Advertisement
Published: March 17th 2012
Picking up from where I left off in my previous update, I managed to drag my tired arse out of bed bright and early (tuesday 15th July) so I could be at the Reichstag when they opened the doors at eight o'clock, to check out the glass dome on the roof without having to line-up for over an hour like every other tourist in Berlin - although with free entry and amazing views both inside and outside the dome it's easy to see why. Next up I managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the German History Museum, before heading back to the hostel for one last time to check-out, and then embarking on a six-and-a-half hour train ride to my next destination: Amsterdam!
Now clearly I need to pay a little more attention when booking my accommodation over the internet, but anyone who appreciates irony as much as I do will love this: somehow I had managed to book myself a bed in a female dorm in a Christian shelter in the heart of the red-light district - the sex and drugs capital of Europe, if not the world! All I had to do was walk to the
Disney castle for dope smokers
The Waag (15th century weigh-house) in Nieuwmarktend of the street and turn right and every second shop would have at least one half-naked woman standing behind a window 'looking for business'. I actually found it somewhat offputting at first, walking down the street and finding people standing in the window staring at me (I assumed it was because I'm so good looking); but the fact that they're all half-naked girls, and that most of them look pretty damn good half-naked, had soon won me over! I might even have been tempted to indulge if it wasn't for my impending bankruptcy looming ominously on the horizon! Needless to say, I didn't make it to the hostel's nightly prayer meeting...
The next day I hired a pushbike once again and rode around Amsterdam for a couple of hours, but with no great sites to speak of like there were all over Berlin, the highlight was probably riding through Vondelpark - which is simply a nice, relaxing public park with a few scattered ponds and plenty of walking/cycling paths. With time on my side for once I decided to check out the impressive Rijksmuseum - well, it certainly looked impressive from the outside; didn't quite blow me away
Real-life drawbridge
Another survivor from years gone by inside though - before hopping on yet another canal boat for the obligatory canal tour. Having filled up on Indonesian food and spent a couple of hours on the internet updating everyone on my progress, it was time to head back to the red-light district...
Having been left feeling somewhat underwhelmed after my first two days in Amsterdam - no doubt at least in part due to my less-than-desirable surroundings, of which I refer more to the hostel itself than the surrounding 'district' - I made a last minute change of plans the following morning and caught a train forty-five minutes south to the second-biggest city in the Netherlands: Rotterdam. One of the amazing things about the Netherlands - along with the fact that half the country is below sea level - is that the western rim is so densely populated that the four largest cities are all within an hour's train ride of each other. In fact, I actually got off the train in Den Haag (the third-largest city and home of the Dutch parliament and royal family), only to discover that it would cost me seven euros just to store my bags in a locker for a
few hours, at which point I hopped straight back onto the next train and fifteen minutes later I was in Rotterdam!
Thankfully with it starting to rain when I arrived, I was able to take a tram straight to the hostel that I had booked only a couple of hours earlier, and then check-in straight away. So after lying around for a couple of hours waiting for the 'Dutch weather' to clear, I set out on another marathon walk to see as much of the city as possible. After checking out some of the 'unique' Dutch architecture (that was no doubt inspired by extensive recreational drug use!), the highlight would have to have been taking a lift up to the observation deck a hundred metres above street level at the Euromast tower, from where there was an amazing 360-degree view of the city and it's massive harbour - which is the largest in all af Europe. I then took a glass-walled, revolving 'elevator' another fifty metres to the top of the tower - although I must admit I wasn't feeling particularly good being up that high; since despite the fact that I loved the view from up there and
High up above the city
Enjoying the view from the Euromast that I'm almost two metres tall myself, I'm not too keen on heights!
The next day I checked out of the hostel in Rotterdam, but ended up sticking around for a few hours on the internet waiting for the rain to stop before I actually left. I first caught a train from Rotterdam to Utrecht, before hopping on another train to s'Hertogenbosch - better known as Den Bosch - where my Dutch mate Roel (who until recently had been both a workmate at the Courthouse Hotel and regular drinking partner at P.J.O'Brien's in Cairns) picked me up. After heading back to nearby Sint-Michielsgestel where Roel introduced me to his parents, Tel and Wil, we then got a lift back into Den Bosch to sample some of the local (or at least Belgian) beers on offer.
Unfortunately though, with Roel in the mens room and me having no idea what was what on the Dutch language beer menu, I managed to accidentally order us each a bottle of Belgian beer that was eleven percent alcohol, for what was just our second drink of the evening - which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night, if
Historic tourist attraction
Sint Janskathedraal, Den Bosch not the entire weekend! In fact I don't actually remember Roel's mum coming to pick us up at the end of the night...
Unsurprisingly we both slept in the following morning, before filling up on a breakfast buffet provided by Roel's folks that rivalled anything I've had at any of the hostels I've stayed in! I then went for a drive with Roel to a really old town nearby named Huesden (established about eight hundred years ago) with an authentic Dutch windmill and drawbridge; then stopped off in Den Bosch to check out the fourteenth-century Sint Janskathedraal - with has had a small fence erected around the outside of it to combat the problem of people urinating on it at weekends!
We tucked into a traditional Dutch winter meal (quite appropriate given the poor weather) called Hotchpuut - literally a hotch-potch of all kinds of different vegetables - that Roel's folks had prepared; then headed back into town for drinks, only to discover to my delight (and Roel's embarassment!) that the once-yearly Den Bosch 'Levenslied' festival was on - meaning a whole night of singing along to traditional Dutch 'songs of life' - basically a perfect excuse for
A city united in song
Slightly inebriated song, though it may be the whole town to get pissed as farts!!! The amount of debris strewn across the town square afterwards was nothing short of remarkable, but at least everyone enjoyed themselves!
Sunday brought another sleep-in followed by another hearty breakfast, before Roel and I headed straight back into Den Bosch for the second and final day of the Levenslied (or as I prefer 'Den Bosch welcomes Matt from Australia'😉 festival. Of course the town had turned on some classic Dutch weather for the occasion, but that simply meant that everyone came armed with umbrellas! So once again myself, Roel and the rest of the townsfolk drank way more than we should have and belted out hour after glorious hour of Dutch folk songs - most of which, funnily enough, seemed to be about Spain!!! Needless to say, once again I don't remember Roel's mum coming to pick us up!
And so ended another week in Europe - one where I probably consumed more beer than in my previous seven weeks combined! In the coming week I'm off to explore Belgium and then Luxembourg - as soon as I've sobered up that is...!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.033s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
