I Amsterdam
I Amsterdam
The author Sayan Roy graduated class XII from Vidyapith in 2016. At present, he is a Doctoral Researcher at Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany.
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Hallo!
Hoe gaat het?
The fourth stop of our Europe Vidyapith Praktani Reunion after the likes of Paris, London, and Saarbrücken was in the capital city of The Netherlands: Amsterdam.
Amsterdam was founded by the river Amstel. The river was dammed to control the frequent flooding, and this is how the name Amstel Dam originated.
Amsterdam is known as the “Venice of the North” due to the numerous canals around the city which are a part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. The other attractions range from large varieties of museums, windmills, breweries, and fine Dutch architecture.
Another relaxing place near Amsterdam is the garden of Tulip flowers at Keukenhof (Here is a link to some fascinating history of how tulip flowers originated!).
The Flying Dutch reunion was held on the 7th of May 2022 - very well organized by Abhishek Da and Sushobhan Da. We did a lot of activities together- traveling, canal cruising, chilling with drinks, and the most exciting part-chatting over Vidyapith memories. In this blog, I will share with you the memories of the various events of the reunion.
Before I decided to write this blog, many questions came to mind about framing it since I didn’t want it to have the same structure as the Paris reunion blog.
Ater endless thought and no solution, I started writing it in the form of questions and answers that came to my mind while thinking of the reunion. I hope it will be exciting and keep you engaged for the next couple of minutes.
How did it all start?
This buzz of reunions in continental Europe started last year with the first one in Paris during Dec 2021.
After that, this is our fourth reunion. It was a great initiative started by Ritesh Da, and now a lot of alumni are coming forward and keeping the ball in motion, with the next one going to be held in Berlin around September 2022.
I believe Europe is an excellent place to travel, but sometimes working and staying here alone is a bit of a difficult task.
But why be alone when there is a big family here! With this thought, I believe there will be more reunions and more participation in the future.
The group photo
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Photo 1,2 & 3: (From Left to Right): Paris Reunion (18-12-2021), London Reunion (06-03-2022),
Saarbrucken Reunion (26-03-2022).
Why Amsterdam?
The question should be why not Amsterdam :)
It is one of the most beautiful cities in all over Europe and secondly there is also a strong base of around 14 alumni in the Netherlands. So, once it was on the list, there was no second thought.
How was the plan made?
It started almost two months before the reunion, say in Mar 2022.
Abhishek Da and Sushobhan Da took the initiative to plan the reunion.
After all the polls, 23 people (approximately twice the number of people who attended the Paris reunion) agreed to be part of the reunion.
I remember the fantastic itinerary which covered a little bit of everything, starting from Keukenhof gardens, canals to nightlife, breweries and coffee shops.
Also credit to Subham Da for his technological brilliance that had made the organizing easier for everybody. Here is a glimpse of the plan and the google docs form.
Photo 4 & 5: Plan of the reunion in google sheets.
Finally, who joined the reunion?
The fourteen alumni who joined the reunion are:
Ritesh Chaturvedi (X,1995)
Sushobhan Bandopadhyay (1997)
Abhishek Tibrewal (X,1998)
Supriyo Debnath (X,1999)
Ashutosh Singh (X,1999)
Shantanu Nath (X,2000)
Suvayu Ali (X, 2000)
Vibhor Sahay (X,2002)
Onkar Pratik (XII,2011)
Dipan Ghosh (XII,2011)
Shubham Mishra (XII,2013)
Kumar Pratik (X,2012)
Nilanjan Dastidar (XII,2015)
Sayan Roy (XII,2016)
In addition, there were also family members who had also joined for the reunion. We were a Vidyapith family of 23 people in total.
Where did we all meet?
I traveled overnight to Amsterdam from Frankfurt and first met Abhishek Da, Sameer and Nilanjan Da at Abhishek Da’s place.
Thanks a lot Abhishek Da for hosting me. Abhishek Da stays in a very beautiful apartment built around 1600 in the old city of Amsterdam.
I was surprised by the architecture of the house, especially because the stairs were so small, and had very little space (see below).
During the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), building taxes were calculated based on the width of a property’s façade.
So a tall, thin house with the same area of a short, wide house would be taxed less.
Therefore, for the residents simply it made more economic sense to build tall and thin houses.
Photo 6 & 7 : (left) Spiral staircase at Abhishek Da’s Place. (right) Old tilted buildings of Amsterdam.
After having a great breakfast, we took the train towards Schiphol Airport (the meeting place!!!).
There we met the rest of the team for Keukenhof including Ritesh Da, Neha, Sushobhan Da, Dipan Da, and Shantanu Da with family around 10 am.
We embarked on the Keukenhof Express bus 858 for our twenty minute trip to the gardens.
Abhishek da had already purchased the combi-tickets (bus + garden entrance) to ensure it is economical, and we save time by not queuing up.
Photo 8 - The team getting ready for Keukenhof. I was looking for the golf hole in the WC :)
How was the experience of Keukenhof? Any Interesting memories!
The 32 hectares of Keukenhof garden is full of flowers, and typically, more than 7 million flowers are in bloom at the garden.
Gardens and its four pavilions show a diverse collection of flowers including tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, orchids, roses, carnations, irises, lilies etc.
Note that the tulips bloom only from mid-March to mid-May, and this is the period of circa eight weeks when the garden is open for the visitors.
Keukenhof has a different theme each year and it is never the same.
