London to Amsterdam

Europe » Netherlands » North Holland » Amsterdam
September 18th 2006

Published: October 6th 2006

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SandraLund

Leaving England

Dover Castle up on the hill

Day 1 - London to Amsterdam

A 5:30am start this morning in order to meet the tour bus. There are 37 of us plus the tour director -Donovan (to be known as Red Bull) and the bus driver - Guy.

We headed off to Dover where we caught a ferry over to France and waved goodbye to England. At Dover we had to go through French customs and I got my passport stamped. Yaah! There a plenty of blank pages in my passport and they had to pick the same page to stamp as just about every other country I've visited. I'm never going to fill up this passport!

The ferry was massive with several floors with restaurants, game rooms, etc. I spent most of the trip up on the top deck as it was such a gorgeous day. There I met Amy (from Philadelphia) who is also on the same tour. We have a lot in common and clicked straight away.

Although we could see the white cliffs in Dover right across the Channel, it wasn't until we were at least half way there before we caught our first glance of France.

Our first Windmill

Once in France we met our bus driver for the trip - Guy and headed off.

Yaah we're in France!!!

And then Belgium.

And finally the Netherlands where I saw my first real windmill :-)

After dropping off our gear at the hotel, we headed into town and went for a cruise through the canals of Amsterdam. It's a beautiful city and we passed many warehouses that have been converted into houses, tall skinny houses, bridges, and house boats. We also passed the house where Anne Frank and her family hid out during the war.

It was dark when we arrived (via the boat) at our restaurant. It was a floating Indonesian restaurant that was lit up like a Chinese house at Christmas. The interior was very ornate and the food was great. We had a few drinks and started to get to know each other. Already 4 of us (myself, Gavin - Oz, Amy, and Georgia - Oz) are looking like we are going to be great mates. We are all about the same age, single, and have similar out-going personalities. We've also got to know this fantastic couple from Coolah, NSW, Andrew

The GrassHopper Bar

and Kirsty. Andrew is a dirt doctor so we've renamed them the El Dirte's.

After dinner Amy, Gavin, and myself went for a walk to check out the nitelife. While searching for an ATM we stumbled across the Sex Museum ;-} For only €5 we got to see about 4 floors of photos, statues, toys, and various artefacts. We left much more 'enlightened' and headed off to the GrassHopper. This is a 3 story bar for Amsterdam newbies. The lower floor is a 'coffee house', with a bar above it, and a restaurant up top for those that might have the munchies. We had a nosey in the coffee shop. You go up to the counter and they have a whole 'menu' of varying flavours, strengths and amounts. I think they serve coffee too. The room was very dark and smokey (funny that) and didn't really appeal to us so we headed upstairs for a beer or 3. The bar reminded me of the bars in Tokyo with the full on lighting and poppy dance music. We stayed a while and had a good night people watching before heading back to our hotel.

Yaah we're in Amsterdam ;-)