Netherlands

Hello everybody! well, so much things happened since the last post. In short, here is the summary:

Jakarta, 15th August 2007
My departure to Eindhoven. This will be...
the first time I go outside of my country.
the first time I live alone without any controls from my parents or family.
the first time I have to depend my cooking skills to make either breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
the first time I will have a very tight limited budget (all of ém in euro dude!).
the first time I have to use English daily.. even just to make friends with other.
the first time I won't be able to see people I loved and care in a matter of year(s).

interesting? you bet! It's just like a second phase of my life.

The departure wasn't so good. I planned to go with Samuel, my senior at Informatics Engineering, ITB. We make an appointment to meet each other at 13.00 to check-in. Since he arrived so early, he decided to queue and finishes first, and then helping me later on. Unfortunately, the queue took so much time so that even after 13.00 he still didn't make it. Therefore, I was left outside and cannot get in, because he still had my ticket. As the situation get intensed, he finally finished the check-in and gave me the ticket. In the end, things went smooth and we're able to depart on time. Later on, Samuel told me that he had already made an on-line reservation. Thank God.

Sorry for the inconvenience mas Samuel, but finally we got along very well, didn't we? ;)

HongKong, 15th August 2007
Cathay Pacific was the name of the flight company which we (Me and mas Samuel) use for the flight. We made a transit in HongKong. To my surprise, it was a very big airport! Inside the airport building, there were also train station, ferry station, and bus station. It almost looked like a mall. It had restaurants and many shops. Cool! One of the best airport, I suppose.

In this airport, we took a rest for about 4 hours before continuing our journey.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 16th August 2007
We made it to Schiphol, an airport in Amsterdam. This is it!

I was so lucky that I had Netherlands language course before (Thanks a lot Mrs. Mira! ). A lot of phrases were written in Netherlands rather than English. Although I only knew a bit Netherlands, it had made me easier to guess the meaning of sentences. With this ability, I wasn't afraid to go everywhere in Netherlands.

We were picked up by mas Samuel's family. There were so kind. They bought us a pair of train ticket to to Eindhoven and even bought us drinks. I drank fresh orange juice... and I mean... fresh orange juice. It was a bit sour, fresh from the garden.

During the journey to Eindhoven, we crossed many green farms. We saw big and healthy cows. Now we knew why the Netherlands become the biggest nation to export milk and cheese. And one other thing, Netherlands is very clean.


NEXT POST... will be about EINDHOVEN.. center of industry in Netherlands... Sorry I have to cut it into several parts guys, but the lab is closing in a moment, and I have quite a long story here...

P.S : I will add this blog with photos... just after I got my laptop :(( so just wait for the photos!