Amshter-DAMNN!!! 29th July – 1st August

Hallo from De Nederlands!

Well dear readers, we have survived Amsterdam!!

We left Singapore relaxed and happy – it was a great city and one that we look forward to visiting more over the coming years, it’s safe and efficient. If the world was a classroom, Singapore would quietly sit up the front, with their homework done – and that’s not racist!!

Anyway we boarded our Swiss flight at 11.30pm. First stop Zurich – 12 friggin hours later. We ate and slept well on the flight, watched some cool shows and arrived at who knows what time (Singapore time) in Zurich. We than had a chaotic hour as we ran to the wrong gate! (Sir you are on Swiss air to Amsterdam, this is KLM) bolted about a kilometre to the next gate A83 – ffs and finally, an hour later landed in the ‘Dam

We walked to our hostel and spent the rest of the day trying to stay awake as it was about 3am Singapore time and 5pm Amsterdam time…crazy. We did have comfy bunks and we had a good sleep before attacking the next day.

We had breaky in the bar – 6.5 Euros before we walked all around the ‘Dam and re-familiarised ourselves with this beautiful canal town. The trees were in full bloom and the city was packed as the Gay Pride parade was due to start the next night. The amount of people there were a bit of a pain in the arse but we gritted our teeth and pushed through…

The next day saw us grabbing the old Hop On – Hop Off ticket. This included bus and boat and we spent an awesomely chilled day catching canal boats, walking through quaint streets, checking out the Rijks Museum – including original works by Van Gogh and Rembrandt (including the Nights Watch), having the occasional Heineken, frittes with mayo, and people watching in the groovy Jordaan region. This was a great day and by 4.20 we were blissfully exhausted.

The next day we grabbed the canal boat to Vondelpark, hired some pushies and spent the morning cruising through this greenspace with hundreds of other tall, thin, attractive Dutchies…what a park!! There were bridges, flower gardens, ponds, fountains, cafes etc… Very cool. We ate some great burgers for lunch before we caught a taxi back to the hostel, grabbed our bags and continued on to Centraal station. We went out to our hotel and at 6.15 met out Expat group.

We met Grace – our British tour leader – and piled on to the bus. Our group was the usual mix of people from all over the globe with lot of “new” versions of people – i.e. New Walter and James. New Brian and Colleen etc…fuck we crack ourselves up

Anyhoo we did the pizza and beer/wine cruise with Breanna from Chicago and Alex and Michael from Melbourne. We then did our walking tour of the Red Light district and saw a lot more than we did with Cam. Last time we did this walk we only saw a handful of girls in the doorways, but this time we saw a lot more. Most of them were on their phones and looked very bored…not that alluring…still interesting to see and an integral part of the Dam.

We then got the train back and crashed by 11.30pm.

Our overall impressions of the ‘Dam this time were much improved from the last time. The Red Light District is only one small section of the town, but the general vibe is “Do What You Want!” Critters dress however they want, bikes are everywhere (including one with “Burban Barrows” on the front to carry kids, groceries, dogs etc) and the vibe is eclectic, adventurous and there is some sort of fucked up harmony in the town all tied together by strains of the highest grade hydroponically grown marijuana in existence. It’s always 4.20 in the ‘Dam

This was a great few days and we relaxed and unwound from the heat of Singapore and found time to chill…thanks Amsshter Dam – you were a hit!

Peace

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