Random comments from amsterdam
May. 30th, 2008 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack* Livredor has a more narrative description of the trip
* Amsterdam is beautifully cyclic. Although I hear annoying to actually try and walk through regularly. There are cycle paths everywhere. They're wider than a cycle. Indeed, they're as wide as two cycles, and often have two in opposite directions. Coming from Cambridge, this idea is exciting.
* However, many of the streets seem to be a gloriously muddled mix between pedestrian, tram, vehicular and cycle (including motor scooter) areas. There are generally two to three different intertwining lanes, where one combined pedestrian and tram, or vehicle and tram, or pedestrian and cycle, etc. Crossing a big street is an exercise in scary, as it's nearly always almost completely safe to cross each bit separately, but like frogger, if there's an actual tram there, then you die.
* (OTOH, trams are marvellously constrained by rails, so admittedly if you're on the rails, you can be in trouble, but you know that if you're not, then the tram is unable to cut you up, unlike buses.)
* Amsterdam is beautifully radial. Canals semi-circle and radiate from the central station (which is against the water). X canal will have a street on either side, confusingly named "X street" and "X canal". And some parallel streets are named "first X street", "second X street", "third X street".
* I hear it's much more annoying to live there.
* Schiphol is a nice airport in many ways. I was a little late reaching it, and pleasingly discovered that with online check-in you can breeze through all the way to the final lounge before the gate with nothing more than a passport check -- no check-in, no security, zip. Obviously I don't recommend it, but from getting off the train to standing in the lounge waiting for boarding to be announced took about 10 minutes, most due to not knowing the way in advance.
* Conversely, that means the security is on the corridor to the actual gate. That means you can't fill up a water bottle in the lounge (not that they asked about liquids). And is really frustrating when the gate is announced thirty-six minutes before take-off, the corridor is advised as a 15-minute walk, and your boarding pass says the gate closes at 30 minutes before take-off. I know how it actually does work, but I still always having a guilty feeling when I disobey official bits of paper, however much I understand why :)
* In Stansted airport carpark, signs advise that towed cars will incur a charge of £X + £x/day + VAT. I wanted to ask what value? What value is ever created there?? (Pedant alert: I infer legally it's treated as a service with value what you pay for it, so it's not actually meaningless, just odd-souding)
* Amsterdam is beautifully cyclic. Although I hear annoying to actually try and walk through regularly. There are cycle paths everywhere. They're wider than a cycle. Indeed, they're as wide as two cycles, and often have two in opposite directions. Coming from Cambridge, this idea is exciting.
* However, many of the streets seem to be a gloriously muddled mix between pedestrian, tram, vehicular and cycle (including motor scooter) areas. There are generally two to three different intertwining lanes, where one combined pedestrian and tram, or vehicle and tram, or pedestrian and cycle, etc. Crossing a big street is an exercise in scary, as it's nearly always almost completely safe to cross each bit separately, but like frogger, if there's an actual tram there, then you die.
* (OTOH, trams are marvellously constrained by rails, so admittedly if you're on the rails, you can be in trouble, but you know that if you're not, then the tram is unable to cut you up, unlike buses.)
* Amsterdam is beautifully radial. Canals semi-circle and radiate from the central station (which is against the water). X canal will have a street on either side, confusingly named "X street" and "X canal". And some parallel streets are named "first X street", "second X street", "third X street".
* I hear it's much more annoying to live there.
* Schiphol is a nice airport in many ways. I was a little late reaching it, and pleasingly discovered that with online check-in you can breeze through all the way to the final lounge before the gate with nothing more than a passport check -- no check-in, no security, zip. Obviously I don't recommend it, but from getting off the train to standing in the lounge waiting for boarding to be announced took about 10 minutes, most due to not knowing the way in advance.
* Conversely, that means the security is on the corridor to the actual gate. That means you can't fill up a water bottle in the lounge (not that they asked about liquids). And is really frustrating when the gate is announced thirty-six minutes before take-off, the corridor is advised as a 15-minute walk, and your boarding pass says the gate closes at 30 minutes before take-off. I know how it actually does work, but I still always having a guilty feeling when I disobey official bits of paper, however much I understand why :)
* In Stansted airport carpark, signs advise that towed cars will incur a charge of £X + £x/day + VAT. I wanted to ask what value? What value is ever created there?? (Pedant alert: I infer legally it's treated as a service with value what you pay for it, so it's not actually meaningless, just odd-souding)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 05:53 pm (UTC)