Europe trip 2.0

Have always wanted to visit Europe again after my Europe 2009 trip.. and this coming 24th, I will be flying off to Europe once more! :)

My conference paper were accepted by EGOS so I will be attending their 3-day conference in Rotterdam this July.. after careful thought, I've decided to go earlier and stay on later.. after all, I'll have to endure some 17 hours flight + transit time between Taipei and Amsterdam.. I'm not gonna 'suffer' for almost 34 hours in a plane only to spend 3 days for the conference..  all in all I will be spending 23 days in Europe, more specifically The Netherlands and Belgium.

So the cities that I'll be visiting: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels and Utrecht.  I could visit more cities with the time I have but I prefer to not spend most of it on trains/buses trying to get from one place to another. Thus I am going to stay a few days in each city so that I can get a feel of the place. I was never a fan of  rushing around  like contestants in "The Amazing Race".. That is also one reason why I've decided to go to Couchsurfing (CS) to look for hosts. What better way to get to know the cities than to stay with the locals, right?! So other than my time in Rotterdam where I've booked a hotel room through the conference organizers, I'm opting to stay with CS hosts.

This time round, I've decided to be more flexible which is something new considering what a control-freak I am.. I plan to list out the places that I wanna go, prioritize them and find out everything about the place (transport, opening hours and entrance fee, etc). Then when I get to that city, I will decide when and where to go. One thing for sure is that I will definitely try to visit as many museums as possible.. Other than museums, any other touristy places that I manage to visit will be a bonus..

Now that I've completed and submitted my full paper for the conference, I will have more time to sit down and plan this trip of mine, although I will still need to prepare the slides for my presentation at the conference. Nonetheless I am sooooo excited. Can't wait to set foot on Europe again..