A Bridge Too Far

So after my last post containing only my musings on Amsterdam without any actual explanation of what we did over the three days (give me a break, it's hard to write in anything but stream of consciousness when you are lying by a pool in Santorini, which I am currently), I will try and succinctly summarize our time there.

On our first full day we ventured out to De Pijp which beside being a "cool" neighborhood that various forums said I should visit, held the best part of Amsterdam for me... My friend Bridget! We met up with her and her boyfriend Markus for coffee (ACTUAL coffee), before they had to get to the airport to leave that afternoon. It was a complete fluke that they happened to be there as I had been trying to organize a place to meet up with Bridget since I had been planning my trip and had almost given up because our plans had both become pretty concrete. She was one of my favourite work mates at my last job and I was pretty devastated when she left to travel the world so it was really nice to see her again, if only for a couple of hours.

Shereen and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Vondelpark (the biggest park in Amsterdam), visiting the Rijks Museum which holds many of Rembrandt's masterpieces, and walking thought the Jewish Quarter back to our hostel in the evening.

/Vondelpark

The next day we went to see Anne Frank's house in the morning. Now that I am old enough to fully appreciate how heart breaking the story is (as opposed to the last time I was here with my parents) it was hard not to get emotional. There was an older woman who actually broke down in sobs next to me who was telling her friend that it brought back too many memories for her. I wondered what her experience of the war had been.

In the afternoon we took a bike tour around the city, which was as fun as it was terrifying. Everyone knows Amsterdam is the bike capital of the world. Locals take biking seriously, and they have about as much patience for tourists wobbling along in the bike lane, as we have for learner drivers in the right hand lane at home. I was dealing with a bike that had hand brakes (I'm used to back-pedal brakes), riding on the right hand side and looking the wrong way before I crossed an intersection. I would safely cross the bike lane looking to my left, avoid the cars coming from the left, avoid the cars coming from the right, then I would sigh in relief before screeching my brakes, skidding, swearing loudly and narrowly avoiding a speedy local in the bike lane on the other side. It was always the two bike lanes that got me! Ahh, anyway the day was so much fun. Like I said in my last post I did almost get hit by a truck (or maybe three) but most times it was because the dumb bike traffic lights are so quick and there wasn't enough time for the whole group to get through one, and I would focus too much on looking where I tour guide was heading next rather than the colour of the light. Anyway those close shaves were nothing compared to the 100 times I almost got take out by a local. They are vicious I'm warning you. It was a great day riding around the canals and Vondelpark again, where this time we saw the Picasso statue and were given a little information about the park including the fact that it's sinking and that is legal to have sex in the park- hence it's nickname Fondlepark. I was slightly worried at the beginning of the tour, as I am not the most athletic person in the world and didn't want to be that girl, struggling at the back of the pack. But I really needn't have worried. Shereen and I were joined by two young British girls and three older American women, so I was already in the top 50-ish % of athletic ability. Plus Amsterdam is flat as a tack, the only time you had to exert any effort was in going up over a canal bridge or "Dutch mountain" as our guide called them. It was on this bike tour that we went right into the Red Light District for the first time. Our guide Pip told us to get off our bikes as we would be walking to and through it. We were walking along, and I was waiting for Pip to tell us that we had arrived, when I turned to say something to Shereen and there was a half naked woman over her shoulder behind a glass window. It completely crept up on us!

/Bike jam as the bridge lets a boat through

After a couple of hours riding around and hearing about the history of the city from our guide Pip we made our last stop for the day on the Amstel River before heading back to the bike shop. Pip was congratulating everyone about a job well done, saying we saw a lot and all with NO ACCIDENTS! At the time he said it I thought it was premature and had I not been on a bike I would have found some wood to knock. But we set off again and wouldn't you know it, on the last bridge of the day, one of the old women fell of her bike as she was going too slowly uphill. Her ankle swelled to the size of a grapefruit and we had to wait for one of the other staff members of the bike shop to come and take her back in a special bike with a crate at the front for her to sit in. And we were all cursing Pip for jinxing her.

The day we left our flight was not until the afternoon, so we decided to take a boat cruise to see the city from the famous canals. We had lunch at a really cute cafe and went and got some Dutch pancakes before calling it a day.

/Steep stairs to the Pancake House

I realize writing this now we didn't do anything particularly interesting, but it was so fun just travelling around the city looking at it by foot, bike and boat. It was definitely one of my favourite places so far (which I also realize I am saying after multiple posts now and it's losing it's significance, but I swear I mean it).

Next stop: Prague

Xx

 

This Dam Place

I should start this post with a warning that it is not very informative. It's mainly on my opinion of Amsterdam rather than what we did there, which is in my next post here.

