When presented with yet another day of rain in Amsterdam I gave in. Pretty much all of my clean clothes were wet from yesterday and my exploring vs blogging ratio was out of proportion, so I opted for a work day. Finding out the hostel internet rate of 3 euro per hour, it was clear if I was working it wasn’t from there. A quick look about and I decided on finding the library to see if they had free access as sitting in Burger King for a few hours really didn’t appeal.
LIbrary’s are normally pretty easy to find… right. Yeah well that’s what I though and so did a couple of other Aussie expats I met roaming the streets near the train station. We asked people on the street and then an information booth, only to be told different directions each time.
Finally a helpful person pointed us in the direction of a building hidden behind a major construction site and we were away. Now if your looking to use the internet at the Amsterdam Library there are a couple of options. Bring your own computer or use the ones they provide.
Using a computer on site allows you to print (for a fee) and surf away with no issues at all. If you are a clever sod like myself and want to use the wifi for your own notebook then pay attention its not as simple as getting a password and logging on like you do at the hostel.
You need to check in with reception and get a web address link where you register yourself. So find yourself one of those free computers and fill out all the information to create the account. From here you go back down to the information desk and get them to activate your account.
With your account sorted they hand you a slip of paper to connect to the free wifi network. Now I’m not sure on the Windows version of this as I carry a macbook with me but for someone like me coming from an IT background, I was completely lost for the first 5 minutes. Don’t ask the staff for help though as its not coming.
Eventually working out I needed to create a special user profile in System Preferences, Network, Airport Advanced, 802.1X the details they gave me started to make sense (note if you need more info about this hit me up on my contact page and I’ll send you a walk through).
With internet up and going I spent the rest of the day catching up on the world. It’s so weird but when your travelling you loose track of everything that is going on around you, world events, days of the week, all of it.
Perhaps it’s because everyone around you and everything you see in the papers is in another language but I’ve found so far that I’m completely disconnected from the world. You get little bits of information here and there but really its a completely new lifestyle when your skipping about the world.
it be. I wonder how much they are….
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