I amsterdam!

So we left Paris for Amsterdam at 11pm, took a few sleeping tablets and successfully woke up in Amsterdam at 6am in the morning. I had this image of sitting out by a canal, eating waffles and drinking coffee while the city came alive. Alas, Amsterdam is a night city and there was absoultely nothing open until about 9am! Since we couldn't get into our hostel until 2pm, we wandered the streets as it drizzled! eventually sat on a park bench for a nap - such a bogan thing to do! Amsterdam is gorgeous but there are so many bicycles around it looks really messy and unkept. I though Paris streets were hard to navigate, in Amsterdam there are 4 sets of lights, one for the cars, one for the trams, one for bicycles and one for pedestrians - very confusing! The streets were really dirty, admittedly there were street sweepers still cleaning up when we arrived.



Ever wondered where XXX comes from?

I did eventually get my waffles with cherries and icecream!

So after Amsterdam decided to wake up, the first thing on our to do list was a canal cruise. It was a bit rainy so I think we missed out on the atmosphere a bit because we were enclosed but it is still amazing that all the canals were made so long ago -a really good example of good town planning.




After the cruise, Kris went to the Heineken brewery but I decided to go check out the famous markets. They were amazing, selling absolutely evrything under the sun, from fruit & veges to bicycles and souvenirs. I bought the best raspberries there - absolutely delicious! The Heineken brewery did actually like quite fun from the photos... next time!

A few choice photos from the Red Light District, it was amazing to see girls just standng in the windows... I'm such a prude! We tried to see how long an 'encounter' took but generally got bored before they finished. It was funny to see the guys coming out of the windows after their 'services' looking sheepish. The whole place smelt of Weed and the 'coffeeshops' were full of people - at all times of the day!





On Sunday, we decided if we can't beat them - join them, so we hired bikes and hoped on a ferry to the "North Island", we had no idea where we were going we just hopped on! The bike paths are so good in Holland, these ones were really good as they went along a few creeks and through big parks. We were lucky enough to have picture perfect weather that day.



After returning our bikes, we went to the Sex Museum, recommended by my brother. Stuart, you will recognise the giant penis!



After a bit of break sitting by the cannals, it was back to the bus station for the long drive home. Got back to Paris at 6.30am and was back in class at 9am. An absolutely huge weekend!