This is what you get when you leave all the hostel bookings and stuff to the guys: accommodation smack in the middle of the red light district. If my parents were to know of this… heck, even I wouldn’t want it. but there you are. At least the owner of the hostel really took good care of us. Like the time when this guy came to me and asked for a pen. I was sitting alone and the owner was keeping an eye on the guy, just in case he did something… unexpected.
Well, if in Brussels, we were invited to try the chocolates and lobsters, in Amsterdam, we were asked to come into the shops as ‘the show’ was about to start. I’ll pass.
Walked around the myriad of alleys, across stone bridges, along canals till it was dark. The buildings were narrow, quite colorful and leaning into the streets. Dinner was Thai food (I missed rice by this time).
Was supposed to go on the hop on, hop off canal cruise the next day but something unexpected turned up. While the others went their way around the canals, we scouted for train tickets to go to Berlin. A whopping EUR 300 per head!! So, went to look for bus tickets instead. Turned out that there were only 5 tickets left (12 of us on the trip). So, we had to change the whole plan. 5 people will go ahead to Berlin while the rest will extend the stay in Amsterdam and head to Berlin later on. I had to burn the flight ticket back home as everything had been disrupted. But I don’t really mind. It was just frustrating to have spent the whole day searching for tickets and by evening, I was tired out.
Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Vermeer paintings. Seeing all art pieces made me feel like picking up my paint brush again. Haven’t done any since… a year or so.
I did go on the canal cruise. Beautiful indeed, seeing the buildings by the canals, as our boat passed by.
A boat exploded in the canal… doubt that you can see the smoke there…
Heh! I actually went to the Amsterdam Dungeon 
got lost for a while until a local lad who was eating his lunch kindly offered to show us the way. He reminds me of Ron in HP. Just wanted to see what the hype was about. It was ok I guess. They had the atmosphere right, all the right smells, the darkness. Some were funny, especially that dwarf doctor. Really felt sorry for the pirate as he tried to make us laugh/ scream without success.
I realized that people in Amsterdam are really TALL. And the guys like to wear those long coats which I love so much. Irish people are short compared to them.
There were bikes everywhere, seeing as it’s a bike friendly place. You could either get knocked down by a car, a tram or a bike if you don’t look where you’re going. I’d wager on the bike. Even bikes in the canals.
