New Years in Amsterdam

30th December 2006

had the worst night sleep ever last night.... that makes two in a row with hardly any sleep.

i may be feeling much better about not being sick... but i think i prefered not being able to hear... and being able to knock myself out with cold and flu tablets... meg's snoring is uncontrolable... i've tried everything to shut her up throwning stuff, banging, squirting cold water at her, poking... nothing works... it just gets louder and louder...problem is that now i've flattened my ipod battery, and silly me forgot to bring the charger... mmmmmmmm nothing left to drown out the sound!

thankfully only a few more nights... and i'm free... don't get me wrong, its the snoring i hate, meg's rather nice! lol it was embarassing the other night, the walls were paper thin and the people on either side of us were banging on the walls, to try shut her up as well! hahahahahalol got bored in the early hours and actually got some of it on video!

atleast later i can look back and laugh

off at 8am this morning. i think it's safe to say that everyone's looking forward to amsterdam!

4 hrs pretty much driving straight, till we stopped for lunch... traditional dutch food of course... we stopped again at maccas!

i have to say we've done pretty well not eating too much junk on this tour considering it is always ther easier option...but they do have some strange things to offer in their maccas...like beer in france, chicken mythic in holland strange burgers..but strangely they still have that same maccas smell about them all!

2hours later we crossed over into amsterdam!

first off was the token stop at the cheese and clog making shop, where we got to learn about cheese and clogs!

suprised?

it was kind of cool watching this nice dutch boy carve out a simple clog while we were standing there...all while standing under hundreds of hanging clogs...

arrived at our hotel... a stones throw from the clog place... it would be a lovely place to stay in summer, it's right on the water, and each room has it's own little balcony, leading on to a nice grassy area..but it was wet and cold there now!

had the pleasure of dinning in the hotel this evening... got a buffet of who know's what... but i think people are getting used to just eating things, even if they have no idea what's actually in it...in most places it's been better not to ask!

it was a fairly quick dinner as we were heading into catch a glimpse of the lovely night life in amsterdam..first stop was to catch a boat through the canals of amsterdam, and hear all about the various sites we were passing..what it actually ended up being was completely different..it was more of a drink as much as you can of the free booze in the hour we have on the boat!

they ran out of alcohol on the boat....from there dave lead us through the lovely red light district...rather interesting to see people openly flaunting themselves in the windows...they all looked so bored and uninterested... just like most people at work!

entertaining that sex workers is now a legal job description over here, and they too have to pay taxes on what they earn!

we eventually ended up outside the pink elephant, and were in for our "cultural experience" of the night..and experience it was

we had the option of going to a live sex show, and that's where we ended up after our cruise...lets just say from the very start you knew it was going to be bad...

for those of you that have ever been to amsterdam with a tour group you'd know the routine...interesting hey...picture this... that one with the audience participation, that involves a dog collar...

picture not being able to get the right place...over and over again...it was so hard to watch poor john up on stage, but at the same time, there was this odd fasination...it was horrible...

then there was the banana lady.... and of course good old librarian david was on the end of the line and got face planted...ick

but then he was the one to find the sex shop in barcelona... so i think he quite enjoyed himself

so i have to say it was an interesting evening...on the way back though i found 50 euro just in the middle of the road! score!

anyways tomorrow's new years eve and the last day in amsterdam...i feel it's going to be a big one.

31st december 2006 free day in amsterdam

Up and off at 9 on the bus into amsterdam... got to make the most of our last day on tour...taken into the city, and dave directed us in the direction of anne franks house, which we still managed to lose countless times!

doesn't help that all the canals have streets down either side of them, and both aptly named the same thing, so when you stood on a corner you had no idea exactly where you were lol expecially when you decided to be smart and turn the map around and around... lol still lost!

eventually we made one wrong turn to many and ended up exactly where we wanted to be....so we bought our tickets and headed in.

it was amazing to walk through a house that has so many stories attached to it...i remember reading the diary of anne frake, way back in the early years of high school,and here it suddenly came alive...

through out the house you go from room to room, with various quotes on the walls from anne's diary, it's amazing that they had 8 people living in such a small space and for almsot 2 whole years...the corridors were tiny and narrow, and the stairs were extremely steep and narrow..

spent a good hour and a half inside, and bought the book on the way out... it'll be even more interesting re reading the book,now that i've visited her house.

from there mel dragged us to the nearest coffee shop!

and that was how we ended up spending most of the afternoon, sitting in the bulldog...lol

many entertaining things much laughter...it was insane..but hey, that's amsterdam

decided that we were hungry and that we shoud start heading back... decided on a course and set off... ended up heading to maccas (to use the bathrooms...)as soon as you need to use the loos, the first though is where' the nearest maccas... nothing like free generally clean toilets...decided the food smelled good so we had maccas for lunch again...

before setting off inserach of the perfect key ring...now you'd think being so many to choose from, it'd be a simple task.. but oh no, we had to walk into 50million shops, all selling exactly the same thing...and finally gayna found it...funny though that it was the exact same one we'd found in every other store, but suddenly it was the perfect one..lost mel a fair few times, as we realised, she'd be following you, and then would be easily distrcted, and forget all about following, and then we'd have to backtrack to find her...it was fun, lots of laughs...especially when he tried to sneak into this posh restraunt to use the toilets, and got caught....hahahaha

then about 1 hour in to our venture back to the meeting point, we found the famous european treat of hot chips dripping in mayonaise...which we all just had to try!

so there we were with our dripping chips, quite content...it was then we realied hey... we can still see the bulldog..we had'nt managed to go more than a few hundred meters up the street!

go us!

somehow we managed to get back to the bus pick up point with about 1 min to spare... where we caught the bus bak to the hotel, packed our bags ready to leave

the next day and get ready for our night out..

left to head off to our dinner at about 6pm

i can't remember dinner.... must have been nice... lots of free drinks!

before heading outside, where it was pouring with rain, we headed back into town, and it continued to bucket down... in the end most of us decided to high tail it back to the hotel and only a few braved the cold wet weather and headed back into town!

the rest of us headed back to the hotel where we set up shop in the bar, and waited for the new year to begin..somehow we managed to miss the new year! lol

it wasn't until some one said hey, aren't they fire works... that we looked at the time, and it was like 1212.... oops...so we all stood out in the cold watching the firewroks go on and on and on... for the next few hours!they sure like to celebrate..it wasn't long before the rest of the gang came back from town, all looking like drowned rats, and frozen!

headed off to grab a few hrs sleep a about 330am