Amsterdam

The first thing we noticed about Amsterdam was how beautiful the weather was and how clean the air was. Not sure if it truly is cleaner than the air in Australia but after spending a few days in Shanghai, this was bliss! Actually, I tell a lie. The FIRST thing we noticed about Amsterdam (and in turn, Europe) was the sad fact that when we bought anything, we now had to start MULTIPLYING our Australian dollars instead of DIVIDING them, as was the case in China. To top it off, the Australian dollar decided to crash just before we made it to Europe making things even more expensive. Ah well, tough break.

For this leg of the trip, we would be staying at Camping Zeeburg which had spots for camper vans, tents as well as some Wagonnettes owned by the campsite. Although not as glamorous as the hotel we stayed in Shanghai, our Wagonette was cool! Fully furnished in wood, it had a few shelves, a table and a bunk bed making it feel kind of like a school camping trip.

Our first trip into town didn't start off well. Still not quite accustomed to traffic going in the opposite direction I somehow managed to get in the way of a cyclist. I jumped out of his way as quick as I could. He yelled back "what are you blind or some-sing??!?". We'd been practicing our Dutch moments before this incident and so I quickly replied "DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", what I thought was yes in dutch. After a few seconds I realised that yes in Dutch is actually JA, DA being Russian. Whoops. Oh well, at least he doesn't know we're Australians ;)

The first day we really didn't do much. After such a hectic few days in Shanghai it was nice to just take it easy wondering up and down random streets of what has to be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. We walked through a local market  before finding a nice spot to sit and peoplewatch along the Prinsengracht canal. We ended up sitting there for about 2 hours watching all the tourists cross the bridge and all the boats going past.

After about an hour we heard a big ruckus from across the canal. I wasn't sure what was going on at first but the number of people across from us suddenly quadrupled. And then, there in the water appeared a guy in a teeny tiny boat, playing a trumpet, singing and shouting out to the crowd. It was in Dutch but we worked out that he was celebrating a couple's wedding, with the bride and groom (in the red dress and white suit) on the other side of the canal with their wedding party. After a couple of minutes and lots and lots of cheering, the couple started walking down the street, the guy in the boat following them down the canal. It was all very cool to watch. 

On the second day we hired a couple of push bikes from the campsite. For those of you who haven't been before, Amsterdam is a ridiculously push-bike friendly city, nearly everyone rides. All the roads have dedicated paved bike paths right next to the footpaths and the stairs even have built in ramps for you to push your bike up instead of having to carry them up. The bikes would be our transport for the next two days.

Seeing how much Alice and I loved the Amsterdam canal houses, we decided to do a tour of one. The house was donated to the city of Amsterdam by the late own in the late 1800s on the condition that they preserve it as a museum. It still had a lot of the old furniture, paintings and other pieces of art and the tour was actually pretty interesting. There was a servants entrance and the audio guide informed us that back in the day, if you didn't have maids and servants then you were one!

For lunch we treated ourselves to some traditional friets with mayonnaise and tomato sause. "Them shits was delicious!!!".

That afternoon, some interesting characters moved in next door. They were young hippies from the UK who sat outside for hours playing cards, speaking  their own made-up language ("wang-ga-num" and "numba-wang" are the two words that I remember), smoking weed and yelling "we're in fuckin Am-Sta-Dam!!!!" … very uncool.   

On the third day we rode to a pretty funky area of town with some really cool designer houses right on the water. The main landmark there was this pretty interesting red bridge.

In the afternoon, went to this really awesome park in the city. It was massive and full of people listening to music from loud speakers, playing football, walking dogs, picnicking, sunbathing … everything really. We sat there in the sun for an hour or so enjoying the atmosphere. It was a nice way to spend our last afternoon in Amsterdam.