the Lonely Ant

• Instrument Control

• Datalogging and Telemetry

• Circuit Test Systems

• Motion Control

First up, Amsterdam is awesome.  Unfortunately due to having to fit my visit in between ObjCGN, NSConf Mini and catching up with friends in London I was only there for a bit over 24 hours.  I did manage to cram a fair bit in but I'm definitely going to arrange a much longer stay next time.

Arriving at Amsterdam Centraal

Getting to Amsterdam by train was much more trouble than I was expecting after the relatively smooth trip into Cologne.  The platform printed on my ticket was closed for maintenance so I had to wait for the correct platform to come up on the departure display, which didn't happen until shortly before the train was due to leave.  As it turns out this wasn't really a problem as the train was 40 minutes late getting out of Cologne anyway.

Once we got going it was announced that we would need to swap trains before entering Holland, as the one we were on wasn't the right type. Luckily this didn't come as a complete surprise as I'd spoken to a couple of Appsterdammers at ObjCGN and apparently the ICE trains need to have two sets of signalling gear to travel between countries, and this one didn't have the right kind for Holland.

We stopped at some station in the middle of nowhere for about 20 minutes before the next ICE to Amsterdam arrived, then we were finally properly on our way.

Getting around by tram

There is a tourist assistance office outside the station, over the other side of the tramlines.      I didn't end up using it as I stumbled across the correct kind of ticket machine on my way out of the station - as with Cologne there are two types to choose from.  All the ticket machines have a large range of languages available so actually operating them is quite easy.

I had the same problem with trying to use my credit cards in the ticket machines at Centraal as I did in Cologne.  The Nederlanders I'd spoken to about the trains had also mentioned that their cards don't work in German machines either, so it seems to be fairly common and not restricted to the cards I happened to be using.

I bought a 2 day travel card for 12€ but this turned out to complete overkill as I ended up walking nearly everywhere.  I didn't realise quite how close together everything is in the older parts of the city.

Keep an eye out for bikes, especially if you're from somewhere where people drive on the left side of the road, not the right.  Cyclists in Amsterdam tend to zip around at high speed and don't make a lot of noise despite the cobblestones, but they are quite handy with their bells which does help some.  I saw my first bicycle-car prang within a few minutes of getting off the tram near my hotel.  Everyone was ok but the bike didn't look very happy.

Visiting Appsterdam

Appsterdam Central is at Weteringschans 28 - almost directly opposite the entrance to the Rijksmuseum.  Take a look at their Arriving in Appsterdam blog post - although it's aimed more at someone looking to spend a bit of time in Amsterdam, there a lot of useful info there.

The Appsterdam co-working space is provided by Bouncespace and has a really nice outlook over the adjacent canal

I'd highly recommend joining in with some of the social activities.  I went along to a family day at the Artis Zoo and had a great time, having lunch and chatting with a bunch of interesting people before going on a tour with our own dedicated guide.

Unfortunately I had to rush off to the airport shortly after the end of the tour, and I missed out on Graham Lee's bucks night which involved a tram apparently...

Useful apps

I found these apps handy:

9292 - Amsterdam public transport planner

OffMaps 2 is an offline map reader.  It comes with two map downloads and you can in-app purchase more.

I arrived in Cologne at around 9am on the Sunday morning before ObjCGN, after catching a fast train from Frankfurt.  The plan was to have plenty of time to get sorted out at the hotel, fight the jetlag a bit and make sure I knew how to get to the conference the next morning.

Getting the train from Frankfurt airport was pretty straighforward.  The intercity trains are upstairs in terminal 1, and the local metro is downstairs.  I did have a bit of a moment trying to work out if I needed to get a separate ticket for the train, but after visiting the Lufthansa ticket office (also upstairs) it turned out I could use the paper ticket I already had, so all good.

Arrival at Köln HBF

The HBF (Hauptbahnhof) is the central station in Cologne. This is next to the cathedral, which is kind of huge.  I only saw the side of it, not realising that the front was around the corner from the HBF.

There are heaps of places to grab breakfast, there's a mini-mall of sorts underneath the platforms.  You can also buy a ticket for the local train network at the HBF, or in the metro station itself.  Make sure you use the right ticket machine, there are two types - yellow for local, red for intercity.  I found that the ones in the HBF were exact change only, and my travel mastercard didn't work in them either.  There are a couple of ATMs under HBF so getting cash wasn't a problem.  There's also a Starbucks where you can bum some internet access, or get a coffee if you are really desperate.  I had to wait about an hour for mine to cool enough to be able to drink it without burning my mouth

Heading out

Train tickets are single trip, or four trip, or you can also get weekly ones.  The '1b' zone covers the Cologne metro area, so that should cover anywhere you need to go.  The local trains are more like trams, and the stops are well sign-posted so it's quite easy to work out where to get off.

The metro stations (U-Bahn) are accessible by going outside (took me a while to realise this - maybe I was more jetlagged than I thought), one on the cathedral side and the other on the  opposite side nearer the river.  These stations are generally marked with a big white U on a blue background.

I'm now looking at going to NSConference Mini as well, as it's happening the week after ObjCgn.  It's only a short-ish train ride to the UK from Amsterdam, and I'm not likely to be back in Europe again anytime soon, so I might as well fit in as many things as possible.  I can always sleep on the flight home.