This year’s theme was Flower Classics. Walking along the total of 15 km of Keukenhof trails we could have a spectacular view of the flower gardens.
Though we could cover only about four kilometers, during our walk we enjoyed spectacular flower shows, inspirational gardens, unique artworks and wonderful events, beautiful ponds and various pavilions with various restaurants and terraces.
I think Dipen Da visited this place very often and had a better view about the garden. On a good note, Nilanjan Da also planned to get married here. So, one can understand how beautiful Keukenhof is.
Infact on 4 April during an official naming ceremony in Keukenhof today, Mr. Ram Nath Kovind, the then President of India, and his wife Mrs. Savita Kovind named a tulip ‘Maitri’ which in Sanskrit language means friendship.
President Kovind, was in the Netherlands for an official state visit on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
We were in the garden for a couple of hours, and took the bus back to the Schiphol airport at 12:30 pm. It was time for lunch, and to meet other alumni and their family.
Photo 9 - 12 - (Top 2) Mesmerizing flowers at Keukenhof. (Bottom left) From R->L : Subham, Ritesh, Sayan, Nilanjan, Shantanu, Neha, and Priyanka with refreshing vibes (Bottom Right) From L -> R: Sushobhan, Abhishek, Sameer enjoying the ice cream in the lake :)
Is anyone missing the macher muro for lunch?
After the wonderful time at Keukenhof, we all took the bus back to the Schiphol, and changed two trains and one tram to meet the other alumni over the delicious Mediterranean food at d&a Hummus Bistro in Oosterburgergracht.
We reached the bistro at around 3 pm. The entire inner section was reserved for us till 5 pm.
At the bistro we welcomed other alumni and their family including Ashutosh da, Supriyo da and his wife and two kids, Suvayu da, Vibhor da and his wife, Onkar da and Kumar Pratik da. Many of us met the other alumni for the first time in our lives.
After everyone introduced themselves, we shared our Vidyapith memories over the small plates of delicious hummus, roasted eggplant, shakshuka, kababonim, ktzizot, siniya and drinks.
While having lunch at the Hummus restaurant, somebody pointed out macher muro.
Macher muro is like something which can be very good for someone or very bad.
It is like the sushi of Vidyapith. Sushobhan Da pointed out there used to be a macher muro group in their days, who used to sit on the same bench and had it.
Unfortunately, this group did not exist during our time. This is a story of the previous generations.
Photo 13 & 14 - Lunch time. (Left) From L -> R: Sushobhan, Neha, Kumar Pratik, Ritesh, Rachita Vibhor, Dipan. (Right) From L -> R: Abhishek, Sameer, Ashutosh, Shiv, Subham.
Lots of barbering about boring stuff, tell me something about the addas!!!
This is my best part. Vidyapith addas are always memorable.
In the Hummus restaurant, after the rest of the alumni join us, we all take our turn and share our best memories.
Photo 15 - Subham Da (right) and Onkar Da (left) sharing their best memories.
How was the canal ride?
Visiting Amsterdam is incomplete without having a canal ride.
Abhishek da and Sushobhan da had hired a thirty seater boat for a two hour ride across the beautiful winding canals of Amsterdam.
We rode around the various canals, having drinks, enjoying the cold wind and the beautiful architecture of the city.
One of the memorable parts was Reguliersgracht canal – it is one of the most picturesque canals in the city and is the location of "Seven Bridges” where we could see seven bridges in succession.
We also passed by the Anne Frank house and also Abhishek Da’s house :)
The skipper was very nice and allowed us to take photos with the main steering wheel of the boat and also offered us some chocolates.
Photo 16 & 17: (Left) Everybody enjoying the canal ride. (Right) Our Skipper.
Why is it not forever?
Goodbye is the hardest thing. After a day full of fun, activities and nostalgia, it was very difficult to leave everybody. After the canal ride, we went for dinner at Surinamese – Chinese restaurant called Kam Yin in Warmoesstraat.
Interestingly we discovered that Suvayu da and Prateek da work at the same building and they were meeting here for the first time.
This is why reunions are crazy! After the dinner, we walked along the red-light district and then had a couple of drinks at Abhishek Da's place and then we bid goodbye to each other.
Suvayu Da, Subham Da, Nilanjan Da, me and Abhishek Da spent some more time talking about various incidents and finally left this amazing company the next morning. The only thing that comes to mind at that moment was why it is not forever.
Photo 18 - The group photo. From L -> R (First row): Ayank, Rien, Adrian, Supriyo. (Second Row) Neha, Ritesh, Sushobhan, Nilanhan, Abhishek, Sayan, Dipan, Sarmistha, and Priyanka. (Third Row ) Rachita, Vibhor, Kumar Pratik, Onkar, Ashutosh, Subham, Shantanu.
This reunion was fantastic and we all love the reunion like other ones.
It relaxes our mind from the daily chores and refreshes us to tackle all problems and move ahead in life.
I do not want to end this blog since there were so many cute memories that I could not cover.
But, let’s keep it for the next reunion. With this, I would like to sign off and thank you for reading all this. Hope to see you soon in the next reunion.
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Photo Credits:
Photo 1 : Paris Center Staff
Photo 2 : Loan Restaurant Staff
Photo 3 : Temple Staff
Photo 4 & 5 : Sushobhan Bandopadhyay
Photo 6 & 7 : Sayan Roy
Photo 8 to 17 : Vidyapith Alumni
Photo 18: Amsterdam Resident