Nearly over...
Day 23
It feels a little bit surreal that we’re in Amsterdam and it’s our last full day in a city on the tour. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by, some times it feels like only yesterday I was breaking my back trying to lug my backpack downstairs of the Royal National so I could load it on the bus and hop on to start this Contiki adventure.
There is so much that I wanted to see and do in Amsterdam but as usual we ran out of time. Most of us were up again early as we all wanted to get a full day in the city... there were quite few sore and foggy heads that didn’t make it to the bus this morning. We are staying about 20 minutes out of the central city so we were dropped off right outside Central Station. Marcarla, Clare, Anna and I decided to go the Heineken museum first, but before we did that, they needed to use the internet and I needed to organise some stuff to send home. It’s very very cheap to send things home from Amsterdam so Mum and Dad, expect another package coming your way :)
We met up again near the World War 2 monument and walked down to the museum where we paid our entrance fee and met up with Sophia and Stew. The Heineken museum is awesome, even if you’re a not a beer drinker. You get three beers included in the entrance fee so basically it’s a free entrance. Those three beers did not go to waste, either :P There is so much cool stuff to see and do in the museum, you get to go on a simulator ride that takes you through the journey of “being made into beer”, there are lots of cool little rooms to look into and view the history of the beer, there is a massive room where you can watched all the Heineken ads and promos on massive tv screens mounted on the ceiling and there is even a place where you can go and check out the vats where they used to brew the beer and watch movies on the inside of the vat. We also got to play foosball and make movies and do little dances whilst singing in Dutch and email them to eachother, which was a lot of fun. All of this plus the beer was definitely worth the 15€.
After mucking around in the museum for most of the morning, we headed down the street and got lunch from a little cafe before heading off to Anne Frank’s house. We walked everywhere in Amsterdam so it was nice to wander through all the side streets and over the canal bridges and see everything that way. A lot of people ride their bikes over here so you have get out of the way if you’re on the bike path or else you will get taken out... there were a few close encounters for all of us on this trip :P
The Anne Frank museum was pretty amazing-they have turned the original hideout/factory where Anne Frank and her family escaped to into a museum and have left all the rooms, minus the furtniture, exactly the way they were left. They have all these quotes from Anne Frank and various people up on the walls as well as original notes and even Anne’s original diary is on the display. It’s hard to believe how tiny the secret annex is, considering that 8 people were crammed into it for two years. It is definitely worth a visit should you ever go to Amsterdam, you won’t be disappointed.
After we spent a couple of hours there the girls and I headed off to the main shopping street to have a look around. We split up and did our own thing for the next hour and I mainly just ducked in and out of stores and looking around the side streets. I found the most amazing book store as well that sold books in English (it’s mandatory that the Dutch speak English). I could have spent all day in there had I been allowed to but I wasn’t about to miss the bus! I raced back to meet the girls in the main square and in the process just about got high from walking past one man who was smoking up a storm in the middle of the street. Phew, it was pretty bad. After I met up with the girls we walked around for a little longer before meeting up with the group again to be picked up by Sam and Ryan.
They took us to this cute little restaurant called the Van den Hogen in freezing cold Volendam where we were served a four course meal and were given free wine shots... no one liked it so I had about 5! The food was okay, the soup and salad was definitely better than the main course though, I don’t think very many people enjoyed their mains. After dinner was over, we jumped back on the bus and were driven back into Amsterdam to go on a canal cruise. The cruise was fantastic-it was all the soft drink, beer and wine we wanted and the boat cruised up and down the canals of Amsterdam while our host pointed out some of the more interesting and amazing points of the city. It was a really good night-the boat was tiny but somehow most of us were up dancing and being silly and just having a good time. Sophia and Stu taught me this drinking game where you clink someone’s glass and say “doors” and you both have to scull whatever is left in your glass... whoever finishes last is the loser. So consequently I “doorsed” poor Soph just as she and I got a new glass of red wine. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again in a hurry though!
Once the boat trip was over we jumped back on the bus where it was another crazy drunken ride back to the hotel. Mostly everybody piled into the bar but since I was being cheap, a few of us went back up to my room to drink bottles of wine and champagne we had stashed away and that Sophia kindly provided. It was a pretty funny night and ended up being quite the late one... I paid for it the next morning but it was worth the queasy bus ride home.There were lots of laughs courtesy of Amy, Sophia and Marcarla :) Thanks girlies (and Stu!) for a funny night!
