I started writing early morning yesterday but didn't finish. Now, it's 1:34 am on Saturday morning in Stockholm.
It's 4:28 am on Friday morning in Malmo now. Coming back from Lilla Torg after such a wonderful dinner, I fell into sleep quickly until half an hour ago. Being the most gathering place during summer nights in Malmo, Lilla Torg is always amazing!
It's 4:28 am on Friday morning in Malmo now. Coming back from Lilla Torg after such a wonderful dinner, I fell into sleep quickly until half an hour ago. Being the most gathering place during summer nights in Malmo, Lilla Torg is always amazing!
In the morning on 14th, we got up pretty late. The plan was to visit Tilburg University, then drive to Amsterdam to stay over night, though at that point of time, I hadn't booked hotel. Before checking out at Auberge Du Bonheur, I took a last glance at its beautiful surroundings.
Since University is within walking distance, we planned to walk there and then came back to drive the car. However, we first went to a wrong direction, then rain poured down. So, we had to run back to our car. My son kept complaining that I made the wrong decision.
It only took us within five minutes to arrive at the campus. Since the rain was even harsher, we parked it along a road by the campus sitting in it to wait. I did see several people walking by without umbrellas but we had been soaked and I didn't want my son to get cold during the trip. He is easier than me to get sick due to lack of trainings. After 20 minutes, the rain became drizzle, we started walking around the campus.
After just 5 minutes, the heavy rain came back again and we had to hide under a cover of a building. I took a moment to film the fountain in the center of the campus. Standing there, we saw a lady coming out of the building to talk to us in a language I didn't catch in the first place, it might be Dutch. When I responded in English, she smiled and got back into the building. I didn't catch what she meant at the end, asked us if we wanted to get in? She might not speak English. She looked like an Asian and might not work in academic areas, or I assume that she must speak very fluent English at this University. She is a very nice lady and seemed trying to help us.
The rain almost stopped again, we found out the building of School of Economics and Management. It is a secured building and we don't know anyone here. My purpose is to give my son a general idea about the school, see if he is interested in coming here to enroll the study abroad program for a semester if he is accepted by the Department of Economics at UW in his Junior Year. I give all options to him but the final decision has to be made by himself. Up to now, he probably has been so comfortable with his lifestyle that he may not want to leave the dorm at UW forever. As far as I learned, Tilburg University owns a very successful economic program. It will be beneficial for his future if he can come to study as an exchanged student. Of course, there are so many great programs all over the world, but this is the best option on the list of Study Abroad Programs for my son.
While walking back to our car, I saw a Starbucks logo pasted on a window of a building, American cultures seem having some influences here.
Driving out of the campus, we were ready to have lunch. I checked on Yelp to find out the recommended restaurants but eventually drove to the city center to park in the garage under a shopping mall, then randomly picked a cafe around the area.
My son always has a great appetite especially we had had late lunch or dinner almost everyday during this trip, so he requested the big meal. The waitress is a typical Dutch girl and recommended the burger and promised serving a big pile of fries. Because of driving, I couldn't drink Dutch beer but enjoyed my sandwich as well. At one point of time during the lunch, she asked us in mandarin: "好吃吗？(Taste good?)" I was so surprised because her pronunciation was perfect, I caught it in the first place without any problem. Then, she told me she worked at an Asian restaurant nearby in the past, so learned it from there.
Tilburg is a very attractive city and the University is a very neat one. The rains bothered us a little bit of visitings but it might be brought by us from Seattle. However, my dad told me on the phone several times that it hadn't rained back home since we left for this trip.
Back onto the freeway, we were heading to Amsterdam. I hadn't booked the hotel but planned to do it when we were close to the city. I wanted to show my son Red Light District, which I viewed as an unique culture. Of course, Amsterdam has many attractions: Dam Square is one of the most visited ones.
Probably only 50 kilometers were left, I stopped the car to search on Expedia mobile app and eventually selected Crowne Plaza, which is several minutes of walking distance away from Dam Square. Getting into the city, I encountered a little bit of issues to find the hotel. However, driving through all those extremely narrow streets is never a problem for me. I experienced this type of difficult drivings in downtown areas of big cities for more than ten years. After making a U-turn at an intersection due to road construction, I parked the car in front of the hotel and immediately figured out its advantageous location. My son seemed happy with this hotel because he asked me to take a photo for him right after we got out of the car of which would be taken care of by hotel staff for valet parking.
A tall lady checked us in quickly and a senior gentleman took care of our car politely. After entering our room, I figured it wasn't a waster of paying 250 bucks for it in the heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, especially I booked it close to the last minute.
We walked out on the road to Dam Square after taking a short break. Noticing a bunch of popular restaurants along the road, I planned that we might have an early lunch at one of them before we would leave the day after.
A street artist was performing on Dam Square, which had hundreds tourists forming a circle to watch. We joined the crowds for several minutes and were impressed by his jokes and actions.
Walking along the street to pick a restaurant to have our late dinner, I caught a Chinese one. As I had shared, we'd never eaten at a Chinese restaurant when traveling abroad except in China and Canada because of the concern of authenticity. However, due to the popularity of overseas traveling amongst Chinese from Mainland China, I had presumed the Chinese restaurants in big diversified cities such as Amsterdam must feed Chinese very well. After passing by that restaurant twice back and forth, we decided to try it.
