#17. Amsterdam - Brussels - Oslo

our alarm rang at 3.30 in the morning. why? apparently we had to catch the earliest train to the Centraal Station and last time we checked the earliest was at 5.56, with the last minute packing, shower, breakfast and stuff we had to spare at least an hour before schedule. my uncle offered to take us to the nearby train station after breakfast. and this time i travel lighter than Mia.

we arrived on time at the Station, but turned out we read the train schedule wrong. well, it's true that there was a train at 5.56, but not on Sunday, on Sunday the earliest train will be at 6.26. so yeah, it was kinda cold and we're a bit pissed because we had to wait longer and all the effort to catch the early train. there's another problem, we had to catch a train (are you following me? we have to catch a LOT of trains today) that'll take us to Brussels and it departed on 6.53 which meant that we only have 4 minutes to run from one platform check ourselves out and get into another platform in the Centraal Station. but as usual, we managed to get in on time and got 2 seats. yesterday was the queen's day and of course people are drunk so this train we're in packed with lost of people suffering their hangover with huge backpacks and orange stuff still attached to them.

at Brussels, we had to took off the train and wait for another train. it's true that in every station attached a warning about pickpockets but i took the one in Brussels 100 times more seriously. even in the nicer station during the day we still have to watch each other's back.

the train came after we waited for about an hour and it took us to Charleroi. we passed the country side of Belgium and it's very beautiful. people do keep horses on their back yard, fun isn't it.

Charleroi airport looked like Halim at Jakarta. it's so small but it's managed. this was actually the first time i took a budget flight (i travel by plane for good price all the time--mostly free) and it's the second time i took another airlines other than Garuda Indonesia, so i'm a bit nervous. and i got nervous for reasons.

review for ryanair:

• remember the time when Airasia passenger that has to run for their seats because the airline didn't have a seat booking procedure? yeah, it's Europe and we still had to ran for our seats.
• they put on this lousy classic song (aargh i don't know how to describe it) the one you heard in the movie when two actors having luxurious dinner in a low budget movies.
• and they have commercials on board that announced all the time through the speaker.
• Safety flight regulations? yes, with real demo by two people walking through the cabin.
• it was a scary flight. the wind blew hard here in Europe and we understood that, but still it was scary. Mia and I hold each other's hand the whole flight.
• Safely landed. is that enough? no. ryan air decided to play another 'song'. you know the song when a princess enters her palace through the red carpet (the one in princess diaries or any other princess movies) ryanair played it, and announced "another safely landed and on-time flight by ryanair".

anywayssss.. here we are in Oslo. we're staying at Iie and Uky's place. they're mia sister and in-law.

#13. Brussles

we only have 6 hours or less to visit this country, so first thing first, manekin pis. it's a statue of a little boy pissing in the corner of the street, and i personally still wondering why it has became famous.

we walked through The Grande Place (?) took some pictures--the kind every tourist has when they visit Brussels then we went souvenir shopping afterwards. on our way back, we spare sometime to bought ourselves some waffels. i't tasted good but when you had too much of it, it'll be eneg.

around 2 we headed back to our hotel, stopped in front of the metro station to see this comic book store. mia and i bought 1 each as a "souvenir", even if we don't understand French, there'll always be google translate.

as usual, we're almost late for our bus. we had to run through the station to get into the eurolines counter, and luckily, the bus was also 20 minutes late. so we hop on the bus in time to go to Amsterdam.

once i arrived at Den Haag centraal, i had trouble finding a way in, then sudenlly a guy came and offer me a ride to the 'new entrance' turned out he's hired by the mayor to take people from the old entrance to the new one until the restoration in the station done--he said it'll be done in around 2040 (the picture with yellow rickshaw).

#12. On the bus

So we went from London crossed a very to France and went to Brussels. We arrived at Brussels at 5-ish and this city was a real horror. Too many bad people during the dark. And we kept on watching each other's back until we could check in in the eurolines that'll take us to Essen, Germany. It's an exhausting day for us. We could barely find oursleves a good place to brush our teeth and face.

We went to essen to visit red dot museum, and after we went in we still think that the one in Singapore still look much better. I like the experience, but I hate the effort we had to went through just to get there.

After this we'll go back to brussels for a day. See you in brussels.