In the first part of this series, I wanted to share my first day in my trip to Amsterdam. As most of us know, Steemfest took place here just a month ago, where hundreds of Steemians met up to celebrate the awesomeness of this platform! It was an amazing time, and I'm sure everyone has seen pictures of the actual event (check out these by @steemychicken1!). So this photoblog set will focus more on my random walks throughout Amsterdam itself.

    Arriving after a long flight from Vancouver Canada, I was dead tired (awake for over 36 hours by then), but I was not going to waste a moment. I started wandering around after getting a bite to eat, captivated by my first impression of Amsterdam. What a gorgeous city! After a few hours I met up with two awesome steemians, @firepower and @steemrollin, and we wandered around the city some more, checking out some parks and the downtown area. After a great first day, we crashed at the Volkshotel. So without further ado, here's the first group of pictures I wanted to share!

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First View of Amsterdam

    After coming in from the airport by train, the Centraal Station lets off with a view of the EYE Film Museum across the water, which also has one of the cool "I Amsterdam" signs nearby.

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Stationsplein

    On the other side of Centraal Station, facing downtown Amsterdam, was this gorgeous view. These two pictures represented my first look at the city, and I was not dissapointed!

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Canals!

    One thing about Amsterdam that I didn't realize was so common is the canals. People talk about how pretty the city is, how cute and quaint houses are ("They look like painted dollhouses!"), but I didn't hear that much about the canals. They were amazing! Here's a couple of my favourite shots of the canals.

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Oosterpark

    The next place we wandered to was the Oosterpark. A bit like any other park, but it's nice to see greenery so close to downtown; it's not that common of a sight in north american cities, I find. And, with my love of capturing people unawares, I think these two shots have a nice charm to them.

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A Lone Traveler

    My accidental subject here, casually biking through the park, shows something pretty common for people who live in Amsterdam: biking around is very popular, even in the cold and rain! As someone who personally doesn't hold much interest in cars, and enjoys biking as a hobby, I feel like I would fit right in.

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    That's all for today, stay tuned for part two! For those of you interested: Camera is Sony NEX-7, with my usual Zeiss 16-70mm lens.

    Click an image to enlarge to the 1920px version! They are, of course, down-sampled from my original copies; we can chat if you're interested in any full quality versions. As always, these are my original photos, and I maintain the copyright.

Don't forget to if you like my blog, I like to post picture stories!