The girl for seat arrangement standing at 2nd floor spoke in Dutch to us first, after I asked her if she spoke Mandarin, she responded: "中文啦!(Chinese, ok)". The dining room on 2nd floor was packed and I hadn't realized that two other customers following us until that girl asked if we could sit at a big round table together. We actually were fine with it as long as we could eat as soon as possible. After coordinating with someone, she told us that we could sit separately on 3rd floor. At that moment, a group of tourists were walking downstairs, so it might be a good timing for us that they left the room for us.
The waitress was a middle aged gentle Chinese woman, she briefly asked us and the young couple who followed us to come up where we wanted to sit, a small table for two or the big round table. I said we could take that big table because I presumed that young couple must like a small one to chat more privately to face to face. We ordered the heavy Chinese stuff because this is a Szuchuan restaurant. It ended up with a very authentic Chinese dinner.
Over the course of this delicious dinner, we chatted with that young couple from time to time. The man first asked us if we came from mainland China because he could tell my typical Beijing dialect. After he heard that we came from Seattle, he was probably a little bit surprised. They came from UK because they study at University of Manchester. The man is majoring business and the woman fashion design. They were probably in break, so took a trip to visit Germany, France and Netherlands.
After such a wonderful dinner, my son wanted to go back to hotel to sleep. It didn't matter for me to go to Red Light District either because I am an old man whose interest of beautiful young girls has already gone. While walking back to the hotel, my son made the comments about Americans' more focused concern and Europeans', I don't know where his perception comes from, his point was that Americans more care about the issues of sex but Europeans violences. He might learn it from his Psychology or Philosophy classes or online search. At least, he knows his future wife will kick his ass if he goes there, but I told him as long as he doesn't deal with prostitution, she shouldn't be mad and he can bring her to go together. A lot of women go to Red Light District as well.
Appreciating the sunset by the river, we were so impressed by this beautiful city...
The rain almost stopped again, we found out the building of School of Economics and Management. It is a secured building and we don't know anyone here. My purpose is to give my son a general idea about the school, see if he is interested in coming here to enroll the study abroad program for a semester if he is accepted by the Department of Economics at UW in his Junior Year. I give all options to him but the final decision has to be made by himself. Up to now, he probably has been so comfortable with his lifestyle that he may not want to leave the dorm at UW forever. As far as I learned, Tilburg University owns a very successful economic program. It will be beneficial for his future if he can come to study as an exchanged student. Of course, there are so many great programs all over the world, but this is the best option on the list of Study Abroad Programs for my son.
My son always has a great appetite especially we had had late lunch or dinner almost everyday during this trip, so he requested the big meal. The waitress is a typical Dutch girl and recommended the burger and promised serving a big pile of fries. Because of driving, I couldn't drink Dutch beer but enjoyed my sandwich as well. At one point of time during the lunch, she asked us in mandarin: "好吃吗？(Taste good?)" I was so surprised because her pronunciation was perfect, I caught it in the first place without any problem. Then, she told me she worked at an Asian restaurant nearby in the past, so learned it from there.
Back onto the freeway, we were heading to Amsterdam. I hadn't booked the hotel but planned to do it when we were close to the city. I wanted to show my son Red Light District, which I viewed as an unique culture. Of course, Amsterdam has many attractions: Dam Square is one of the most visited ones.
We walked out on the road to Dam Square after taking a short break. Noticing a bunch of popular restaurants along the road, I planned that we might have an early lunch at one of them before we would leave the day after.
A street artist was performing on Dam Square, which had hundreds tourists forming a circle to watch. We joined the crowds for several minutes and were impressed by his jokes and actions.
The girl for seat arrangement standing at 2nd floor spoke in Dutch to us first, after I asked her if she spoke Mandarin, she responded: "中文啦!(Chinese, ok)". The dining room on 2nd floor was packed and I hadn't realized that two other customers following us until that girl asked if we could sit at a big round table together. We actually were fine with it as long as we could eat as soon as possible. After coordinating with someone, she told us that we could sit separately on 3rd floor. At that moment, a group of tourists were walking downstairs, so it might be a good timing for us that they left the room for us.
The waitress was a middle aged gentle Chinese woman, she briefly asked us and the young couple who followed us to come up where we wanted to sit, a small table for two or the big round table. I said we could take that big table because I presumed that young couple must like a small one to chat more privately to face to face. We ordered the heavy Chinese stuff because this is a Szuchuan restaurant. It ended up with a very authentic Chinese dinner.
After such a wonderful dinner, my son wanted to go back to hotel to sleep. It didn't matter for me to go to Red Light District either because I am an old man whose interest of beautiful young girls has already gone. While walking back to the hotel, my son made the comments about Americans' more focused concern and Europeans', I don't know where his perception comes from, his point was that Americans more care about the issues of sex but Europeans violences. He might learn it from his Psychology or Philosophy classes or online search. At least, he knows his future wife will kick his ass if he goes there, but I told him as long as he doesn't deal with prostitution, she shouldn't be mad and he can bring her to go together. A lot of women go to Red Light District as well.
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