event organizer ~ day 6: remembering amsterdam

it’s me again, pouring out my mind here.

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i happened to get involved in two photosessions in the last 10 days. the first one was my prewed session. it took roughly an hour and a half and was taken in puncak tidar, about 15-20 minutes away from malang downtown. puncak tidar was an exclusive area; many expats and wealthy family lived in the neighborhood. i couldnt go into much details with regards to the pictures of the session, as we were still working on final editing.

the second session took place three days ago in purwodadi. the theme was casual outfit. the session, somehow, took much longer time than the first one, almost four hours. unfortunately, the weather from bad to worse fast within those hours. the storm hit the place just a few minutes after the session was over. i had been working on editing the pictures since then. in order to get some inspiration, i took a quick glance at my friend’s albums on facebook. i did get some inspiration after opening a few albums, but those albums kinda brought back memories in amsterdam.

amsterdam was very colorful in the summer. people tend to wear bright outfit and were in a good mood all day long. it was great!! some pictures also reminded me of how fast time went in those four year i was there. the sun, cloudy sky, rainy days, snow, the seasons, thank God for those memories.

… (to be continued)

relaxing ala amsterdammers

it was some time past 7 o’clock in the evening. i was sitting on a bench in the garden, relaxing. the last few days had been filled with one meeting after another. the topic was the same though, preparation for a church event in october ‘09. but anyway, this post wouldnt be about the event preparation. it would be about what i was doing that night while sitting on the bench.

i had my advan netbook on my lap. the sun had been set for more than an hour, and the sky was cloudy. next to me was a cup of capuccino. this was the reason for me naming the title of this post, relaxing ala amsterdammers.

relaxing with a cup of coffee was one of the habits i learned back then in amsterdam. it was nice to sip a cup of coffee or capuccino after a day at work. i had, on average, 6 to 8 cups of coffee, each work day back then. i couldnt help it for the coffee was good (too bad i couldnt find DE here).

anyway, after a long day preparing the event, i could finally have a little time of relaxing with a cup of capuccino. eindelijk!!!

one special night in amsterdam

my days in the netherlands were numbered. that sunday was my last time attending the sermon at Gereja Utusan Kristus in osdorp (amsterdam), the netherlands. after four years, i eventually had to say goodbye to the members of the congregation. it wasn’t as easy as i expected, as i realized that the members there had become my second family here.

the last sermon i attended was rather quiet, since a fifth of the members were on a tour in israel. the sermon itself ended as usual, around 2pm. thereafter was “the goodbye session”.  saying goodbye was apparently hard, especially after staying for so long in the church. one memory after another came in mind every time i said goodbye to the members.

later on, a few youth of the church and i were having dinner at new king, a famous chinese restaurant in amsterdam. the restaurant was located in the red light district area, nearby amsterdam central station. it’d been a while since our last dinner together. there were eight of us (including me) having some of the best chinese dishes in the city.

my friends gave me several gifts during the dinner. the first gift was a typical dutch cookies, stroop wafel. the second gift was dutch candies. the third one was an iamsterdam t-shirt, signed by the youth of the church. i’d definitely hang that one up on my wall, once im back in indonesia.

around 7pm, we decided to end the dinner and walked outside a bit, although it was showering outside. we headed toward the dam square, where the kermis was going on. we thought to grab some coffee at coffee company, but we opted to have some at the majestic cafe (next to de bijenkorf). we were there for almost 1.5 hours.

a few minutes past 8.30pm, we left the cafe and walked straight down the street to the station. once we reached the station, we went on each own way. two or three of us would meet again the coming thursday at schipol airport to say goodbye for the very last time before i catch my flight to jakarta via hongkong.

that night was certainly memorable and going to stick in my memory for a very long time. it was a special one. i could only thank Him for letting me to experience such warm company from my friends here in amsterdam.

anyway, i’ll come back with another entry on how my decision to go back to indonesia affect my tribe on tribal wars

p.s.: the songs attached here represented what i was feeling while typing this entry.

rainy amsterdam

yeah, what would you expect from amsterdam in early october other than rain, wind, and whole chaos in public transportation it was sunday, october 5 2008. the city had been showered and hit with constant wind for several days. no sign of the weather was going to be better that day.

i was standing at the tram stop at koningsplein (see the map below) in the middle of the rain. people were stranded. one minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes … 15 minutes but there was still no tram heading central station. urgh as the validity of my “strippenkaart” was ticking, i decided to walk through the rain to waterlooplein metro station and take metro no. 53 direction gaasperplas.

walking fast passed the rain. it wasnt that bad. but, the wind was so strong. yet, many people still took their chances of bringing umbrella and actually using it. readers, one tip for you. umbrella wouldnt be useful when you are in amsterdam. you would only leave yourselves with a wrecked umbrella.

finally i arrived at waterlooplein. but again, as usual, there was a delay for metro 53 due to incident somewhere along the traject. pff .. that was so amsterdam. a chaotic public transport when bad weather hit the city. luckily, i didnt have to wait that long and manage to bring myself safe and sound home.

oh yeah, if you wanna know the map of amsterdam tram and metro, here you go. hope it’s useful. remember, never bring an umbrella in amsterdam.

 

 

snapshot

hey all …

wanna read how i successfully persuaded a friend of mine to spend some money in amsterdam, and yet she felt happy to do so? check this page out.

have fun …

p.s.: the post is unfortunately only in bahasa. feel free to ask for a translation.

spain vs italy – spanish & amsterdammer look

hey hey …

the last few days have been really busy, in a fun way. it started on monday. in the afternoon i got a phone call from hanny, telling me that willy became ill and therefore couldnt run the amsterdam – madrid pilot project. she thus asked me if i could lend a hand to organize the project. i said yes, why not i thought; my graduation was on the horizon and it’d be fun !!

so from tuesday to thursday, my agenda was occupied by project-related activities, such as lectures, visiting design and advertising agencies (VBAT and DDB). i also showed them amsterdam. so we went to rembrandtplein to watch the spanish game (where they beaten greece 2-1), leidseplein, and a brief sightseeing around the city.

apart from those famous squares (plein = square, fyi), i guided these students to red light district. i dont know y tourists are so excited to visit the district tho. have no clue whatsoever. later on, i brought them to kalverstraat, where the girls were shopping. oh yea, there were 7 girls and 1 guy, btw. i dont know how much money they spent for shopping.

btw .. speaking of euro 2008, i teased them a lot by saying that italy’d beat spain in the quarter-final on sunday. they obviously responded back insisting that spain’d go through the semi-final. well, we’ll know the result tomorrow :p i’ll for sure send each of them email if italy go through hahahhaa :p just wait and see

so yea .. it’s been a nice week. cant wait to watch the game tomorrow. see you on the next post