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Published: November 24th 2010
16 hours on a bus, final destination: Amsterdam
We once again decided to do a bus trip, with the same company, but this time it was for the May long weekend. So, once again, we went to Victoria bus station and wait in the cold air - but not as cold as last time because it was May.
The trip was rather long - we had to drive from London to Dover (to catch the ferry to Calais) and wait for the ferry. The ferry took us to Calais and then we had to wait for our passports to be stamped and all that. Then we drove from Calais up to Amsterdam, through Belgium (we stopped once in Belgium for a toilet stop and some snacks, so we have
technically been there).
The ferry from Dover to Calais was fun, but long - which made it a little boring by the end. Thankfully we had Percy Pigs (thanks Marks & Spencer!) and we bought ourselves a game of travel battle ships from the onboard shop. €5. Bargain.
The drive was ok. What with it being a long weekend trip and all we didn't make much effort
to talk to others, had it been a lot longer we may have, but 3 days seems kind of pointless I guess. Some people tried to get everyone play get-to-know-you games on the bus, whereby we had to move seats and all that and chat to whoever we ended up next to. I didn't play, and nor did Emma cause she went to sleep in one of the spare seats. I did have a short chat with some guy behind us, but nothing like life-long friendship building! Mostly we just chatted to ourselves, read our books, and looked at the scenery.
Finally we arrived in Amsterdam - well outside Amsterdam where our campsite was. The campsite was lovely - visitors could camp, or stay in little bungalow things. We all got to stay in little bungalow things with whoever the guide had placed us with. We where with an Albanian guy (whose name was Alban!) and his New Zealand girlfriend (whose name I don't remember). Thankfully, they were normal and quite nice to talk to. The camp site was about a 30 minute drive from central Amsterdam, so after we had all dumped our stuff in our bungalows we
got back on the bus and drove into the city. We were given a couple of hours to roam around and get some food, site see and try some legal drugs. We did the first three. We didn't have heaps of time to explore, but we saw what we could and tried to make mental notes of what we wanted to do the next day. The had dinner at some place called
de vier jaargerijden. Not sure what that means. (I looked it up, it means The Four Seasons according to Google Languages). Our guide had told us a bit about the city and some of the landmarks in it as we drove into it, so we had a quick look at some of them.
While wandering we saw the Royal Palace (which you can't go in until something like 2020 cause of renovations), a lot of canals, the remains of celebrating Queens Day (lots of orange cause that is the Dutch colour apparently, and they love their Queen so people go all crazy for her) flower markets, a group of dancing street performers and massive bike racks (literally like multi-story car parks, but full of bikes! Crazy Dutch!).
While I'm on the topic of bikes, I shall tell you all of Emma and my amazing crime-thwarting skills! We were standing around, in the dark in Amsterdam (as you do) right near the giant bike racks. There were literally bikes parked everywhere. Most weren't chained to any fences or anything, just leaning. We were waiting in the cold for our bus cause we were done and ready to go back and get out of the cold. Whilst we waited a couple peddled up on a bike. They stopped. She got off the back and walked up and down the bikes. We watched her; she watched us. The couple spoke in Dutch (fleeben flouben flooben ja ja ja - that's my Dutch!). She grabbed a bike. We looked. She put it back. Spoke more in Dutch (oh ja fleeben shmeegen flah ja) and got back on the back of the bike and peddled away. We like to think we stopped some poor helpless Dutch person's bike getting stolen! Oh ja!
The next we got up and got changed and had a camp kitchen breakfast. Cereal etc. Riveting stuff. Back onto the bus and into Amsterdam once more. We had
a schedule today. We could do whatever we wanted all day, but had to be at a canal cruise at a certain time. Us and our bungalow friends decided we wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum. €15 each, see some amazing and very famous artworks - once in a lifetime opportunity. Turns out, it was our once in a lifetime opportunity to
run through the Van Gogh museum. What happened was that everyone else in Amsterdam decided that day was a great time to visit the museum as well, hence the line to get in was pretty much right around the world. I may exaggerate a little, but it was very long. It started raining our bungalow buddies bought a broken umbrella from a street seller man, and finally we got in. We realised how much time we had used up and so legged it through the museum while also trying to appreciate some of the art. We saw 'The Starry Night', 'Sunflowers' and a lot of others that I recognised from Year 12 art. Got out and got to the cruise.
The cruise, or Canalbus, was good. It took us around Amsterdam along the canals and
gave us a bit of a guided tour as well. It is a very interesting city, and I know a lot of useless stuff that I won't tell you about cause it may not make sense unless you see it! After the cruise we had lunch at some place called The Carousel, but I don't remember what we ate...probably pancakes.
From the cruise we went to Anne Frank Huis (yes, you are very clever - Anne Frank House). Again, a long line, but lots of time to gaze at the surroundings and play I Spy. While in line we did survey for a guy about house boats and got a little card about not getting out stuff nicked. It was worth it because it was amazing, and my favourite part of the trip. Emma concurs. It is set out in such a way that you can see pretty much all of the house how it was left, but without the furniture. Otto Frank (Anne's father and the only surviving member of the Frank family after the end of the war) set up the house as a museum but didn't want to detract from the meaning of it all, or
something similar to that. What I really liked about it was that it wasn't a massive anti-Nazi museum or anything like that, it was a simple, yet effective, museum-based story telling about the war and what happened in that particular house and the outcome of all the residents. It was done in a way that was sad, but not overtly depressing.
After Anne Frank's house, we went to lunch at an Italian restaurant and did a bit of wandering. Our guide had told us he would give us all a tour of the sex district so we went a long and had a look (or more had a look the other way!). We went down skinny alley, which is where all the high class and thin expensive prostitutes hang out in windows, and then down fat alley, where the more voluptuous prostitutes were. Delightful stuff. Won't go into too much detail, this is a family blog after all, but if you look one way there is a half naked woman standing in a window like a mannequin and if you look the other there the front of a sex shop with goodness knows what for sale. It is all
Skinny alley
Note the sign telling you to look after your children when looking at prostitutesperfectly legal in The Netherlands and prostitutes even have unions. After the tour we had an option of going to a live sex show. We said no and had pancakes with one of the other tour people instead. The guide had heaps of interesting things to say, many of which I don't remember.
The last day we didn't have long in Amsterdam because we had to get going to go to some flower fields - but more about them later! I can tell how excited you are! We had coffee and cake and took more photos and then headed for the bus.
The flower fields we were headed to are a yearly exhibition of tulips called Keukenhof. It was amazing. Bazillions of tulips in all sorts of colours and sizes and shapes and whatnot. Not much to explain cause it was just a massive flower show, but to see it all was beautiful. We had bought food in Amsterdam so sat amongst the flowers for lunch (meat and cheese on break! Delicious!). We took millions of photos and spent hours wandering. Then headed back to the bus.
On the bus, we drove back to London, via the
ferry. Overall, an amazing trip, but I would've preferred to have not done it on a bus!
Paul
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Mum
non-member comment
WHAT!!
Dear Paul and Emma, I really would be uncomfortable with walking past the outdoor pee troughs!! Urk. Did they smell?? I love the weeping willow on the edge of the canal. Was a great idea to make the Anne Frank house into a museum. It gives me the creeps what humans do to each other. Goodness you have it freezing over there. Brrrrrr. love you both, mumxxoo