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Published: April 6th 2007
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Trip to Amsterdam
crisadrian Another trip............................and another late departure from our house to the airport.
We are making a habit of leaving late and begging the airport staff to let us on the plane with a hint of a tear in my eyes and Cris blubbering/ crying in the corner into her handkerchief. Thus far it has worked!
The reason we were late was that we woke to some amazing sunshine on Good Friday..... This is a rare occasion in London and of course we dragged our flatmate Joe and walked to our nearest outdoor pub. One quick drink turned to two and three and before we knew it we left an hour later than our planned time to leave....
Our excuse is always the public transport system! On this occasion it was KLM and the treatment was far better than Air France!
Needless to say we made the plane and off we went!
Now Amsterdam conjours up many ideas from prostitution, drugs, alcohol, partying, museums, parks, bikes and of course canals! We did
almost all of the above (sorry Mum!) but this time of year is also tulip season when the bulbs come out and are in
full bloom.
We arrived late on Friday night meaning that there was only time left to have dinner and go for a quick walk around meseumplein and then to Jilliana/ Kaspers House who let us use their house whilst they were away on holidays! Thank you very much Jilli/ Kasper!
Saturday began with programming into the GPS navigator the location of the tulip farm, Keukenhof, located about 40km from Amsterdam. The trip was surprisingly uneventful and our expectations of Keukenhof were nil. We did not know what to expect from this place.
On arrival Keukenhof immediately focussed our expectations. It is soooo big. It is approximately 32 hectares park; there are more than 7 million bulbs planted, several pavilions with flower exhibitions, landscape art/ sculptures and a token windmill!
The place took approximately 5 hours to walk around and all 7 million bulbs can claim to have received our gaze, glance or an ohhhhhh at some point. There was neither a flower we did not see nor a flower that Cris did not photograph! She was obsessed with every flower. Need less to say they really look spectacular and the variety in colours is just phenomenal.
They range from red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, white and black!
We walked all pavilions of which the orchids on display were really quite beautiful. They looked like plastic! We had to touch them to convince ourselves they were real. There was not a fault on the flowers. Not a blemish on a petal, not a slightly curled leaf even the soil looked immaculate!
The highlight however was definitely looking at the tulip farm from a high point, on the token windmill, where the tulips are planted in bands of colours giving the impression of a colourful pinstriped rug thrown over the landscape as far as the eye could see.
After looking at the flowers one more time..............we left.
We arrived home late on Saturday ready for dinner a quiet drink and then off to sleep. That was the plan.
On our way to the city I saw out of the corner of my eye a Uruguayan restaurant! This opportunity could not be lost! It was like finding an oasis in a desert! We immediately stepped off the tram straight for a massive piece of meat on the bbq and salad! Followed by a lot
of wine.
Feeling rather happy with the amount of wine we had we headed straight to the local bar to continue the good feeling. The bar was small but had atmosphere, music and it was Karaoke night! Ha ha
We met a few funny characters that night, we met a guy from Liverpool, who Adrian kept asking whether he was from Scotland, although the guy kept saying "I'm from Liverpool" (Adrian asked no less than three times! - I think Adrian was getting his accents mixed up or he was gone....) the guy was a baggage handler and somehow ended up in jail for three weeks for drink driving and speeding.
There was another Australian who had just been to Peru's coast or six months and was passing by Amsterdam before heading home. and finally a weirdo to end the night! This last guy was really weird, when we went to get some drinks at the bar, this guy was near the till and decided that he wanted to pay for our drinks. This weird guy bought our drinks but he didn't look happy about buying the drinks... ...so we both awkwardly made our ways back to
our seats. When we had finished them I suggested to Adrian that he should buy return the favour and buy the weird guy a drink.
Adrian obligingly went to the bar and bought him a drink back and placed it in front of him - but the guy turned to Adrian and asked " What do you really want”? And Adrian was like what the hell? I'm just buying you back a drink! What do you mean, and the guy is like " no... What do you really want"? So Adrian almost threw the drink at him and said, " Just have your drink mate!" and ran back to the table where we laughed for the rest of the night.
I don't know whether it was the smoke, (there were plenty of passive smoking opportunities. Cam would have loved it!) the drinks or that we were just having such a good time that needless to say the night ended at 4.30am when we got kicked out of the bar as it was closing - and off we went to sleep!
The next day we woke up at noon and went to Van Gough museum to see his
works. Paintings in a line and dot style as Van Goughs are not ideal for hangovers! We spent two hours seeing as many of his paintings as possible and walked out not feeling any better.
The rest of the day we spent time walking around Amsterdam and getting to know the city a little more whilst trying to recover and we also managed to go an see a diamond museum do a little shopping and finally having a coffee by one of the canals.
All in all we had a great time and look forward to heading back sometime soon.
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tardree
Matt and Ed
Lucy in the Sky with Tulips?
You mean that all your chemical intake was passive?!? We personally find this very hard to believe! A more believable excuse would be that you tried it once, but 'didn't inhale'? Fab blog - be sure to keep them coming (warts and all!)! PS. Add us to your distribution list, ya scavengers!