Wednesday 28 September 2016

Netherlands First Impression - Almere

So we moved the the Netherlands for Graham's work. There's definitely a mixture of feelings regarding this change in our lives. There was a lot of stress leading up to the move because we were pretty rushed into this, but we got there at the end.

I got a new camera for this journey. It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ110. The other contender was the LX-100, which has a better lens but much heavier, therefore, less travel friendly. I thought the x10 optical zoom would come in handy, and I was correct.
Our Mascot, Captain Squeaky, approves of the not-so-blinding flash

The cats came with, of course. They had a much tougher journey than we did, since they had to be fasting for the entire trip. I can assure you that they have definitely forgotten about this ordeal and are back to being lovingly needy as usual.

Anyway, we are currently staying in this cute little village called Muziekwijk in Almere, approx. 40 km northeast of Amsterdam. People refer to this place as the Milton Keynes of Netherlands, and I can see why but don't think it's that bad.

I find it quite similar to the outskirts of Sydney really; quiet and nothing happens around here. At least the local shops are less than 10 min walk away, which is better than most Sydney suburbs. The buses are frequent and they take you to the town centre in about 10 min as well. Almere Centrum has a town market and lots of retail stores and eateries, so again, much better than most Sydney suburbs. I so guess you can say that I like the place? Lol.
It's unusually sunny for a Dutch autumn, and we are out to explore the neighbourhood.
A nicer shot of the street, it's so European!
The local canal is like 2 blocks away, so 2 min? I mean, I have to post canal photos!
Spot the little blue boat down the river in the photo to the right. No filters or digital editing, the new camera is doing well pretty I think. :)
Testing out the macro function on this little guy in the local pet shop! It kept focusing on the bars rather than the hamster though. :( I'll need to figure out how to fix that.
Didn't get to take many photos of the town centre and the market, this swan in the lake should make up for everything though? (with slight contrast and colour level editing)
The sun is in the wrong spot for taking photos of anything! The water looks good though. As you can see, the Eurasian Coots have nested on this ledge/wave break in the artificial lake.

Hope you enjoy the photos. I'll have a comparison to Amsterdam in the next post. I took a lot more photos so have to cull it down a bit.

There are a few things that aren't great, which I can tolerate, but one thing I really can't stand is the smoking. People smoke everywhere and they just throw the cigarette butts EVERYWHERE! Definitely not great for an asthmatic... :(


3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link Chunny. Looking forward to sharing the journey with you. Wonder how you'l respond as winter bites. I've only ever seen Amsterdam in late December .....

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Feel like winter is already here, Mr E. It's consistently below 10 degrees in the morning and evening these days, and it has only started! Leaves are turning yellow and orange really fast as well. Hopefully I can find some nice autumn trees to take photos of before they all fall off.

    ReplyDelete