Short long-distance trips is really exciting.. I go to the two extremes when it comes to travel planning. I either plan my trip a head, say 6 months in advance, or plan it instantly. People always think that spending the weekends in long distance trip is a waste of time, money, and efforts! After experiencing the total joy and pleasure of traveling in the weekends I totally disagree with them. I've spent some weekend trips to Barcelona, London, Lisbon, Moscow, Paris, and finally Amsterdam. It feels like teleportation. You don't even feel the time passing during your trip. You can do many things at this small period of time. (shopping, Tours, Dinning, etc..). You just get lucky if you find a good route for your flight. How? Your first choice is to choose direct flight. If the direct flight gonna cost you some of your weekend time, then go for the other option (transit), but most importantly you choose a flight at midnight. So you make sure you reach there by morning, not to waste an entire day. When I choose weekend trip I only choose the countries where the maximum flight duration is 6 hours. Flying at midnight and reaching there by 6 AM or so. It's like being here one day and the next day you wakeup finding yourself entirely in another place, and vice versa. one day sleeping in your bed and the other day say in island bungalow, or in a room in the 30th floor! Sometimes you have this feeling as though you were dreaming!
The previous weekend, I was sitting in front of my laptop. It was 8 PM when I've decided to spend the weekend in Amsterdam! I was talking with my friend on the phone. and I was like what about traveling to Amsterdam this weekend? Especially for the Xmas Market at this time of a year? She was like hmmm if you can book for an early flight I wouldn't really mind, and yeah the xmas market that'll be fun. The nearest flight was a direct one via KLM scheduled 1:45 AM. I booked the flight just 6 hours before the departure time and checked in directly after the booking! I know it sounds crazy, but it wasn't a crazy decision after all. The good thing that I have all my travel stuff ready. I don't have to search for my stuff, like travel kits, gadgets, bath kit chargers, cross bag, backpack, cam, travel wallet etc.. I've them all in a standby mood. Normally I don't use my day to day stuff when traveling, I've my own travel things kept altogether in one place. I just had to put some winter clothes in my suitcase. by 9:30 PM I was all set. I then made the hotel booking, which took me 15 minutes to do so. By 11 PM we left the house heading to the airport.
Everything went so smooth, and we reached Amsterdam at 6:30 AM. It was dark when we reached there and cold about 2 degrees. Took the train from the airport to Amsterdam Central station, and it was a walking distance from the station to the hotel.
We were lucky to be able to check in early in the morning. kept our luggage in the room at the hotel. and went out to have our breakfast.
After the breakfast we went walking around. The Xmas Market was close by, but everything was closed at the early hours of the morning. We kept walking toward Dam Square and from there to my favorite shop Sabon.
Walking toward my all time favorite Shop Sabon "Available only in few countries"
Dam Square - Were the Christmas Tree located
Walking through the canals
Outdoor Grill!
Cheese Burger from my favorite restaurant "FEBO" serving fresh burgers in a automated vending machine. It's not like the other refrigirated burger vending machine. It's served directly from the kitchen to the vending machine. You just have to insert the exact coins (Normally it costs only 2.4 Euros), and grab your burger.
Christmas Market during Sunset
Xmas Market
Xmas Market during the night
Dam Square at night
I love traveling to Europe during Christmas time, you'll find a wonderful and cool stuff out there! We spent lovely 48 hours in Amsterdam.
