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I love Amsterdam so much that I decided to learn Dutch from now on.
This place reminds me of home (but better in layout and safety) that I couldn't stop gushing to my mom about how much I love it when I called her earlier this afternoon.
My heart was singing as I walked down the streets filled with wonderful stores and kind locals who have been nothing but gracious to me since I stepped down from the airplane.
The country and I started on the wrong foot actually. The night of my arrival in Eindhoven, I took the wrong train bound for the southern area instead of Amsterdam in the north. A conductor humored and guided me back on track and even went so far as to let the north-bound train conductor know that I wouldn't need to buy another ticket. Before I boarded the delayed train, another staff baby-ied my exhausted sister and I again by making sure that we know where to stop but trains in Holland are fickle so we ran into another problem soon after. The trains probably have dozens of delays and diversions every single day. The right train arrived almost one hour late and when I got back to Eindhoven, everyone got down instead of staying on all the way to Amsterdam Centraal - the supposed final stop. I panicked because my mind told me that there is no way NOBODY is going to Amsterdam on that train but my sister insisted that we were on the right train because the staff back at the other station told us so. A man at the end of the queue exiting the train kept looking at both of us and finally walked back towards us and asked whether we speak English. I said yes and he explained that because of the delays, the train wasn't going any further. That was really nice of him to do, isn't it? After all, he could have just walked out and assumed that we would figure out in a minute or two that the train is going nowhere and then we'd look like fools exiting the train late. Despite all that and the confusion involved, it turned out that we were on the right train but the generosity given to me by these strangers who speak a different tongue made a lasting impression on me and that is something I'd always be thankful for. That train route was diverged again later on but the conductor made an English announcement so we changed trains correctly and finally, finally reached Amsterdam around 9 PM, two hours behind our schedule.
I had tons more fun the next day but that's another story for another day.
If there is one European city I wouldn't mind living in, it'd be this.
