A-Dam

Not too long after we moved here, Eric's shop organized a Flight "Morale" trip in which I was able to tag along (family was allowed to join) and check out the Bosteel Brewery ... I must admit, it was a pretty cool place. Since then, his Flight hasnt done any other trips, nor do I really see them having another one any time soon.

Well, the Flight I work for decided they wanted to have a "Morale" trip... instead of going to the Bosteel Brewery, they opted for the Heineken Experience over in Amsterdam. Seeing that I've lived here for almost a year now and have yet to experience Amsterdam, I was pretty freaking stoked to go. Since we're such a tiny base, the Flight I'm apart of only has...hmmm...20 people? If that? Only 13 of us opted to go on the trip, then once we reached our destination, 5 of 'em decided to stay the night, lol.

Here's some pictures from the trip... I gotta say, I absolutely LOVED the Heineken Experience. The staff was SO friendly and educational, plus, they spoke amazing English. In fact, the majority of the places around Amsterdam was rockin' the English language. I know I shouldnt be surprised considering Amsterdam is a huge tourist attraction, but still... where I am in Belgium, it's a miracle if someone speaks DECENT English, lol.

Some of my co-workers: Shaun (drinking the beer), Andy, Vanessa and Daniel. They were "pre-gaming" aka drinking before we got to the actual Brewery.

* Play heavenly music *

Keep in mind, we left our base around 7:15a because we were told that the brewery opened up around 10ish. We actually managed to get there around 9:30, only to find that the place doesn't open till 11, lol. It was VERY cold in Amsterdam.. it had to have been around 17* with FREEZING winds. Whenever the wind hit ya, it pretty much cut right through ya...super sucky! Anyway, since they weren't open yet, our group managed to find our way into a nearby restraunt that served crepes. Since I didn't think crepes and beer would mix, I just ended up ordering a Hot Chocolate that was UH-Mazing!

After we defrosted in there for a lil bit and some of us had some massive crepes, we made our way back over to the Brewery (it was just across the street) to find that they still werent open... we had another 20 minutes to kill. Geez! I managed to get a couple of pictures of the famous canal:

To kill a lil more time, we went to a pub that was literally on the corner across from Heineken...and what do they serve? Heineken of course! Actually, they serve "Heineken, Extra Cold" which is like 15 degrees colder than a regular beer.. talk about a brain freeze.

Once we finally got into the brewery, we got our spiffy Heineken bracelets for 15€ (they come with 2 buttons on them that you can redeem later in the tour for 2 beers) and off we went!

This was on the wall right when you started the tour

Staaaaaaaatesiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!

Really cool mosaic

* Play Heavenly music again*

On the left - Science & Beer: Adriaan was the first brewer to open a labratory dedicated to increasing the quality of his beer. Flasks like this were typical of laboratories in 1866.

On the right - Early Heineken Beer Bottle: The "bottom fermentation" process adopted by Adriaan resulted not only in a better-tasting beer, it also meant that bottled beer would keep longer for shipping purposes.
 

Ceramic Beer Tankard - Classic Tankard typical of the late 19th Century

Silver Goblet - Given to Henry Pierre Heineken by the SCHBM (employee sports association) honoring his support and contributions. The engraving is from 1920!

Heineken Beer Bottle - New bottle design introduced in 1939 for the domestic market.

The Heineken Logo - Freddy Heineken was passionate about improving Heinekens advertising and image efforts. Thransforming the Heineken logo was one of his first and most enduring achievements.

Simply the Best - In 1995, Freddy Heineken won the prestigious Advertiser of the Year Award.

 On the left - Silver Medal of Honor & Certificate: On June 15th, 1989, the Mayor and City Council of Amsterdam awarded Aldred H. Heineken the Silver Medal of Honor and certificate for his important contributions to the city.

On the right - Legion of Honor, Henry Pierre Heineken: On May 17th, 1938, Dr. Henry Pierre Heineken was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest decoration in France, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
 

On the left - Silver Flag: In 1888, the brewery personnel presented this Silver Flag gift to Gerard Adriaan Heineken on the 25th Anniversary of the original "Haystack" brewery.

On the right - Engraved Trowel: On May 17th, 1867, Gerard Adriaan Heineken's mother used this commemorative trowel to lay the first stone of the original Heineken brewery here on the Stadhouderskade.
 

Gold Metal of Honor: In 1875, Heineken beer was awarded a gold metal in Paris. This award is featured on the label of every Heineken bottle.

 50th Anniversary Award - On February 11th, 1923, the Heineken brew master, personnel and managers commemorated the 50th anniversary of the company (1873-1923) by presenting this award to the Directors of the Heineken Breweries.

Once we were done with the history part of the tour, we got to check out the factory area that displays several large copper containers. When you looked inside of 'em, they had TV screens that talked about the brewing process and some additional history bits.

The inside of the copper containers.

Once you're done checking out the copper containers and such, you head out and end up on an enclosed walkway that takes you past the Heineken stables. I was SO excited to check 'em out, but rather bummed that we couldnt really check 'em out all that well. I love love love horses (I baby our neighbors horses right next to our house), but atleast I got to see a couple of 'em. Each stable had that specific horses name on it. You can kinda see one of 'em in the picture (sorry for the glare)..the pexiglass walkway wasn't exactly "perfect" for pictures, lol. It was cute watching one of the horse keepers cause he kept petting the one horse in the pic..very loving and you can tell he loves his job.

