...

I'm coming with my car. (And my new shiny 90mm inline skates ;-)

Are you going to do the Amsterdam Friday Night skate, just like Daniel Barlow?

• http://www.fridaynightskate.com/

I hope so but I don't know if I can manage to arrive in time Friday. (20h00 is a little bit early, the Paris FNS starts at 21h30)

• http://ww.telent.net/dates.html

Looks like Dan is a motivated skater :)

Are any other Lispniks on wheels going to the FNS ?

Marc

Marc Battyani wrote:

BTW are inline skaters OK on the bikes paths in NL ?

Yes, I think so. Skaters seem to behave pretty much like bikers in Amsterdam.

Arthur

Frederik Cheeseman wrote:

Hmmmm, Amsterdam and cheap hotels ...

Maybe you could ask Arthur Lemmens alemmens@xs4all.nl because he did get me a nice room in a very pleasant neighbourhood in Amsterdam-Zuid in september 2004.

I'm afraid that room is occupied already.

Arthur

On 6-Apr-05, at 10:15, Nick Levine wrote:

People,

Can anyone recommend a good and cheap hotel?

I booked over a month ago via lastminute.com, into the Nadia (Raadhuisstraat 51, I think near the Keizersgracht). It has decent reviews, isn't too expensive, is reasonably close to both the station and where we'll be meeting, and I think there's a chance it won't be too noisy.

This one was sold out. I have now bookd a room at Belfort Hotel - http://www.belforthotel.nl/

I hope this isn't too far away from everything.

Thanks to everyone for their hints.

Pascal

-- 2nd European Lisp and Scheme Workshop July 26 - Glasgow, Scotland - co-located with ECOOP 2005 http://lisp-ecoop05.bknr.net/

On 6-Apr-05, at 11:52, Arthur Lemmens wrote:

Pascal Costanza wrote:

...

I have now bookd a room at Belfort Hotel - http://www.belforthotel.nl/

I hope this isn't too far away from everything.

It doesn't look like it's within walking distance of the center.

I hope that there is a good bus or tram connection then. It's hard to figure out good hotels without spending half a day on it... :(

Pascal

-- 2nd European Lisp and Scheme Workshop July 26 - Glasgow, Scotland - co-located with ECOOP 2005 http://lisp-ecoop05.bknr.net/

Pascal Costanza pc@p-cos.net writes:

On 6-Apr-05, at 11:52, Arthur Lemmens wrote:

...

Pascal Costanza wrote:

...

I have now bookd a room at Belfort Hotel - http://www.belforthotel.nl/

I hope this isn't too far away from everything.

It doesn't look like it's within walking distance of the center.

Damn, they are also fully booked. :(

Hostels are great because most don't take reservations - just turn up at 9am and you should be fine. Otherwise you have to stay somewhere expensive for a night and then try again.

There're also "hotel agents" in Amsterdam who will find you a cheap room for a 5- or 10- euro charge but I don't know how to contact them. You can visit one if you get stuck without a place to stay.

Luke Gorrie wrote:

Pascal Costanza pc@p-cos.net writes:

...

On 6-Apr-05, at 11:52, Arthur Lemmens wrote:

...

Pascal Costanza wrote:

...

I have now bookd a room at Belfort Hotel - http://www.belforthotel.nl/

I hope this isn't too far away from everything.

It doesn't look like it's within walking distance of the center.

Damn, they are also fully booked. :(

Hostels are great because most don't take reservations - just turn up at 9am and you should be fine. Otherwise you have to stay somewhere expensive for a night and then try again.

There're also "hotel agents" in Amsterdam who will find you a cheap room for a 5- or 10- euro charge but I don't know how to contact them. You can visit one if you get stuck without a place to stay.

I found an inexpensive hotel near the meeting, ~Eur60/night. (Perhaps inexpensive for being associated with a casino?) http://www.quentinhotels.com/Quentin/specials.asp

The way I found it was scanning this site for openings only on sunday: http://www.eurocheapo.com/amsterdam/

Then googled the first nice-looking (inexpensive) hotel I came across. Apparently these middleman websites are inefficient or conservative, so you may be able to book hotels even if eurocheapo.com flags it as unavailable for saturday. I'm not staying at this particular one, but perhaps someone may be interested.

And there are also nice-looking hostels too... perhaps someone might coincidentally get a room with a couple lisp users like I did in Oslo, when I went into the room and found a copy of On Lisp lying on the table.

MfG, Tayssir

On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 00:39:01 +0200, Tayssir John Gabbour tjg-sexp@pentaside.org wrote:

Incidentally, don't take this as a recommendation, since it may be a death trap for all I know. ;) Might not have windows or something sinister...

No windows? Chet Baker would probably still be alive if he had been there instead... :)

Cheers, Edi.

Hi all,

I was talking with a "hotel professional" (who happens also to be my gal ;), and I got some interesting advice on how to deal with hotels if you're organizing a conference. This might be interesting for anyone who might be planning a conference in the future.

And in fact, she mentioned an interest in helping out in the future, to take care of various details.

Ok, so the goal is to book a hotel or two, so that people can mix and easily talk late into the night and get to the meeting on time.

* If you don't know the date yet of your convention, you can ask a hotel when all the fairs/conventions are planned. This has two advantages: 1) You will find out when hotels will be underutilized. Easy booking and low prices. 2) You can get a group discount.

About 2), you decide on a price, estimate # rooms, and aim for some mix of singles and doubles. In German, there's this thing which is called something like "contingency with option", which means before a certain time, guests with a codeword may book a room until a deadline. They will be assured of a room and the discount until that date.

On a room that's Eur80, a good discount might be Eur10 off (that is, Eur70).

NOTE: Someone will need to physically look at the rooms to make sure they aren't coffins...

MfG, Tayssir