Sunday, May 03, 2009

Five Nights In Amsterdam

Just back from Amsterdam after a 6 day trip to attend two affiliate marketing related conferences, the A4U European Expo and Amsterdam Affiliate Conference (formerly CAP Euro). I won't bore you with details of what they were all about here, but the main thrust for me was to get lots of good SEO advice and ideas for promoting my sites, and as it happened, I got them in spades.

Due to the amount of work related stuff I was doing out there, I didn't really get a lot of time to enjoy Amsterdam in a touristy way, although myself and Mrs Dio got out for a good few walks, around the tourist centre and later than through other parts of the city for the horrendously busy Queen's Day celebrations. I wasn't really in a photographing mood on my trips, but there are a few picture postcard photos to follow.

We had a great little tip for Queen's Day from a local on the tram. He told Mrs Dio to avoid the centre and head off into the west of the city as that was where the locals headed due to the make-up off the people living there. We did just that and found lots of narrow streets and canal walks full of people, small stores and wonderful little rummage sales. Despite being potty, the atmosphere was pretty nice. At the end of our day we headed to a more central location, and it was a noticably different atmosphere to the west, and not as nice as where we'd come from.

Other highlights from the week, aside from the little moments of inspiration from the conference sessions were a couple of nights spent enjoying the free beers put on by the sponsors for the show networking parties. It was also good to have a chat about bingo with leading SEO David Naylor (and wife Becky) who was on the panel for a few of the SEO seminars. I've been a fan of his Strike Point show on Webmaster Radio for years, as well as reading the blog, so it was a bit of a geeky moment of fan boy pleasure to speak in person. Another highlight was stumbling on the live bands and stalls on Queen's Night in the Nieuwmarkt Square - great atmosphere and we were disappointed to see the whole set up being dismantled on the Friday. It would make a great regular attraction.

I managed to pick up a cold half way through the week, and am still suffering a bit. Got lots of concerned looks at the airport with my sniffles, but only saw a few people in face masks. Lots of stuff to catch up on now, and my time will be taken the next few months working on my film company and the production of our first feature, Devil's Bridge, a low budget horror movie set in West Wales. Should be fun. In the meantime, here's some mediocre pictures.

Wonky house on Dam Straak, Amsterdam

Buildings in Amsterdam

Wonky house on Dam Straak, Amsterdam

Buildings in Amsterdam

Queen's Day Amsterdam

Posted by Dio Bach at 20:51

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