Some of the original harness and bridles from way back in the day.

Yes, there's a Heineken ride. It was pretty interesting since it lets you see the brewing process "personally"..kinda reminds me of those rides you could do at the local airshows. You get in a room then there's a platform that shifts all around, the environment reacts to what's going on the screen.. all in all, pretty cool.

Once you exit the ride, there's a tasting room where the bar tender pours ya a 12oz glass of beer and discusses the things to look for when it comes to a good beer. Amongst our group, there was a couple of Frenchies that were pretty much not listening to anything that was being said. When the bar tender was passing out the drinks, she specifically said NOT to drink yet cause she had to explain some stuff. Well, one Frenchie decided when his beer was given to him, he slammed it down as if it were a college contest. The look on the bar tenders face was sheer annoyance cause he obviously wasnt listening. So, once she was finished passing everything out, she begin to give her lecture on the beer, the taste and smells...all the while, Mr Frenchie was trying to interrupt her and signaling that he didn't have any beer to follow her lecture with, lol. Oh well! Botoms up!

After the tasting room, you walk into a place that looks like a raver / club scene, lol. When you look up, the ceiling is all Heineken bottles! Pretty cool stuff, especially when they start the light show and you see all the different levels of bottles in the ceiling!

There's actually apart of the tour where you get to customize your own bottle of beer. You get to watch it on the assembly line, get filled, labled and everything. Once you input all your info and what you want the label to say, you can pick up your specific bottle after you're all finished with the tour.

In another room, you have the chance to make your own lil' Dutch music video, lol. Vanessa and Daniel attempted to do one, but they quickly realized that it wasnt in English and gave up. Hey, alteast they got to say "I'm on a boat!"

Lounge room where you can check out various Heineken commercials throughout the years:

Spiffy art gallery:

Of course there's a Fooseball table... if you've been stationed at KB, you'd understand why I say that.

The official bar!

This place was pretty awesome.. once you got your beer you'd go into another room where these standing tables were. When you put your cold beer down on the top surface, a digital drink coaster would pop up right under it. Not only that, but there was a digital map on the table with a red star on it...if you put your drink on the star, it'd initiate the map to zoom in on that specific city. Once you picked a city to view, all the TVs in the room (they were all on the wall surrounding the bar) would engage and give you a 360 view of..ohhh... Hong Kong, Rio De Janero, Amsterdam... it was REALLY cool!

Once we were all finished with the Heineken Experience and spending some hard earned Euro in the souvenier shop, we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe.

 Tell ya what, I gorged my heart out on an amazing "open face steak sandwich". Ohhh maaannn... I know I'll be paying for it in the gym, but I DON'T CARE! I deserve it! Picked up some more souveniers in their shop since I love the whole Rock N Roll look. After we finished up there, I hit up a local lil shop to pick up a hoody for John since I didn't think it'd really be appropriate to get him a beer shirt, hahaa.

When I was leaving the souvenier shop, I noticed these guys playing an actual game of chess! Pretty cool, hunh?

After all was said and done, I got to check out some pretty cool things, spent alot of money..but was well worth it. Didn't have a hangover which was even better, lol. Here's some of the things I managed to spend my hard earned money on:

My  lil band for the bar... as you can see, the two buttons are missing therefore I left with 2 awesome beers in my belly.

Shirt for me

Shirt for Eric

Hoody for me...and lemme tell ya something.. European sizing sucks. Wanna feel super self conscious about yourself? Buy something in euro-sizing. This freaking hoody is a 3XL...nothing finer than feeling like a total fatass after you've been drinking beer.

My official Heineken beer! I had one made for Eric as well so he wouldnt feel left out.

..beanie for Eric

I also bought some post cards that I'll later use for scrapbooking stuff..but I can't find them..hum...

And for spending over 50 (way more, actually), I got this spiffy book about Heineken. In all honesty, I dont know what I'll do with it.. maybe I'll dismantle it or something and use some of the pages for scrapbooking since it has some cool lookin' vintage advertisements.

Here's my goodies from the Hard Rock:

Kick ass bottle opener

Badass hoody for me... and ..oh.. by the way.. it's a size Large. Made me feel MUCH better about myself instead of having to get a 3XL. Thank you Hard Rock!

Duffle bag... is it bad that I actually "needed" to buy it so I can carry all my crap back to the bus? I had several little bags from Heineken in addition to the Hard Rock and I knew they werent gonna "hold" for the several block hike. So, I purchased this bad boy..it held alot! I was pleasantly surprised!

I also got a shot glass which is a traditional thing for me to do.. I collect shot glasses where ever I go :)

SO, there ya go.. there's my trip to Amsterdam. I'll be sure to go back there again with Eric to check out some more stuff.. I'd love to go to the Van Gough museum and also check out the Sex History Museum (hahaa, yesssss!)..obviously it'll most liktely be a trip without John since I don't wanna subject him to some of those things :) All in all, I highly reccommend a trip to Amsterdam if you happen to be on this side of the globe!