided to spend a couple of hours in downtown Amsterdam. I started near the central rail station. Remember what I said about the popularity of bikes here? Check this out...
I decided to hop on a boat and take a tour of the canals through the city. I've done this before and it's a lot of fun. I love this city and got to see some of the houses and architecture from the comfort of a slow boat:
I came back to the Central Station, and noticed just how beautiful it actually is...despite the huge number of people flowing in and out of this transportation hub:
Nearby is the Basilica of St. Nicholas. Next time, I'm going to tour that building...I suspect it's beautiful on the inside, as well.
I walked through this stunning hallway/arcade while trying to find a place to eat. The chandeliers were pretty great:
The Dutch take their Nutella seriously. And why shouldn't they?!? My wife is going to love this city when she gets to visit:
Check out the Nutella barrels at this waffle shop! That's a decent amount of chocolate hazelnut deliciousness!!!
That's it for Amsterdam! A quick, but beautiful visit to an amazing city. Thanks for reading!
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