I arrived in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at 6:00 and I had about 5 hours to spare before my connecting flight to Catania.
It was 5oC outside. Coming from Malaysia, I did not know how cold that was going to be. I was not ready for the cold. All I had on my body was a thin layer of tank top, a T-shirt, a sweater that wasn’t very thick and a pair of skinny jeans. There was nothing that could protect me from the cold. My hands were shaking and my ears were freezing.
But I loved it!
I kept blowing into the air just to watch the cloud forming in front of me. Ah, isn’t it so cool to be able to see your own breath?!
Please don’t mind my quirky excitement about winter. I came from a tropical country and I had only experienced a few days of winter throughout my entire life.
I wandered around the streets for half an hour before I took the bus to Keukenhof Garden. The sky was grey and the trees seemed to be lifeless. It felt like everything was sealed perfectly by the cold. I might sound weird, but I had always loved the view of winter. Maybe because we never get winter in Malaysia. Or maybe because I am a secretly depressed person. Oddly enough, I had always found peace in grey skies.
Imagine the sky is gloomy and you are sitting there by the warm fire and holding a cup of hot chocolate in your cold hands. How lovely is that!
Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy sunny days where I stay outside and get myself tanned under the bright sun. However, it can be rather hectic to me as everything seems to be much louder when it is sunny.
Anyway, as I was nearly frozen with my thin layers of clothing and I had to use a bathroom, I walked past Hilton Hotel and decided to sneak in.
The lobby looked majestic. It didn’t really have a ceiling like a normal lobby usually does. In fact, it stretched all the way up above ten floors with all the hotel rooms facing towards the lobby, and finally met with a rooftop made out of glass, overlooking the beautiful grey sky.
Everything was well-decorated – from the wall to the front desk to the resting area. Yellow lighting made the entire lobby looked like as if it was shimmered with gold. I was totally in awed. It wasn’t something I’d expect from an airport hotel.
I looked around. There were around six receptionists at the front desk, busy doing whatever they were doing. Some guests were chilling around the lobby. I tried my best to blend in like a normal guest. There was a flight of stairs right beside the lobby, and I decided to climb up there before anybody catch my weird appearance. I sneaked past through the front desk, and when I reached the opening of the staircase, there was a security guard standing right there. He spotted me and looked at me for two seconds. I tried my best to hide my panic and smiled at him, secretly praying that he will not call me out and chase me out of the hotel. And I turned around, ran up the stairs without looking back.
There was nobody upstairs. There was an exit right in front of me which I believed it leads the guests to and from the airport. On the hallway to my right, a small art exhibition of fancy paintings and amusing tiny sculptures was set up. I saw a bathroom right next to the hallway and I went straight in. Maybe I was lucky that I did not get caught. Or maybe I was probably thinking way too much – maybe people who are not staying at the hotel are still permitted from entering the hotel. Anyway, I wouldn’t advise you to do what I did. It would have been embarrassing to get caught. I head back to the bus stop right after washing my face and getting some refreshment in the bathroom.
A line of people was waiting for the same bus with me. I got my ticket stamped then joined the line. There were a lady and a man standing in front of me. We made an eye contact, smiled and started talking.
“Where do you come from?” she asked.
“Malaysia! How about you?”
They came from the United States. Hilary and Robert. Brother and sister. Just like me, they were waiting for their connecting flight in Amsterdam. They were on their way home to Colorado after spending weeks in Africa. I was rather surprised and impressed to learn that they were helping out kids with disabilities in Africa.
It wasn’t a simply volunteering thing. Turns out, Robert started an international organization named QJoy with the goal to help kids affected by disabilities to reach their full potential through sustainable education. A sister of theirs was affected by autism and down syndrome while another sister was affected by autism.
As somebody who has a brother that was born pre-mature and affected by disabilities, I was rather happy to learn about this organization. I had volunteered for a couple of times before this, but I was nowhere as dedicated as they were and I really admired them for doing it.
We ended up spending the morning walking around Keukenhof Garden together.
Keukenhof Garden, also known as the Garden of Europe, is said to be one of the world’s most beautiful garden with around 7 million spring-flowering bulbs exhibited annually. The combination ticket costed me around 25 Euros and it included the entrance fee to the garden and the round-trip bus fares to and from Schiphol Airport. If you are ever lucky enough to be in Amsterdam during the spring season, even just for a few hours of layover, DO IT!
The garden was enormous, much larger than I imagined. There were millions of tulips – red, orange, white, yellow, purple, blue… They came in all different shapes and sizes and colours and even auras! Unfortunately, the flowers were not all in bloom yet when I was there as the weather was still cold. It was sprinkling. The wind did not make the cold more bearable for anybody. At some point, my hands got so numb I could barely move my fingers to use my phone camera. Nevertheless, I had a wonderful time exploring the garden – the sweet smell of the tulips, the scenic view of the pond, the company of Hilary and Robert and of course, the cup of hot chocolate that saved my life from being frozen!
I left the garden 3 hours later to catch my next flight to Catania, Italy.
The Dancing Wildfire 