Wedding Madness

Not until now did I realize what a big worldwide obsession the British Royal family is



I was in Milan when the news of the engagement between Prince William and Catherine Middleton broke. All day and all night it was Will and Kate on the hotel TV (in Italian naturally). Back in Boston we have been bombarded with every little detail of the upcoming nuptial for weeks (or was it months?). Even a local bicycle enthusiast had become headline news simply because she shares the same namesake with the bride to be:



And I thought the Yanks had fought a war against their former landlord!!

For me all I can say is time and tide – It doesn’t seem that long ago we were witnessing Diana madness when a twenty year old kindergarten teacher walked down the aisle to the arm of a (marginally) dashing prince, and now it is her son’s turn. How quietly the years can creep up on you!

In additions to the well wishing, the press has kept reassuring us that the road ahead for the engaged couple will be much less rocky than their predecessors – they are much closer in age; they have been together for almost a decade; the prince is not pressured into marriage this time; Kate grew up in a happier childhood and is more educated… etc. One particular argument the press like to emphasize is that Kate is far more worldly, confident and sophisticated than Diana was at the time of the wedding, so the verdict is Kate would be more ‘prepared’ for intense scrutiny to come, or is it so?

I have never actually paid much attention to Kate Middleton before but in the midst of the Royal Wedding frenzy I decide to dig up the interviews of both couples before their wedding on YouTube:





William and Kate do look like they are very excited and happy but which engaged couple wouldn’t? You could say the same about Charles and Diana at the time as well and we all know how the latter turned out to be. Diana did sound like ditsy and babbling at times but she was also more straight forward and uninhibited. Kate, on the other hand, appeared a lot more subdue than I expect. Apart from the bit where she said she was grateful that they have split up for awhile because it allowed her to grow and see relationship in a more realistic perspective, she didn’t appear to be particularly perceptive about their union. Especially when she was asked about the difficulty of stepping into the shadow of Diana, which understandably will dog her for years to come, you would expect she must have thought of that and be prepared for questions like this but her response is disappointing and confusing.

However, what a revelation Prince William is, he is supposed to be the one that is uncomfortable and shy from the spotlight but he was quite at ease here. More importantly he was very protective and ready to jump in to dodge the bullet for his future wife when she appeared lost in the question. How reassuring it is to have your prince give you a pat on your lap and said “she will do really well”. No wonder he is one of the biggest heartthrobs of England in his time.

Every marriage will have its problem and no one will know what the future will hold. When you decide go into a marriage you'll need to be brave and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone can be *prepared* for it to be done in such a public way if you aren't born into it. Well, good luck Kate!

AA制之旅: Going Dutch Part 1

What do you do when you have the whole house all to yourself and you will have to cook for the entire month? Since a lot of eating out is expected when cooking is never my favorite pastime, I figure out I might just get the double whammy by eating out abroad. There I was, searching for a cheap flight and found a fare to Amsterdam that costs me only a low USD 500. So off I go for a five-day rendezvous in the land of wooden cloggs, windmills and of course weeds.

Flying , it is a low cost airline from Ireland that I have never heard of until this trip; naturally my flight had to connect at Dublin. There was a nearly four and a half hour wait for my connection, I have plenty of time to kill even after a breakfast, so I just did some Duty Free window shopping at Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath. One unusual service their Duty Free offers is hair salon:





I suppose that does make senses. There must be plenty of people who want to look their best after a long flight, when their hair just looks like a mess.

Because I felt I was ripped off in getting my Euro during my trip to Italy last November (which I still haven’t blogged yet), so this time I want to make sure I get the best deal by keeping track of the exchange rate at the airport, so here on the right is the rate at Schiphol Airport from ABN AMRO Bank, the biggest bank in Amsterdam, advertised in vs on the left the rate I got at Boston Logan Airport:



If I read it correctly, that means one USD will get me 0.64758 Euro in Amsterdam versus 0.639 Euro in Boston. In the end I didn't get my Euro in either places. Instead I get it through the ATM of my brokerage account at Schiphol airport since they don't charge any fee. After checking my brokerage account statement, I actually get 0.705408 Euro with one USD. So I guess that is a wise move but I must say either I have misunderstood the rates in kiosks at the airports or they are just high way robberies.

Two observations I have about Schiphol airport

1. It takes a long time go through the security checkpoint but the security checkpoint is done at the gate level instead of the restricted area level. Therefore, as long as you’ve checked in it is unlikely you would miss your flight because of delay in security checkpoint
   
2. A more difficult phenomenon to get used to is that like everywhere else, the janitors for public toilets (after living in US for more than 20 years, I needs a more deliberated effort to say toilet instead of bathroom) are held by women but unlike most of the places I have been to, the janitors do NOT shut down the toilet when they work, including men’s toilet. That means when you are using the toilet, don’t be surprised there is a woman standing next to you and it seems everyone is quite nonchalant about that. In fact that seems to extend to the entire Amsterdam where the general close proximity between public men’s and women’s toilets would allow you a few view of interior of either sex (Amsterdam is known to be a very tolerating city where prostitution and marijuana are not outlawed; I wonder what their attitude toward Peeping Toms is). So you might want to stick with the stall instead of urinal if you desperately need your privacy.
   

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is about 19 km (roughly 10 miles) southwest of Amsterdam. If you don't know your way in Amsterdam, the best way to get to town from the airport is through the train service offered by GVB, the company that manages all the public transport of Amsterdam, including bus, tram and subway. The railway station conveniently located underneath the terminal complex of Schiphol and you can buy the train ticket in one of the yellow ticket vending machines that can be found at the terminal exit:



These machines supports multiple languages and are relatively easy to navigate but there are quite a few options to choose from: namely the one way or round trip, same day or open ticket, first class (which I suspect no one uses) or second class… Although the ticket vending machine has the capability to accept cash, this option happened to be unavailable in all the machines at the airport terminal when I was there. So I can only pay by credit card. However, credit cards purchase in Europe in general requires you to enter a PIN which does not exist in North American credit cards. I know there is a workaround if you want to use your American credit cards in Europe but that would require human intervention. So you would be out of luck with these machines when they are programmed to prompt you for your credit card PIN. In the end I had to buy my ticket with a live person at the ticket counters just outside of the terminal. The catch of this is the fare will cost you slightly more (maybe half a Euro) but that was my only option, or so I thought – after I paid my ticket I found that at the train station there are plenty more of these ticket vending machines and a few of them did have the pay by cash option available. One final word, there is an extra one Euro fee to pay by credit card, so if you are nickel and dime-ing with your traveling budget the cheapest option to reach downtown Amsterdam is to buy a second class train ticket on a vending machine by cash, for EUR 3.6 one way.

GVB offers a few different lines of train service and even within the same line they don’t always stop at every station. But since Centraal Station is the main hub of Amsterdam’s public transportation, almost every train will indicate whether or not it will stop there on the billboard. For instance, the 1:39 p.m. train below will not:



However, if you are unsure, don't be afraid to ask the people at the platform. The Dutch in general are very friendly people and everyone can speak English in the Netherlands, some are amazingly fluent even.

After years of enduring the subpar services of North American public transportation, it is always a pleasure to take the train in Europe. Notice the scheduled arrival time (left on the billboard) and the actual arrival time (on the right) of the train I was about to take in the clip below:



to be continue...