Exploring Amsterdam

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It was tough to get up this morning, I would have done anything to sleep in, but even though it was our free day, we had to be in town for 9AM for a bike ride. After having hardly any time to get ready and a quick breakfast we were on our way into the city. Billy dropped us off and we followed Jamie to the bike tour place. We were warned earlier that you must be able to ride competently as the tour guides can get quite angry. Jamie was so concerned that we would be late, and they would cancel it altogether, he started to run ahead to let them know we were on our way. Eventually we arrived had a quick briefing of what we were doing then we were each given a bike. It was good to see that they gave the appropriately named bike to each person, mine was called “Mr. Fabulous”. We began our bike ride around Amsterdam with our guide stopping here and there for a brief explanation about various attractions around the city. I was having an awesome time, I loved city bike tours and I never realised how pretty Amsterdam was going to be.

We continued on, riding through different parks and along the many canals which ran through the city. As we rode I couldn’t believe how many bikes there were in this city, they were everywhere, half the city would be riding rather than driving. As much as I would have liked the bike ride to go on, we headed back to the tour place and returned our bikes. It was an awesome tour and easily one of the best optionals I had done all tour. Afterwards the group spilt up to explore what Amsterdam had to offer. A few of us had a quick drink at the café down the road from the bike place then had a brief look around the city. However after a short browse around Hannah and I took the very boring option and headed back to the campsite to do some laundry for the rest of the afternoon. It was good to finally have some clean clothes, especially since we were having another big night out tonight. Eventually one by one the rest of the group also turned up, some doing washing, other getting ready for tonight.

Later that afternoon the group were ready to head out, Billy dropped us off in the city then we slowly headed over to the floating Chinese restaurant. It was a celebration tonight as it was the last night on tour, we headed back to London tomorrow. We took our seats and the Topdeck crew thanked us for being an awesome group, even through some of the tougher situations which we encountered. The returned the thanks as the food came out. It was great, really good food and the best part was, it was included in the tour price so we didn’t have to pay. I was a little disappointed of how much food there was, I was still hungry once it was all gone, I could have eaten double what I did. After a tasty dinner we went outside to find our boat waiting for us, we were going on a party cruise around the canals of Amsterdam. It was unlimited free alcohol so we all made the most of it, everyone had a drink in their hand.

As we cruised down the canals suddenly the roof began to open and it became an open air party cruise, it was awesome. We started to play a game where every time we went underneath a bridge we had to kiss someone, you couldn’t kiss the same person twice. Since there were so many damn bridges it didn’t take long before we had to go for seconds. We continued on drinking until unfortunately, as fun as it was, the party cruise had to come to an end. We left the boat and headed for some coffee shops then onto the pubs. We drank and got high for a while before most of the group wanted to head back to the same crappy club as the night before. There was nothing good about that place but for some reason they all wanted to go. Again Hannah, myself and a few others had a few more drinks before making our way back to the campsite to sleep. Again most of the group weren’t far behind us.

Day 22:
Amsterdam
0 MILES TRAVELLED // 2890 TOTAL
Camping Zeeburg

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Photos

Amsterdam
Exploring the Amsterdam canals on our bike tour.

Amsterdam
All the buildings have a hook at the top to crane furniture through the windows. Because of this most of them lean forward dur to the heavy weight.

Amsterdam
Fantastic canal views in beautiful Amsterdam

Amsterdam
Just one of the impressive buildings we stopped at on our bike tour

Amsterdam
The group on our intense bike tour through Amsterdam