Shereen and I flew from Liverpool to Amsterdam and arrived mid-afternoon. When we arrived by train into the city centre it was pouring with rain, which was super disappointing even though we had gotten used to terrible weather during our 2 weeks in the UK. We decided to catch a taxi, rather than walk in the rain with our huge bags to the hostel. Or taxi driver seemed to be annoyed at the idea of taking us there and said it was just near the station, to which I reapplied "yeah, but it raining?". After a short taxi ride we were at our hostel. It was a boat. We did know this when we booked it, and it got really good reviews online, but I don't think I was really prepared for what it would actually be like to stay on a canal boat for three nights. We decided to stay there for the novelty factor, but sadly that wears off after the first night. Our rooms were so small- the width of two single beds and the length of one. We had bunks because of the room size, but between Shereen's bottom bunk and my top one there was maybe 80cm and I had the same from mine to the ceiling, the ceiling that was also the floor on the level above, so every time someone stepped over me I felt like their foot was going to come thought the floorboards and take me out.

The guy who ran the place did nothing to increase my enthusiasm. He kept calling us his little girls and then kept calling me Australia while he proceeded to complain about how we had terrible food in Australia and it was so expensive, so often that I was getting really offended and wished he would just leave us alone. I wouldn't have cared but he really couldn't talk. Food in Amsterdam was so expensive! And really average. I'm sure we were stuck too much in the tourist area to get anything authentic, but we had Italian one night and Japanese another and they had nothing on Australian restaurants and were equally as expensive.

/View from the Hostel

Anyway the first night was kind of fun because it was so funny how bad it was, but even when we started hating the hostel it didn't lessen our enthusiasm for the city.

I had been to Amsterdam once before when I was very young but the only fragments I can remember are waiting in line for hours at Anne Frank's house, my mum buying stamps and wanting to get inside a giant clog. I'm assuming that my parents shielded me from the more sordid aspects of the city because I don't have any recollection of walking down the red light district or exploring a "Coffee Shop". I know that's not weird, I mean they would have been pretty awful parents if the were showing me that stuff when I was 8. But what struck me about Amsterdam this time around was how blind I must have been not to notice it.

On Topdeck we were discussing the new laws coming in that will make it illegal for anyone to smoke marijuana in Amsterdam unless they actually live there. Someone said "they can't make it illegal, the only reason anyone goes to Amsterdam is for the pot and the prostitutes. No one will go there anymore". I sat there thinking to myself "well I'm going to Amsterdam next week and I have no interest in either, so what does that say?".

I think Amsterdam is such an intriguing place because it's like a wolf dressed in sheeps clothing. You are on your cute little bike, navigating quaint canals, marveling at tall spindly buildings, riding past windmills that no longer have any purpose than looking cute, tulips, wooden shoes, looking at postcards of little Dutch girls with blonde braids and pink cheeks in little milk maid costumes; but then your surrounded by a cloud of pot smoke or you take a wrong turn and there is a half naked woman in a glass room beckoning you inside, or even more disturbing as Shereen and I witnessed: a tiny old man being helped out the door by a prostitute at 2:30 in the afternoon.

At first Amsterdam gives off a bit of an edgy vibe, but after a while edgy becomes the wrong word. These things are legal here. The government decided that everybody does these things anyway so let's stop making it so secret. Let's encourage safe sex in the red light district and allow pot, whilst cracking down on hard drugs. And without the thrill of being "bad", I kind of wonder what all the fuss is about. I suppose if you're that way inclined you would go to Amsterdam and get your fill of the *ahem* attractions. But I wonder, especially in the case of pot, does anyone who hasn't smoked it at home go to Amsterdam and try it just because it's legal? If it was legal in Australia I still wouldn't do it, and if you do it in Australia anyway without it being legal why would you go all the way to Amsterdam to do it just because it's legal there? Anyway, don't spend your whole time there in a haze, only looking at buildings bathed in red light. The day I nearly got hit by a truck on my bike tour was one of my favourite days of the trip so far.

Again this has gotten long! And I haven't even really spoke about what I actually did in Amsterdam yet... Oops. Next post I promise, and I will post this and the next together so you have two to read straight away! Xx

 

The Magical Mystery Tour

So after a horrible day and late night the night before, Shereen and I woke up ready to explore the city of Liverpool. I was visiting solely as a Beatles fan, so we booked ourselves on the Magical Mystery bus tour that went around to points of interest in the careers and lives of the band. When I booked the tour I was under the impression that we would be on the signature yellow psychedelic tour bus on their website, but it was just a regular coach when we got to the meeting point at the docks and I was a little disappointed. We soon found out why though, as our tour guide asked us if we were all in town for the convention. Everyone said "yes" except us and we had no idea what they were talking about, but we soon found out it was Beatles week in Liverpool! There was a huge convention happening the next day, but the whole city was celebrating the 50 year anniversary of when Ringo joined the group and the Beatles as we now know them were formed. We didn't have the cool bus because there were 21 tours that day instead of the usual 8! We visited the birthplace of Ringo Starr, and the childhood homes of all four members. We drove down Penny Lane (saw the barber shop, the fire station, the bank and the shelter in the middle of the roundabout), past Strawberry Fields and finished near the famous Cavern Club which Shereen and I then went into by ourselves and watched a Beatles cover band playing which was super fun. I tried to get Shereen to take a lot of photos so I could show my Dad, who I owe for my previous Beatles education. The cover band was made up of boys from Brazil, but they were putting on Liverpudlian accents and occasionally slipping back into broken english when they spoke off the cuff. It was actually really cute.

