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Published: June 12th 2008
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Wow. It's only been 2 weeks since I was there, and I can remember it like yesterday. The hype, the glitz, the unknown that is the Amsterdam Experience. The whole group had been looking forward to the Netherlands, for many reasons, but it was unfortunately our last city of the tour.
22/5/08 - St Goar to Amsterdam
First up was a 3 hour drive to services, and our first taste of traffic in Europe, which wasn't too bad for the second last day of the tour. For some reason we were delayed, about 10 over-heated cars were piled along the side of the major motorway connecting Germany and Netherlands right on the border. Anyway, after Autogrill, we stopped off at a Cheese and Clog factory/shop. We were given a quick introduction into the Dutch Cheese production, which seemed to be the same as everywhere else. Next door the same bloke gave us a demo of clog making and knocked up a pair of wooden shoes in about 10 minutes flat. The guy was nuts and will surely take his finger or someone else's off soon enough going at the rate he was. Maybe he puts something special in the
cheese he so proudly manufactures. The showroom was full of different types of cheeses and clogs, we bought a smoked pepper flavor - really great cheese indeed. We found some Stroopwaffels, a Dutch treat which is basically syrup with waffle biscuits on the outside. Great for the ever expanding contiki European beer gut.
2 hours later we had arrived in Amsterdam at our hostel, Hotel Slotania. One of the group members had a rude awakening to Amsterdam when her room contained a very close couple doing as very close couples do. Our room was awesome, we even had an LCD tv that we could watch the wierd and wacky Amsterdam TV stations on.
"What are we doing in Amsterdam?" we constantly asked ourselves.
We had an in-house dinner that night and at 7:30 we eagerly piled in the coach again and headed into town with some trusty local tourist guides in hand which provided a great introduction into the experience we were about to, well, experience.
Amsterdam is, so the tourist guide says, "...a vibrant city with rich history and a bright future...". Fair enough. The tourist guide also contains a police and safety section, written
by the police that I would like to quote.
"..too much alcohol causes childish behavior, jumping into canals and undressing in public. Please show a little bit of respect sometimes.."
The guide goes on to warn that "...public urination is always committed by men. Do not ruin our houses or monuments please. Purchase a beer at a pub and maybe use their toilet instead..."
The police also give a warning on prostitution by stating that "...if you visit one of the women, we would like to remind you that they are not always women. If you have a problem with a woman or a pimp, do not hesitate to seek advice from a police officer. We know why you are there and you can hardly surprise us. So have fun, enjoy Amsterdam and respect the neighborhood..."
They go on to explain the 'socially correct' use of soft drugs and continue to give advice on the best places to buy and consume such substances. They give a detailed description and outline the differences between a coffee shop, a cafe and a coffee house. Needless to say, it was a crack up reading the brochure which kept the
Netherlands
sideways... whole coach entertained on our 15 min drive into the Red Light District.
We were all heading into another optional excursion that was not printed in the contiki brochure, a real life 'ping pong' show in Amsterdam. Nowhere else in the world has shows like Amsterdam and let me tell you it was out of this world. After the show we had a wonder around the surreal Red Light District, and for anyone that hasn't been there, it's just amazing. Hundreds of girls in little tiny booths begging you to come inside for a measly 50euros for 15 mins or so. If you stop and look they open the door and practically grab you by the arm. Crazyness, but an unbelievable experience. We found another pub and sunk a few Heinekens before the atmosphere got the better of us and we continued to 'window shop' and ventured around walking in and out of all sorts of alleyways. After retrieving our jaws and replacing them back into appropriate sockets, we hailed a crazy Amsterdam taxi and legged it back home at about 2am. Goedenavond.
23/5/08 - Amsterdam
This morning started with a more traditional approach to Netherlands than
the one we had had the night before. We went back out of town to a pleasant little joint called Edam - yes, Edam's Cheese. We were all in for a cruizy ride on traditional Dutch granny bikes. The ride was easy, the Netherlands is completely flat so pedaling was effortless. The bikes were tricky, they had no brakes, you had to pedal backwards to stop the thing. Apparently 9 contiki members ended up in one of the many canals that can be seen around the village the year before. We saw a real life dijk, a wall made to block water, due to parts of the Netherlands being entirely below sea level. We pedaled on and came to a real life Dutch windmill where we had another group photo before returning to Edam and heading back into Amsterdam for the day.
We arrived at the Rijksmuseum for our canal paddle boat ride. I've said many times that I would never do another paddle boat ride ever again. Peer pressure got the better of me and I was first in the hot seat paddling my guts out and getting NOWHERE. We had about a 5 hour journey ahead of
us through hundreds of little canals with a map written entirely in Dutch that Shane, I, a Canadian Law Graduate and a Canadian I.T. Masters Student could not decipher and we had no idea where we were meant to end. What seemed like 72 days and 5 kilos of (much needed) weight loss later, we arrived at a stop right near Anne Frank Haus, the now museum where Anne Frank and her family were in hiding during World War 2. 7.50euros entry was nothing to explore the house where they hid and the stories taken right out of her famous diary about her experiences during her time in hiding.
We couldn't help ourselves, so we headed back towards the Red Light District, which is not too red during the day, but most of the sights were the same regardless of the time of day. We grabbed a few souvenirs and some lunch before returning to Centraal Station to wait for Jimmy who picked us up at 4pm. We headed back to the hotel to freshen up and look presentable for our Canal Cruise and that night's final dinner with the group 😞
We had about a half-hour cruise
around Amsterdam's canals where a few people from the group had prepared a small speech slash presentation complete with poems and quotes plus a visit from yogi bear again. See youtube video
here or
for the speeches. We arrived at the Sea Palace, a floating restaurant for our farewell dinner with the group. We were treated with a final feast that would have fed most of Amsterdam, and lots of great laughs and frovolity including an outburst of HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Beaver even though it wasn't. Good times.
Following the dinner, Beaver took us to the Rembrandt District, a decent walk through town to a series of pubs and clubs for all those who were interested in making the most of the final night. For the rest of us, after a few brews, we headed back to, you guessed it, the Red Light District for a final stroll down the alleyways taking as much in as humanly possible. We went to Amsterdam's famous Grasshopper Hotel for a couple of drinks then caught the tram home at about 2am to the hotel.
In what was an insane ending to easily the best 3 weeks in my life, we
say farewell to Amsterdam and Europe as we head back through Belgium, into France to Calais and back over to Dover for the finish of Contiki. More to come!
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