Amsterdam says relax...

A cheery Amsterdam hello!

Amsterdam is a beautiful city, forgetting that its known mostly for its legal drugs and Red light District it offers a much more scenic spledor with its endless canals and bridges, iconic houses and a whole lotta bikes!

The first thing that I came across in Amsterdam was a fun little market which had a lot for tourists and for locals alike! I had my first taste of healthy modern Amsterdam cuisin which is frites (hot chips) covered in peanut sauce and thin hot waffles held together by caramel sauce! Healthy Cuisine! I like it!

Then I went into the Van Gough museum where I saw heaps of his most famous work like Sunflowers which was very exciting I love to see art I know something about!
The rest of the day was fairly relaxing as I went to the local park and watched the ice skaters it was quite a cool day so I spent the rest of it inside with a nice bottle of wine! Cheers!

The next morning I changed from my hotel (which was the only thing available boring and expensive!) to Amsterdam Stay OK hostel which was a six bedroom share and I met two spanish girls and two Brazillian guys who all spoke little English but were fine otherwise!

I headed out toward the Anne Frank house which I have read a lot about and been told I had to go and see and though there was a long line and it took my some time to find it I must admit it was really worth it and probably the most intersting attraction I found in Amsterdam! You get to go through the house where Anne and her family and two other families hid for so long!! Its really hard to beleive and its such a sad shame that they were found!

In the afternoon I went to the Rijksmuseum which is the largest in the Netherlands a mixture of art and history with paintings by Rembrant and Jan Vermeer (they were the ones I knew) with paintings by artists who were inspired by the work of Rembrant and this was mostly what I found to be interesting.

That evening I made the trip to the Famous Red Light district with the two Spanish girls (who addmittedly I have forgotten their names!) from my dorm and it was quite a shock to see everything so in your face! The women stand inside houses which have Red Neon lights and they just stand around (some looking quite bored) in next to nothing just looking at you!

It was fascinating,intimidating and disgusting all at the same time! We went for some drinks after but didnt feel like hanging around the area so headed back towards the hostel! I could right a long monolgue about the conversations we had about how degrading it is but it wont change anything (or make me any less angry) so lets all just move on and say it was an experience!

The next day I went on a canal cruise in the morning to see Amsterdam from a slightly different point of view! The cruise was about an hour long and if you ignore the commentary which is kinda boring and comes across in five different languages then your OK!
After lunch I went to the Rijeiks Muesum which was not overly fasciationg except for a few paintings of Johannes Vermeer's which I knew only because Ive read Girl with A Pearl Earing and seen the movie but that painting was unfortuently not there but it was such a vast gallery I spent the best part of an hour and half there!

That night I went out and saw a movie Blood Diamond - all the movies in Amsterdam are in English with Dutch subtitles! Anyway I really enjoyed the movie and it was a good way to spend my last night! The next morning afterbreakfast I went and did some souvenir shopping and had a great time doing so! There is lots of shopping in Amsterdam so its quite easy to just walk around and think about all the thing's you want to buy but dont because you are on a budget! Later I had lunch at a Irish Pub and later waffles with ice cream!

Amsterdam strikes me as a place which is so diverse that it is simply fascinating to be there and to watch the people and to see them interact with each other and tourists! Its a really friendly place and special in that it makes light out of what many people see as serious issues but are willing to let slide when in a different country!

(OK so I hadnt yet downloaded my Amsterdam photos when I lost my camera, it's a cruel way in which my laziness is catching up with me)