Flashbacks of Moments in Amsterdam | 阿姆斯特丹记忆碎片

HiveFest kicks off today in Amsterdam. I hope the attendees have a blast there!

In my previous post, I also mentioned Amsterdam's historic Chinatown (kind of outdated in comparison to those in Milano and Valencia, not to say the real China...). These remind me of some moments 10 years ago when I was in the city. Instead of HiveFest, that's more like a StudentFest.

Then I went on a weekend trip with a student group from my university in Belgium. We took a coach together and stayed in Amsterdam for two nights and two days. On the first day, we were accompanied by a student, an Amsterdam native, who guided us through the city centre. That Dutch girl was informative and entertaining, but I forgot most of what she told us about the city's history. 😂 Thankfully, there's still internet.

I only recall doing crazy shit with other students, like trying out the joints in coffeeshops, dancing till midnight at the Club Epic, and waiting for a long time in the freezing cold wind and rain to enter the Anne Frank House... I still remember, when we finally got inside the House, a girl from Basque country in our group pointed to one translated version of Anne's famous diary, shouting with excitement: "Oh wow, they even have it in my Basque language!"

On the second day, I went alone to see some art exhibitions and to visit the awesome Tropenmuseum as a boring person, also because it's too miserable to walk around in the chilly wind and rain.

I highly recommend the Tropenmuseum to boring people like me. It's a large ethnographic museum founded in 1864. It hosts a variety of permanent and temporary exhibitions, focusing on visual arts and photographic works, both modern and traditional. It's especially a great choice when it's raining and cold outside, which I see happening during the HiveFest days (not a big issue for Nordicish people I know :)).





That day, I even had about 5 minutes of precious sunshine when I came out of one exhibition room. My mood was brightened up and I asked a passerby to take a photo of me there (the head photo here with side-lit me). The result turned out to be a pleasant surprise, but until today, I had never noticed the photo in that folder! Those were the days...


Over the years, I also revisited the city in summer a few times. Without any doubt, Amsterdam is an ultra-cool place, and literally too. I enjoyed it a lot, but I enjoy warmer places more, clichély speaking in Italy. ;)

Now, let's have a little tour through my photos from that weekend!

HiveFest今天在荷兰首都阿姆斯特丹拉开帷幕，让我想起一些十年前在那里的记忆片段。
阿姆是个特别酷的地方，冷飕飕的空气里弥漫着不拘一格的自由和粗放，是北方的寒风吹来的粗犷，不同于加勒比的奔放。现在看着这些照片都觉得冷。夏天也去过，20几度当地人就叫热，让我这种习惯酷暑的人情何以堪。好了，看照片吧~ :)

For the best experience view this post on Liketu

Those Were The Days (Remastered) - Mary Hopkin