Amsterdam Anniversary

The anniversary being of course the 26th of my innings.

To briefly sum up events - we flew into Amsterdam on Friday evening - collected by that 'Handsome Dutchman' who we met in Brazil and again in Santiago - a night out in Schagen - his local town at the tip of Holland. Felt interesting walking around and then going up a hill to the ocean - almost like the sea was an above ground pool. A quick dip in the North Sea by Lucas and I ticked another box under the 'swum in' category of boxes. Not as cold as the Channel - although that was probably due to the breeze being less than gale force.

Edwin then drove us into Amsterdam where we checked into our hotel then set off on the tram into the city centre. My first impressions of Amsterdam was how amazingly well organised it was - efficiency and continental charm coexisting perfectly. If anything the public transport system was under used because every second Dutchman and woman was on a bicycle.

Everyone knows what the main tourist attractions in Amsterdam are, right? The red light district and the 'coffeeshops'. I've heard the odd person say that the red light district can be a bit seedy - totally the opposite - the closest thing I can compare it too would be a cross between Covent Garden and Queen Street mall, but safer than both and with friendly (possibly stoned) tourists - groups of little chinese women skittered around looking into the windows at the women perched on their stools batting their eyelids and waving at everyone.

The place is also of course set up for Aussies, Poms, Kiwis and Yanks who prefer ales to hash cookies and we soon found ourselves behind a bar - the naked women serving drinks not distracting us from the serious task at hand. We then went to one of Edwin's old haunts and the hoofs were again shaken till the wee hours until we retired to our hotel room.

The following day was another touristy sort of day - we hired bicycles and rode them virtually non-stop for our allotted four hours, around the countryside outside of Amsterdam and then back in again via the FREE ferry to CENTRAL station (another tribute to their public transport). I put CENTRAL in capital to emphasise that this place is the hub of the nation - if not Europe. This is CENTRAL station for virtually every form of transport available (except the airport which is a 15 minute train ride away).

We finished our bike ride, ate some dinner, then retired to a coffeehouse for a brownie and a juice. I have no idea what they put in their brownies over there but Pat, Lucas and I were walking around like zombies about three hours later trying to find Pat's jacket he'd misplaced the night before. Having no accommodation booked for that night due to an early flight the next morning we managed to negotiate our way to CENTRAL station and to the airport for a celebratory hot chocolate and doughnut bought by Lucas. Along the way I decided that I did not like the layout of Amsterdam - every street looks almost exactly the same (to a newcomer like me) and I had huge difficulty getting my bearings, even with a map. So we crashed at the airport from the hours of about 12:30am - 6:00am before checking in for our flight home.

The birthday was spent sleeping most of the time, although I was treated to some tuna and avocado on toast from Heather and she replenished my gym clothing supplies.

Photos are up! Check the Europe Gallery.

Di di doo doo, di di di di doo, di di doo doo, di di doo doo doo doo dooooo.

The Final Countdown.

29 Days. Tomorrow it will be 28 days. Anyone seen the movie 28 days later? It would be cool if something like that happened....I will get the video camera on the ready.