Despite being Europe’s 5th largest airport, Schiphol is surprisingly compact. You can get from your gate to the arrivals area in about a third of the time it takes to do so, say at Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle. A testament to its smart design, no doubt. Throw in a very conveniently located train station, with frequent departures to the city centre, and 15 minutes later your staring down Damrak in downtown Amsterdam! Not surprisingly, the city mirrors just that – a highly efficient design and extreme compactness!

The Warmoesstraat (straat = street) is a 5 minute walk along the Damrak from Amsterdam Centraal and a good place in which to get your bearings. Touristy, yes, but a great introduction to all that you’ve come to know as the Dam’s clichés – Canals, the Red Light District, Coffee shops, and of course, its quaint little alleyways.

Continue reading “Dam Essentials” →

There are three kinds of responses you get when you tell someone your headed to Portland. The confused one: ‘Portland, in Maine?’; the dismissive one: ‘Why Portland? Never heard of anyone who goes there’; and finally the favourable one: ‘Oh, Portland – great city, you’ll love it’. I had a good enough hunch about the place to begin with, and, thanks in no small measure to the NY Times, there were New Yorkers a plenty who gave me a thumbs up for my decision to head ‘all the way west’.

Admittedly, and for the uninitiated, Portland (in the state of Oregon!) is best known for being home to two of the most popular brands in the world – Nike and Intel! The Intel part of my trip was somewhat taken care of by hanging out with a friend who works with them, while the Nike part involved an actual visit to their campus in Beaverton – first stop on day 1!

Needless to say, the campus was everything I could have imagined and more – the kind that makes you instantly want to be employed by them! A sprawling campus – 200 beautifully landscaped acres of it no less – including a man made lake, a protected wetland and a running trail that encircles it all. 17 well designed buildings – each named after a Nike athlete – dot the lush campus and include 2 state of the art (hate that term!) recreational centres, one of which – aptly, the Lance Armstrong centre – I swam in!

Continue reading “Stumptown” →

They say that grass is always greener on the other side. Earlier this month, I set out to find out exactly how. The other side being Canada (since Swine Flu had ruled out Mexico!) and the city visited – Toronto – in the state of Ontario, abbreviated as T.O., and referred to locally by a much cooler name – the Tee Dot!

The French influence, I’m told, wears thin as you drive away from the state of Quebec but that didn’t seem to deter Toronto’s Pearson International Airport from having signs in French! That’s probably the first thing that hits you as you step of the plane. The second, and more impressive thing, is a snag free passage through immigration. There are no separate lines for Canadians – therefore your not likely to find signs marked ‘aliens’; the wait time is minimal; you’re greeted with a smile; the questions asked are not in the least bit offensive and before you know it your already at Baggage Claim!!

They also say that comparisons are odious and I couldn’t agree more. Prior to my departure for Canada, a handful of sources insisted that Toronto was nothing but ‘a smaller version of NYC’ or worse still, ‘a poor wannabe cousin of the Big Apple’. Trying to keep these biases at bay, I decided that a weekend in the Tee Dot should be enough for me to arrive at my own verdict.

First stop on a heavily overcast Saturday morning was St.Lawrence Market, where we managed to duck for cover seconds before a Bombay style rain shower pelted the street outside!

A mid 19th century building which once housed the City Hall and Jail House, St.Lawrence Market is today home to over 100 vendors spread across 2 levels, specialising in everything from fine cheeses to exotic meats, from coffee beans sourced across the globe to varieties of mustard that you never even dreamt of!!!

Continue reading “Tee Dot” →