Day 17: I Am Sterdam

Thanks to everyone who is reading our blog and leaving comments. Its good to hear back from home.

We got to the train station early this morning. We overestimated the time it would take to get to the main station in this small city. We hopped on the train and we were on our way to the Netherlands. It seeed as though, Belgium spoke mainly French and as we got closer to Amsterdam the Dutch language was becoming more and more obvious.

3 Hours later we arrived at Amsterdam Central. Within the station itself it didn't seem like we had gone to another country but as soon as we stepped out we knew we were definitely in Amsterdam. The hippie people, the canals, the multi-storey carpark for bicycles and the smell of hash in the air were strong indicators of where we were.

Our challenge was to find our accommodation. We had booked a boat on one of the Amsterdam canals called the "Friend-SHIP". It was fairly easy to find as it was only a 7 minute walk from Amsterdam Central. As we approached the boat Asher's face changed as if he had seen a dog eating its on poo. Steven and I thought it was "Cool". We met a guy called Constantine who was fishing from the top of the roof. He let us in and told us to wait for Chris who was the owner of the boat. The boat that looked really small from the outside but as you stepped in it looked much bigger.

The room was definitely an Amsterdam pad much like something you would see out of Austin Powers. The curtains were made of velvet, the colour scheme was funky and a whip (which a Jockey would use but there are no horses out here) was hanging from the roof. It was awesome. Asher soon fell in love with it too. The views were great as we were right on the water. Definitely, would recommend this to anyone who comes to Amsterdam. However, it is slightly more expensive than the land hostels.

Lunch was at a Turkish Grill Restaurant. It was here that we could feel that we couldn't communicate with the people in Dutch.

We made our way to the Anne Frank Museum. The line was long but it was definitely worth the wait. The walk through the original house that Anne and her family (plus another family) lived in for 3 years was very moving. The war as portrayed through the eyes of a young girl really showed the futile and unfair tribulations of war. We met a couple of Australians in the line who were from Hervey Bay. It was nice to hear other Aussie accents again.

On the computer on the boat was a documentary about the Anne Frank story. We ordered pizza and ate it while we watched it.

After a 10 minute rest we went exploring through Amsterdam's red light district. It was a very unique experience. Women would exhibit themselves in the windows as you passed by. This industry is huge and the locals seem to take it as something normal. As you walk past one window with a lady in it the next window you can see a group of elderly couples eating dinner in a fine restaurant. Children would also be walking around these areas with their family. Strange.

We had enough of walking around. Although there were some nice looking ladies most of them were huge, big lipped, skanky, did I mention huge girls. We returned to the boat and went to sleep. Good night.

Tim