Hi All,
Arrived but tired and a little grumpy (David)!!! Went to store our bags at the train station. The lockers were a little smaller than usual so our packs didn´t fit properly. I started the usual greedy bastard rant and gave the bags a bit of a kick. We unpacked Vanessa´s pack and discovered that we could shove them both in just. We went to pay but no coin operation so I went to get a smart card for 7,5 Euro. Got back and found that the purchased card was incorrect so ended up having to use credit card. Annoyed. Not a good start.
Headed into town from the train station. External central train station is one of the most beautiful that I have seen. Found tourist information but they wanted money for a map. Not impressed. More greedy bastard mumbles...
Wandered around then found a sign towards oosterpark and started following. Quite a walk but we ended up at the park at about 130pm. Good as we had to meet with the hostel manager at 2pm not one minute earlier as we found out later. So at least we had our room which was quite nice on a basic scale and only 30min walk to central station or a couple of minutes on the tram.
Walked back into town and found the red light district. Girls in windows all over the place. Sex toy shops. Condom shops. Live sex shows(Editor: not viewable from the street) Some of the girls were worth a second look and some should have been heading to the nursing home with bags over their heads. Yikes G-strings do not look look good a granny. There was even a sex show called going bananas...hmmm(Editor:What could they do with the bananas the mind boggles)
Sin, Sin sin sin sin. Everywhere. At least there is a church so that you can repent and reset your sin register. Well that is what was done in the old days.
Aparently to council is trying to clean up the red light area by 2015 and some of the windows now have fashion labels rather than girls.
Even better still was that we have found that the food is quite cheap so we lashed out and bought up big. It has been a couple of weeks of camping food. Mmmmmmm. Smoked salmon and camembert again.
Bad news on the laptop. Power supply decided to die so we had to get searching. A replacement was going to take 2 weeks but we sourced a larger 70W power supply next day from an electronics shop and were back in business for 29 euro. Phew. Relief.
Next day. Took a free tour of the city. Nicked off before the end where they ask for donations and went exploring. So much to explore. Just have to watch out for the bike riders powering along in their lanes.
Really really really like this city. Ok. So the two draw cards are the dope smoking and red light district but there is so much more to the city. It feels safe. The variety of housing styles along the canals. The canal boats. The people and bikes. The individual characteristics. The shops. The bars. The cheap food!!!!
Next day. Went to the Rijksmuseum and then took a 90min cruise on the canals while enjoying our lunch. Yes smoked salmon, lots of cheese and salad was in our lunch packs. Yum.
Went for a tram 5 trip to the end of the line for a look to the suburbs then back again.
Need much more time in Amsterdam but have to hurry off to Germany in less than a week to get our visas for Russia and China on the way so got to get moving. Tomorrow we head of to Rotterdam.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
