The Why
So, I’ve been planning on coming to Utrecht for some time. I heard about the event in January for Grand Archive TCG, which is the reason I had ended up taking my trip to everywhere else I’ve talked about this far in my blog. I have never been to Europe before and decided to travel for the tournament. My friend Ryan from my Santa Clara trip came with me, as did my friend Mark from my local scene. They both are staying 2 weeks in Europe with me to have fun in the Netherlands, and Germany, and anywhere else we decide to go. As for the “why” for the trip, most of it is that I just want to have fun, visit places I’ve never seen before and experience all the world has to offer.
Play Airlines and Jet Blue
As for the airlines, I decided to fly on Play while Ryan went through Jet Blue. All in all the trip was around 500 USD for each of us round trip. I will say my experience on Play was great. Most of the flights were empty, we had a row to ourselves on our original flight to Iceland and then again on the way to Amsterdam. It was my first time ever alighting a flight on the tarmac. Those stairs are steeper than they look! lol
My friend Ryan ended up flying on Jet Blue. He left the states from JFK and had a direct flight here after that.
Landing in Amsterdam
Mark and I landed after our flight, which was very comfortable, around 9:45 AM. We waited a little while for Ryan to land at 11 AM. Customs was a breeze. We had to check in through customs at Reykjavik, which was weird for a connecting flight but I get it. I wish I had spent more time in Iceland and I think next time I will. They have a whole deal for like 10 days over there that seems interesting haha.
We landed in Amsterdam and immediately I had no idea what we were doing. It was interesting though! I always enjoy being somewhere outside my comfort zone. I exchanged about 300 USD and the guy at the currency exchange helped me find the train station. I gave him a 5 star review. So after we found the train station and got our tickets a kiosk, we figured out what train to take to get to Utrecht.
Now, many people who travel frequently may know that some trains have “silent cars”. I, on the other hand, am not one of those people. So we board the train and go upstairs and everyone is on their phones. We sit down, get comfortable and start chatting about Magic the Gathering and a number of other subjects. Clearly people in the Netherlands do not like because we were aggressively reprimanded shortly thereafter by a local to “be quiet“. He then mentioned we had boarded the silent car, and strongly suggested we respect the customs and if we wanted to talk to “find another car.” My bad dude! How is anyone supposed to know that without it being mentioned at the station?? We change cars and continued our journey south.
Utrecht
The train station at Utrecht is gorgeous. I don’t have any pictures (yet!) as I was in a rush to find my bearings and get us to the hotel. Traveling for like 11 hours straight is kind of rough. The city itself is beautiful and the walk to the hotel was only around 15-20 minutes. I think I picked a really good one, because it’s really spacious, in an older looking district and has a TON of amazing food places nearby. Hopefully by the end of the trip I’ll have eaten at all of them lol.
The first night, I went to a bar alone because my other two companions were jet lagged into oblivion. They slept for like 16 hours lol. But, if you’ve read my other posts, you’ll know that I love talking to locals and finding new places to eat/drink/visit. So all in all, I had a good time, came back around midnight and slept.
Day 2
I got very little sleep, as per usual. Ended up on around 3 hours. Woke up SUPER early (4 am) and Ryan was already up, so he and I hung out until around 8 AM when this really cool Turkish Breakfast place, “Yunak”, opened. We didn’t want to intrude at exactly 8 AM so we walked around a bit and found the laundromat we’re going to use. We then got some really great food and then went back to the room. One of Ryan’s friends Glen is staying in the same hotel by pure coincidence, so we had him over in our room and hung out for a while. After he left, we decided to check out a local card shop.
The Card Shop
We went to a local card store in the canal district and it was really nice. They had a small shop and they were hosting a draft. My friends did some play testing while I talked with some of the locals. They have a really good old-school and Legacy scene apparently and the quaint card store had a small basement that lead right out to the canal itself. It was actually really cool. I decided not to stick around for the draft so I waited for my friends to stop play testing and we walked around the area a little. There are so many gorgeous shops, delicious smelling pubs and cutesy knickknacks to be had in that area that we’re headed back today! I’m excited. The cathedral is lit up at night and the bells are amazing. I wish I had a recording of them, I’ll try to get one today. The receptionist at the hotel gave us a lot of good restaurant recommendations that I’m really excited to eat at.
Conclusion
Not much else to say, excited for this afternoon and evening! Tomorrow is the big tournament. Hope I do well! Thanks again for reading and I’ll update you all after this weekend (or sooner)!
