In late November I started thinking about joining one of AEGEE’s New Year events. I considered Maribor, Riga, Madeira or Samara but in the end I settled on Amsterdam. The cold weather of the Netherlands scared me a bit, but I was quite confident in my decision and paid the fee for AEGEE-Amsterdam’s “Snoway” event. This is a story of my experiences there.
On the 28th of December, on the flight from Brindisi to Eindhoven, I met Angela Seg Muñoz from Spain. We quickly became friends – she was so funny with her Andalusian accent and time flew fast with her. Our final destination was Scouting Phoenix, in the dark zone of Amsterdam. Fortunately we met an organiser, Selma Dorrestein, who explained the way to the house and we got there in the end.
“Hello everybody I’m Savino!” Introductions started, and the first party followed. It was the most important one – European Night. Italians, with an extraordinary participation of Silvio Berlusconi, brought limoncello for everyone. After our national anthem, the other presentations followed: from Estonia Vana Tallinn; from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and Poland vodka; from Turkey a strange magic drink; from Germany raw meat, Jägermeister and of course beer; from Spain tasty ham and sangria; and last but not least, the Netherlands with their cheese and jenever. The party started off good with the introductions, but finished even better, with all of us very happy together even if we only knew each other for a couple of hours.
The next day the organisers informed us about the culture of drugs during the first workshop. Then an amazing canal cruise followed, where we got to see all the attractions of Venice of the North. After the cruise we headed off to the Gooyer: a cute windmill in the city centre in which a brewery with traditionally brewed organic beer is situated.
There was a need for caffeine during the Dutch language course, where I learned the basics like “Mijn naam is Savino” and even “Wij smachten naar achtentachting prachtige nachten bij achtentachtig prachtige grachten” (just read Dutch for Dummies). Organiser Jeroen Bernouw gave us a really nice city tour which finished at the Anne Frank Museum. Here we got some free time and the opportunity to get to know the Dutch culture and prepare ourselves for the Dutch night.
I kept it simple and dressed up with my orange tie, whereas the Dutch people were – 
of course – completely orange. It was a crazy event: they expected us to dance our butts off, and we stupidly followed their lead. We also played many games and sports, like beer pong.
I learned that Amsterdam is more than the stereotypical image of drugs and prostitution that many people believe in. It has beautiful museums (the highest number of museums of all cities in the world – 51) and we got the chance to choose between five of these magnificent museums for an afternoon visit. Another thing that cannot be missed if you go to the Netherlands is cycling, and we cycled all over. We quickly learned not to follow the Dutch way though, because – trust me – you wouldn’t survive!
Before we knew it, it was the 31st of December and we were preparing to enter into 2013. The party at Studio K was awesome – there was even a cinema in the club – and we kept dancing until the early morning. On that first cold morning of 2013 we headed to Zandvoort aan Zee. We went diving into the North Sea at 0°C. I thought I would never do it, but in the end I did, and even though I did not feel my legs for quite some time, it was nice to start 2013 in a fresh way (plus we got some Unox soup to help us get heated up again).
On the final day, everybody was ready for the photo game: we had to take strange pictures with Asian people, old people, children, eating odd things, sleep on the ground, and a lot of pictures that are not suitable to ever be published. After moving through the entire centre of Amsterdam, we enjoyed a nice Italian dinner and it was time for the last party. The best one in my opinion. The only unfortunate thing was that the party and the event came to an end that night and it was time to go home…
Written by Savino Delfino, AEGEE-Genova