The thing that most impresses me most about Europe is it's public transport infrastructure. 'Really?' I hear you ask. Trust me, when you are brought up in country where the public transport options make you think you live in a third world country (hell, it might even be better there), then you notice these things. As usual, a train from the airport to the city centre was readily available.
Our hotel was located a short walk from the main station. It was a bit of a dumpy affair but hey, it was close to the very important 'coffee houses' and Dam Square. First thing first - get some frites.
It was a bit late by then, so off we went to bed.
Some of the other girls had been to Amsterdam before and weren't terribly interested in the touristy stuff, but I awoke with the intention of doing everything I wanted to! Me and a few of the other chicks made our way to Anne Frank's house. I was well advised to not eat a 'brownie' before going. Wise choice. Not like some people I know *looks around*.
It was 9.30 am by the time we got there but the queue was already long.
The commemorative statue nearby.
I have to admit, I've never read Anne's diary. I recall starting it when I was about 12 and then leaving unfinished because I found it boring. I thought I should do the house visit some justice and purchased the book from the attached museum. The house or more correctly, the space within the building allocated to the eight people residing there, was more spacious than I anticipated but not terribly huge. To be shared between eight people, it would definitely be cramped. Us visitors at least had daylight through the windows, whereas they were blacked out during Anne's residence. No attempt is made to re-create the living conditions; the house devoid of all furniture at Anne's father's request - just how the Nazi's left it.
After the house, we had lunch at a pizza joint not worthy of blogging. Following on from the 'free' London and Berlin walking tours (and from the high of Mike the Hottie *sigh*), we turned up for the 'free' Amsterdam walking tour. I was secretly hoping for a Dutch equivalent of MTH but alas, our guide was female. And British??? Ok, fair enough she's lived there for three years. As usual the guide was very thorough and I learned many-a-things.
The poles that stick out of the narrow homes were used to hoist up heavy furniture, and then manoeuvre them through the window into the house. The houses were too narrow to move such items like pianos otherwise.
A 'coffee house'. C'mon, we all know what they're smoking in there. I think that puddy-tat in the window looks a bit high. This coffee house was used in Ocean's 12.
A little memento in the redlight district, which was/is traditionally also the religious core of the city. Hmmm, prostitution and churches within an arm's length of each other? Makes sense I guess, for those to confess their sins afterwards - convenient!
Me and some of the other chicks.
We had to leave the tour early to ermmm go for a coffee break near our hotel.
Me with the local speciality - hash brownie.
The 'brownie' affects people differently and I didn't get the giggles like other people do. I just felt...... slower - maybe a bit dumber (or maybe I just wanted to feel a bit dumber?). On top of that, I was a bit annoyed as I likened the feeling to being 'tipsy drunk but fully aware of the slowed reaction time'. I felt like I was faking it! Maybe I got ripped off. Where were my 'happy times'? My conclusion was that I didn't ingest enough of the stuffs. I vowed to amend my failure.
Dinner was at the kitschy restaurant Moeders, which is the Dutch word for 'Mothers'. It was a modest, unassuming, corner shop restaurant which was tellingly filled to the brim. Yes, yes a good sign.
The decor was reminiscent of a 1950s kitchen, with walls covered in photographs and colourful mismatched dinner settings.
Not sure how genuine the food is, but hey, everyone spoke Dutch inside except for us, so it's gotta be some kind of good. There was also a pretty hot Dutch guy sitting on the table next to us. It was agreed he had a close to perfect profile and we took turns in ogling him.
My soup - can't remember what it actually was. Spare ribs. Is this really Dutch? Anyway, they were yummmmmmoooo. I ruv ribs! My dessert sundae. Mmmm mmm mmmmmmmmm
Afterwards we went clubbing. Somewhere. We had another half brownie beforehand. I'm pretty happy to forget this part of the night as the music was quite mediocre and the crowd quite young. In the wise words of Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, what I'm really trying to say is ..... "I'm too old for this shit."
We got chatting to some American teenagers, or more like, they were practising their picking up skills on a bunch of old ladies. If anything screamed desperation it was a draw between us old farts and their eagerness. Like a bunch of Aunties, we humoured them with decent conversation long enough for them to realise that none of us were planning on continuing the communication outside of the confines of the club.
The night ended again with the snacking of frites. *thumbs up*
1 comment:
Mmmmm, frites....
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