Sin City....

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We travelled past Cologne and crossed the border into the Netherlands. We passed canals and windmills. Apparently there are only about 1,000 working windmills left in Holland.

The countryside is amazing, with green fields and crops and cows and people on tractors. There are a lot of dairy farms here, guess it goes to make the cheese they are famous for. All of the paddocks are divided by canals!! They say that Holland is 2.5m below water level and Amsterdam itself is 4.5m - hence the water everywhere on the sides of the roads and between houses etc.

People around here cycle everywhere, it’s so well set up with bike tracks and if you don’t move they will run you over!! There are 6 million bikes in Holland and 600,000 of them are in Amsterdam. There is a 3 level bike parking area!! It’s insane, don’t know how you would find it amongst all the others! People of all ages ride them from kids to grannies and in all sorts of outfits. Interesting way to pick up your date!!

We went to a place in Edam where we all got given granny bikes to do a sight seeing bike tour. It was leisurely thankfully since I’m not that good with bikes, we went up the pretty cobbled streets, across canals and back to base - it was a nice 30min ride.

Then onto the cheese and clog factory.

We first saw a women making cheese, she explained part of the process before allowing us to try some - it was all good. Both the Cheese and Clog factories are family owned and run businesses.

Then it was time to see how they made clogs by hand. They are mainly made throughout Holland by machine as hand making them takes about 2hrs per shoe and the skills were passed from father to son and not too many young boys want to follow the tradition anymore. Many years ago, you could tell a lot about a person by their shoes. It would tell you thinks like religion, where they came from and their profession and if they were married. If you were a boy and really like a girl you would hand make a pair of clogs for the girl and make them beautiful and present them to her to see if she’ll marry you. She would check the workmanship to see if you were good with your hands and if she accepted them they would be worn at the wedding.

We then went to a diamond place but I didn’t feel the need to buy anything for once!!

Ross gave us a chat on drugs in Amsterdam in preparation for our arrival. He told us that although pot is legal in Amsterdam it’s only ok to buy it in a licensed ‘coffee shop’ and that you should ask what you are getting. It’s only legal to smoke it inside one of these shops also. He told us to remember ‘beer then grass and you’re on your arse, grass then beer and you’re in the clear!!’ There are 350 licensed coffee shops in the red light district. We were also warned about magic mushrooms and not doing them if you hadn’t done them before. He told us a story about it taking 2.5hrs for his friends to catch a tram to meet him but ended up watching tram after tram go past because they didn’t push the button to open the door!!!

We all then headed into the city of Amsterdam itself and visited one of the live sex shows which was well... as to be expected! It did manage to offend some of the people in our group though, so I'm not really sure why they went at all... When you walk through the Red Light District there are some of the most beautiful women you may have ever seen standing in their own little windows - gives new meaning to the word window shopping I think!! It is rumoured that some make up to $1500 Euro a night.

We then went to Teasers, which is a bit better version of Hooters. The bathrooms were weird, you could see the men’s urinal whilst you were waiting for the ladies!! And there was those glass bricks so you could see the boys going to the toilet and they could see you!!! NOT cool!!

We then wen to a club called ‘Party Crew Café’ which looked like a dungeon and danced with the crew, went and checked out ‘Rain’ and went for another walk through the red light district.

It certainly is an eye opener. The show and the red light district was too much for some people on our tour who didn’t like it at all.

Anyways, must go, have to go out and brave our final night in Amsterdam before heading back to London to finish the tour!!!!

8 days till I'm home and I can't wait to catch up with you all!!!

More stories later!!!!

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