/Street George Harrison grew up on

I really loved exploring the city, both on the tour and by ourselves. I'm a sucker for industrial architechure so I actually found it really beautiful, and I don't know if it was just because of the festival but the whole city just had a very upbeat kind of vibe to it, which was funny because it is so cold and rainy and industrial looking which I'm sure would read very depressing to a lot of people. We did some shopping in my favourite shopping area I have seen so far in Europe, and in the evening we decided to have another movie night to see The Imposter, which we had seen the trailer for at our last movie night in London. It was a documentary about this 30-something French guy who impersonated an American boy who had gone missing in the 90s and insanely the boys family took him in believing it was the missing child. It's a pretty insane story and the film was very well done. I would recommend you see it but don't look into anything abut the details of the case before you go.

More from me soon about our stint in Amsterdam xx

 

Please let us Glas-go

The next stop on our Topdeck tour of England and Scotland was Glasgow, which I can't say any of us were all that excited about.

It was only short drive there from Edinburgh in the morning, so we weren't able to check into the hotel for a while. We had the option of taking a drive out to a whiskey distillery for a tasting session, but after being on the hell-bus that was the Loch Ness tour the day before, Shereen and I just couldn't bear the thought of more driving. We opted to stay in the not-so-interesting city, which was only made enjoyable by the fact that two girls from our Topdeck who Shereen and I really liked we're staying behind as well. So Edwina, Vittoria, Shereen and I went and got burritos from a cute little Mexican place (that made me really miss Zambreros- my favourite Mexican in Perth), then continued to wander around the city halfheartedly taking in the "sights". We went and had afternoon tea and this tea house which was the number one thing to do in Glasgow on Tripadvisor, and if that place was number one I seriously had no interest in seeing numbers two and downwards. The most interesting part of the day was when Shereen bought a Harry Potter mask.

Shereen and I were leaving the tour the next day, but the rest of the group was continuing on to Ireland so it was a bit of a lackluster last night for us. Our tour leader Tim tried to get everyone to come out and give us a bit of a send off, but he convinced us all to go to this comedy club that featured some of the smaller acts of the Fringe. There were four acts, only one of which was any good, and because it went for quite a while it meant that our last night with the Topdeck crew was spent in a dark room where we weren't allowed I talk to each other. But Shereen and I were sitting with Eddie and Vittoria, who were definitely our favourites of the group, so we had a fun night anyway.

/Playing pool on our last night

The group left us the next morning and Shereen and I figured it was about time we try and sort out how to get to Liverpool, which was our next stop. We looked online to try and book a train, but every time I tried to book it the site would allow me to buy an all day ticket but the time slot would say no seats available. Then the information number was down so we decided not to risk it and just get the bus.

We had to go and get lunch before we caught the bus because it was going to be about a 6hr drive . We got to the platform just in time and waited.... And waited some more. Finally a bus came but it wasn't going to Manchester (which is where we had to go to change buses) and the attendant said we had missed it! Althought this was entirely possible because we had only just been on time, everyone else around us said they had been waiting for 45 minutes and it had definitely not come. So someone went to find out what was going on and luckily the bus was just late.

So after starting late we got into Manchester with about an hours wait for our next bus. There was nowhere to store our bags so we were forced to sit in the station rather than venture out to find dinner. Even worse was when we found out the next bus was delayed by an hour and a half, all of which we would be spending in this terrible station. While we were in the station some guy was being told he was banned from using that bus system ever again, but I didn't hear the reason why. He obviously didn't like that and started yelling abuse at the woman behind the counter including threats of rape and blowing up the station. Needless to say the police were called, and luckily he was so clearly just an idiotic troll that they didn't take him seriously, a bomb scare and shutting down of the station would have probably pushed me to my breaking point in the worst day of my trip so far. We hit traffic getting into Liverpool so even that leg took longer than it should have, but we finally arrived at 9:45pm after 9.5 hours of travelling.

We were only going to spend one day in Liverpool and we really needed to do washing after being on Topdeck, so we foolishly decided to do it that night instead of wasting any of our time there the next day. There was a queue in the laundry and it took us until 1am to finish because there was only one washer and one dryer in the hostel!

Anyway that was the worst day of the trip so far, I know it was a long post but reading about it could not have been as bad as experiencing it.

The next day was MUCH better! I will tell you all about our Liverpool adventures in my next post. Xx