Tomorrow it’s all over... we’re up again bright and early and are planning on making it back to London by 4:30pm. Even though I said before I was ready for the tour to end now I don’t want it to. I think I could have spent a few more days in some of the amazing cities we have been to.
x
It feels a little bit surreal that we’re in Amsterdam and it’s our last full day in a city on the tour. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by, some times it feels like only yesterday I was breaking my back trying to lug my backpack downstairs of the Royal National so I could load it on the bus and hop on to start this Contiki adventure.
There is so much that I wanted to see and do in Amsterdam but as usual we ran out of time. Most of us were up again early as we all wanted to get a full day in the city... there were quite few sore and foggy heads that didn’t make it to the bus this morning. We are staying about 20 minutes out of the central city so we were dropped off right outside Central Station. Marcarla, Clare, Anna and I decided to go the Heineken museum first, but before we did that, they needed to use the internet and I needed to organise some stuff to send home. It’s very very cheap to send things home from Amsterdam so Mum and Dad, expect another package coming your way :)
We met up again near the World War 2 monument and walked down to the museum where we paid our entrance fee and met up with Sophia and Stew. The Heineken museum is awesome, even if you’re a not a beer drinker. You get three beers included in the entrance fee so basically it’s a free entrance. Those three beers did not go to waste, either :P There is so much cool stuff to see and do in the museum, you get to go on a simulator ride that takes you through the journey of “being made into beer”, there are lots of cool little rooms to look into and view the history of the beer, there is a massive room where you can watched all the Heineken ads and promos on massive tv screens mounted on the ceiling and there is even a place where you can go and check out the vats where they used to brew the beer and watch movies on the inside of the vat. We also got to play foosball and make movies and do little dances whilst singing in Dutch and email them to eachother, which was a lot of fun. All of this plus the beer was definitely worth the 15€.
After mucking around in the museum for most of the morning, we headed down the street and got lunch from a little cafe before heading off to Anne Frank’s house. We walked everywhere in Amsterdam so it was nice to wander through all the side streets and over the canal bridges and see everything that way. A lot of people ride their bikes over here so you have get out of the way if you’re on the bike path or else you will get taken out... there were a few close encounters for all of us on this trip :P
The Anne Frank museum was pretty amazing-they have turned the original hideout/factory where Anne Frank and her family escaped to into a museum and have left all the rooms, minus the furtniture, exactly the way they were left. They have all these quotes from Anne Frank and various people up on the walls as well as original notes and even Anne’s original diary is on the display. It’s hard to believe how tiny the secret annex is, considering that 8 people were crammed into it for two years. It is definitely worth a visit should you ever go to Amsterdam, you won’t be disappointed.
After we spent a couple of hours there the girls and I headed off to the main shopping street to have a look around. We split up and did our own thing for the next hour and I mainly just ducked in and out of stores and looking around the side streets. I found the most amazing book store as well that sold books in English (it’s mandatory that the Dutch speak English). I could have spent all day in there had I been allowed to but I wasn’t about to miss the bus! I raced back to meet the girls in the main square and in the process just about got high from walking past one man who was smoking up a storm in the middle of the street. Phew, it was pretty bad. After I met up with the girls we walked around for a little longer before meeting up with the group again to be picked up by Sam and Ryan.
They took us to this cute little restaurant called the Van den Hogen in freezing cold Volendam where we were served a four course meal and were given free wine shots... no one liked it so I had about 5! The food was okay, the soup and salad was definitely better than the main course though, I don’t think very many people enjoyed their mains. After dinner was over, we jumped back on the bus and were driven back into Amsterdam to go on a canal cruise. The cruise was fantastic-it was all the soft drink, beer and wine we wanted and the boat cruised up and down the canals of Amsterdam while our host pointed out some of the more interesting and amazing points of the city. It was a really good night-the boat was tiny but somehow most of us were up dancing and being silly and just having a good time. Sophia and Stu taught me this drinking game where you clink someone’s glass and say “doors” and you both have to scull whatever is left in your glass... whoever finishes last is the loser. So consequently I “doorsed” poor Soph just as she and I got a new glass of red wine. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again in a hurry though!
Once the boat trip was over we jumped back on the bus where it was another crazy drunken ride back to the hotel. Mostly everybody piled into the bar but since I was being cheap, a few of us went back up to my room to drink bottles of wine and champagne we had stashed away and that Sophia kindly provided. It was a pretty funny night and ended up being quite the late one... I paid for it the next morning but it was worth the queasy bus ride home.There were lots of laughs courtesy of Amy, Sophia and Marcarla :) Thanks girlies (and Stu!) for a funny night!
Tomorrow it’s all over... we’re up again bright and early and are planning on making it back to London by 4:30pm. Even though I said before I was ready for the tour to end now I don’t want it to. I think I could have spent a few more days in some of the amazing cities we have been to.
x