Our crew, team, group, or call it whatever you want, consisted of three people. Me, the punk, and Jerzy.
I took the evening bus, for greater peace of mind, while the punk almost missed the morning train, as is to be expected of him. When he finally ran up, the train immediately started moving.
I should say that the punk and Jerzy were flying for the first time, and everything was a novelty to them, so they carefully examined the airport and everything else. I, in turn, was glad that I dragged the guys out to see the world. Not everything was perfect, but it's an important and cool thing — my comrades had never been to Western Europe before.
Our little plane
Waiting for the gate to open. I'm usually lucky, and the "Riga" airport isn't very crowded when I fly out. Then again, nowadays you can print boarding passes online, so queues don't really bother you anyway. What does bother you are the security scanners, especially taking off your shoes, belt, and putting liquids in separate baggies. They say the security benefit from these procedures is extremely marginal, but this is an almost religious issue, just like the ones about vegans, copytards, and the legalization of marijuana, not to mention the Pope's condoms.
Waiting for takeoff. By the way, Russians are always calling AirBaltic a low-cost carrier. That's not true at all: the company uses a hybrid model.
For those completely out of the loop: there are two types of airlines.
Traditional ones have high ticket prices, but provide better service, and most importantly — "connecting" tickets with transfers, where they bear responsibility for delays and other things under quite strict EU laws.
The second type is low-cost airlines, also known as discounters, which usually fly point-to-point, meaning from one city to another on direct flights, don't typically cooperate with other companies, and their tickets usually aren't in search engines — you have to check their website. I listed the names of such companies in the previous post; the most famous of them is Ryanair.
This difference is the most important topic in air travel in general, because it lets you take a risk, yet save a lot of euros in the process. Take a risk because you will have to organize connections yourself, if you need them, plus low-cost carriers have a lot of "traps", like paid baggage, paid check-in, the inability to change anything in the ticket, hefty fines for overweight luggage, etc.
Low-cost airlines usually fly to shithole airports that are located far from the city center, which is also worth considering, as the price of a bus to the airport and the time spent can obliterate the benefit of buying a ticket from a low-coster.
In general, Wikipedia has an informative read about low-cost carriers .
So, AirBaltic is not a low-coster, because it cooperates with other companies for connecting flights (you can buy through tickets on their website even to exotic Iceland and Sri Lanka), and it's present in search engines. Its only low-cost traits are the simplified service, plus frequent low ticket prices and promotions.
Little clouds
Rainbow
Wind turbines
European interchanges rule
Moving walkways with a traffic light. Sci-fi writers didn't foresee this, unlike the walkways themselves.
There's an aquarium near the bar, and a bottle inside it. Beautiful and clever.
The airport is beautiful and modern, though we weren't in it for long. There's a shopping mall inside and a branch of the Rijksmuseum (Rijksmuseum) (free of charge).
Here's a wheel like this as part of the fight against cancer; you can register and run. There are also exercise bikes nearby, but it was wet, and we didn't have time either, otherwise I would have hopped on.
I read who it was at the airport, but I forgot. I think it's either Albert Plesman (founder of the KLM airline) or Anthony Fokker (founder of the aircraft manufacturing company, went bankrupt in 1996).
We took a bus from the airport to save time and money. Usually, people take the express train, and then take a tram to the hotel, but the bus brought us close to it right away. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to buy a universal electronic travel pass (OV-card), and without it, the bus cost 4 euros per person. Absolute robbery, but what can you do. I don't know if the OV-card is even sold at the airport, because usually you can only buy it at the central station. The stops in the airport itself and nearby all have electronic displays, which is convenient.
The bus driver was elderly, dressed in a snow-white shirt, and his hands were shaking. We hoped it was a condition that didn't interfere with his driving. Seryoga also said the driver was smoking right at his workplace, but I didn't see it. By the way, smoking and buying marijuana right in the airport and its vicinity is strictly prohibited. I don't know what the driver was smoking in there, but we successfully made it to the museum square, from where we trudged on foot to the hotel. (Museumplein)
The tram is painted rather curiously.
The first thing that catches the eye is the incredible number of bicycles that everyone rides, and the small number of cars. This gives a very pleasant, intimate impression, making you feel cozy and warm inside.
(Embarassing remarks are not allowed (c) Aria)
Those who are lazier ride around on scooters.
This is our hotel, the Van Ostade Bicycle Hotel. If you look closely, you can see a bicycle hanging above the "Hotel" sign. It lights up at night.
The hotel is quite basic, but we liked it, the staff is very friendly, there is free internet and a paid printer. Inside there's a patio where you can smoke. You can probably smoke marijuana too, at least that was the impression we got, hehe.
The view from our room's window into the inner courtyard with a little garden. Amsterdam has a long tradition of such gardens, the most famous of which is Begijnhof. They are all marked on the Amsterdam tourist map, but getting into them isn't always possible, since the houses are private and the passage is closed off.
There is no toilet in the room, but there is a sink and a tap, as well as three glasses, which is very handy.
The stairs are exceptionally steep because the buildings are narrow. In general, Amsterdam as a whole looks like Old Riga. I have no idea how people can live in such houses. It's like living in a museum, must be an amazing feeling.
They love cats here, we saw them many times, unlike dogs. Apparently, dogs are harder to keep in small houses.
And here is the first coffeeshop we saw. For those living on another planet, I'll clarify. In the Netherlands (the correct name for what people usually call Holland), there is a so-called "tolerance policy" regarding soft drugs. This doesn't mean they are legalized de jure (the EU doesn't allow it), but it does mean they can be sold and consumed with certain restrictions in certain places, and the police won't interfere. Turns out, they are permitted de facto.
A coffeeshop is a place where you can buy and smoke only hashish or marijuana, without fearing anything. Smoking tobacco is usually prohibited there, and they never sell alcohol. They sometimes sell food, usually there's just tea and coffee, at most a sandwich. A coffeeshop is essentially like a bar, there's no particular difference, no matter how you look at it. For someone who knows nothing about marijuana aside from TV scare stories, this might seem wild, but it really is like that. A drunk person is on average more dangerous than a stoned one, plus weed doesn't give you a hangover in the usual sense, so a coffeeshop is in some ways even better than a bar. In our area, the coffeeshops were less upscale than in the center, but the prices were lower.
A gram cost around 6-8 euros. A gram is a lot; for someone who hasn't smoked before, it will last for a few days, if not a week. It depends, of course, on the desired degree of intoxication and the method of consumption.
A little car like this