Nath & Mich Travel the World: Amsterdam

Anna, Borrie, Nath and myself just had a wicked weekend in Amsterdam. The weekend got off to an early start with the alarm set for 3:10am!! A bit early but shows how hard core travellers we are. Needless to say I was actually looking forward to getting on the plane so I could sleep, but with only a 40min flight to Amsterdam, I did not catch up on much of my missed sleep.

We hit the ground running - firstly we dropped our bags at the hotel then found some breakfast before we literally went non-stop for the next 3 days. We started with a canal cruise along the many hundreds of canals in Amsterdam. Along the way we stopped at the Van Gough Museum - it holds the largest collection of Van Goughs's works. We then decided we were thirsty so off to the Heineken Brewery we traipsed to quench our thirst. It is the best brewery tour I have done - very interactive and funky. They had a bar set up pumping sounds and room where you could DJ and make your own bottle labels.

After this it was time to complete the canal cruise then explore China Town for some dinner. We had a quick walk around the red light district but we were all zonked out from the early start so we headed to our hotel for much needed sleep.
Day two was planned out to perfection. We started with an early start at the Anne Frank house to avoid the queues. We did well getting there before it was even open, and they were letting people in early so we didn't even have to wait. Later in the day we notived the queue snaking around the block! It was very interesting inside the Frank hideout - it was bigger than I had imagined and they had a good set up. Having read Anne Franks diary it was neat to be able to see the hideout for myself. It was very sad being there as the story didn't have a happy ending and Im struggling to understand why one population of people think they are superior to another. Of course this occurs around the world, Nazi Germany is just one horrific example of unfortunately many cases of genocide.

To lift our moods we then indulged in some frites (hot chips with mayo) and waffles. We were feeling much happier after our food stop. The previous day we had booked ourselves onto a half day trip out to the 'country' where we were to see windmills, clog and cheese making. This trip was excellent value for money, only €35 for a 5 hour outing. We went to the Zaan district to see windmills listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site. After this it was time to taste cheese and shield our eyes from wood shavings during the clog making demo. We headed back to Amsterdam very content with our country outing.

The last big adventure on our list for today was a visit to the Ice Bar. It was FREEZING, naturally as you would expect being at -10C! I was definitely ready leave after 20min of being locked in a freezer. Unfortunately we weren't able to take photos inside, but don't worry staff took photos for us to buy at €9 per photo. Yeah right. Needless to say we didn't buy any.

By now it was 10:00pm and feeling much more awake than the previous night we headed to the red light district. We found a pub playing the Real Madrid v Barcelona game which was awesome to watch - even though the pub stank of weed. The smell was everywhere around the streets of the red light district. Anna was worried sniffer dogs at the airport may smell weed on our clothing and get us locked in jail. After the footy we had a good look through the red light district, I was disappointed at how tame it was as I thought it may have been more risque. The most shocking thing was the pitcures on the numerous DVD covers!

Monday and today is Nath's birthday. We had not planned anything for today other than a nice canal side lunch before heading to the airport. Turns out we managed to fit in a 3 hour city walking tour before our lunch and departure from Amsterdam. Our tour guide delighted in telling us that NZ has the highest rate of weed users in the world - 27% compared to only 5% in The Netherlands. Anna and I are very sceptical of this information as we don't think a quarter of NZers use weed.

We were totally impressed with ourselves amd how much we had managed to do in 3 days in Amsterdam. My lasting observation is all the bicycles around the city. I loved how bicycles ruled the road over cars and pedestrians! Also noticed the lack of an obesity problem as the population is so active. Maybe Texas should invest in some bicycles!

Looking forward to more travel later in the month with our trip to Egypt only a couple of weeks away.