Burkarskis do Europe - Arrival
Overview
| Rating |
🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺 |
|---|---|
| Year Traveled |
2023 |
| Length of Trip |
1 Week |
| Locations |
Boston, USA; Dublin, IE, and Amsterdam, NL |
Our story begins Halloween 2021. With the pandemic about to begin it’s winter ramp-up, I spend my second Halloween entirely outdoors for a campout on Table It’s land. The topic of the upcoming Eurohash 2023 registration comes up and I start dreaming big. Surely, it will be safe to travel again in Summer 2023. And I have been putting off my dream trip to Europe for more years than I care to mention. Everyone else is going it will be so much fun. I am convinced.
We missed our opportunity for the initial registration with a stay at the Kasteel de Berckt but the combination of waitlist and additional slots at the campground across the road allow us to get in. By mid-November, I have successfully paid my deposit and we’re officially in!
So much changes in just two years. Trish gets engaged and sets her wedding for the weekend before the event. I take a new job and we leave Syracuse for New Hampshire. The trip isn’t going to look exactly like what we planned with our friends but we’re still doing the important part: EuroHash.
Most of the Syracuse crew starts a week ahead of me in Croatia. Michael and I fly out of Boston on the Monday following Tricia and Scott’s wedding. We take Aer Lingus and have a layover in Dublin. The plane’s upholstery is pleasantly green and our redeye comes with some fuzzy green blankets. I also end up exiting out of the back of a plane for the first time which was a surprise.
Once I get my phone to connect to the network in Amsterdam, I see messages on the group chat looking for breakfast. I tell them to wait for me despite that being an unreasonable request. I still have customs, baggage claim, and the train ride before we reunite. But soon we’re at the hostel attempting to check in. As expected, it’s too early to check-in but we’re able to drop our bags in one of the other rooms for our group and begin our 1st Amsterdam adventure.
Since it’s before noon and a Tuesday, we have a bit of trouble finding things that are open. We wander a bit checking out a cheese shop and getting a light brunch before we go to a genever proeflokaal at Michael’s recommendation. This place also features a long taplist of Dutch beers and we notice a little brochure on the table. If we visit 4 specific Dutch beer bars in the same day, we’ll get a free tee shirt. Since our group is highly motivated by dumb challenges, beer, and free stuff, we now have a mission for the day. But also I’ve been awake since Monday morning and it’s now 9 AM back at home. I take a nap with my head down on the table. Michael was going to go back to the hostel with me since it was after 3 and our room would be ready, but I rally for the sake of the free shirt.
We meet our goal of 1 beer from each bar and a receipt proving our purchase at each. The last bar’s keg coolers are broken so we have to choose bottles and cans. There’s a top 5 list of Yahtzee scores for the bar on the wall and despite declaring my distaste for the game, I end up at the Yahtzee table and play along. I am not the biggest loser at Yahtzee but I was pretty close. I would also like to add that I picked an IPA from almost every bar, and did not like any of them.
We had a recommendation for a 16-course Indonesian meal for dinner, but of course they cannot accept our group of 14. With Indonesian still on the brain, we end up at an Indonesian small plates type of restaurant. This ends up being quite a bit of trouble because our food orders were very delayed. We finished our drinks but no one took our orders for more. I take another table nap but at this table every glass clank really reverberates into my ears. Dinner is finally over but our pub crawl has taken us quite a distance away from the hostel and the walk back feels like it takes forever. We don’t get back until 10:30 PM. Did I mention that I’d been up since 6 AM EST Monday?