Wednesday, December 8, 2010

First Impression



This is not my first visit to the Netherlands. I had been here before, years ago.... during my student time. Brief as it was the visit then, the Netherlands, or commonly referred to as Holland, striked me as a friendly country. I remember when the four of us were in The Hague at the central station, trying to get to Madurodam, the miniature city. We approached an old man asking him how to go there. Unfortunately, the old man couldn't speak English, and we had problems communicating to him. Our pronounciation of Madurodam must have been wrong because it took him a long while to understand it. When he finally did understand where we wanted to go, he launched into an explanation, his hands waving here and there. When he finished, he looked expectantly at us, his gaze landed on each of our faces, only to be met with blank stare from us. He started explaining again... and again... What must he thought of us... In the end we gave up and decided that we had to ask someone else. But then, the old man waved to us, indicating that we should follow him. So, we got on a tram with him all the way to Madurodam. When we reached there, he also got of the tram and after saying goodbye to us, he went to the other side of the road to wait for the next tram back to the central station. What a sweet old man, he went out of his way to help these 4 stupid students who should have known better to at least learn a few phrases before they went travelling to foreign country.


I will never forget him. Because of him, I had a good impression of Holland.

4 comments:

Cheqna said...

hehehe..interesting and so good to have that as your first impression..

wahh..good memory there, been taking gingko ke? I can't remember in details my trip..the album for the holiday also don't know where..

but I do recall the crossing over with hovercraft, trip to the tulip's nursery (field not in full bloom yet), buying "windmills" and "clogs"..and vaguely on the Amsterdam (same name ke years ago?) itself..

may be I should go again whilst you are there. :)

i amsterdam said...

Cheqna.. I can't say that i remember all the details... err more like selective incidents!!! He..he..

For eg, when we were in Holland(perhaps Amsterdam, yes it was called Amsterdam then!!) we stayed for 1 night at a young M'sian house. But for the life of me, i couldn't remember his name nor his face!!! We didn't go to the tulip field or garden(Keukenhof)-it's too late in the season, but we took the 1 hour boat ride in Amsterdam. I loved it!!

You should come again!! We'll go to other places. I tell u, holland will surprise u.

Cheqna said...

my dear fren,

for next year's trip, trying to make choices ~ korea or u..hehe..

:-)

i amsterdam said...

Please come here !!! We shall go to Korea in 2012, I'll join you...