Experience The Adventure

I didn’t write about Amsterdam?

It was a nice place. Let me look for my notes, I can’t believe I didn’t write anything for this yet.

So I took a bus to Amsterdam. Not doing that again. How often do you say that when you are on the road? It was about 10 hours, much more coming back. Gives you a chance to sleep, see the black scenery, and chat to the local crazies.

Overall impressions of Amsterdam:

1. Touristy! Wow, was it ever full of tourist. Even this time of year.
2. Pricey. Food, hostels, etc.
3. Lots of art. I hope you like art.
4. Interesting. Nice for a visit. I guess to change any preconceptions you might have of it.

It was an ultalight weekend in Amsterdam.
Remember my classification system:
1. Really heavy. moving your house.
2. Heavy. Like 2 large bags.
3. Normal. A bag or backpack.
4. Light. A carry on bag.
5. Ultralight. No bags.

It was only a sat – Sunday trip. Few people I’ve met seem to understand the ultralight theory. Simply this. When we got there, people are looking to check their bags. I head off to where I want to go. Sunday, I don’t need to carry around a bag when I check out. I try not to carry anything if possible. So overall, in a normal weekend, you don’t necessarily need anything.

I spent the night at a Christian hostel. I had much reservations about this. They were the only one i could find online at that time that I could book only one night. It was really interesting. You didn’t need to notice a difference, most people I didn’t see at all. After walking around all day, I headed back earlier than usual. Like 11. It was cold in Amsterdam. Brr, freezing, so it was nice to head in early. That and the little sleep thing. They were having an open mic night. So I got up and gave my dirty routine. They dragged me out…
I knew not to do that, they were really nice. Not much preaching going on, they were just really nice. So nice in fact, I want to meet some more of them. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Had a bus tour (bad) and a boat tour, very unique. Walked a lot. Enjoyed the Van Gogh museum, it’s nice to see everything in one place like that. My favourite painting was The Harvest. Note to self, maybe order that when I get home. Now I can appreciate his art more and recognize it. It sure is different seeing it in person. Was not a fan of the Ramstad museum. Particularly, what I disliked was the useless 10 comments in the 4 pound audio tour, with the museum mostly closed off. Why do they even have it?

The bus back was more full, and the ferry and stops made it more difficult to get sleep. The sea was really rough, 50 knots so we ended up cruising around a bit while we waited for a ferry to leave port. I didn’t mind the ferry thing, I rather like the ferries. Much nicer than the bus or planes. I wonder what its like in the summer.

Note to others: don’t walk from the Eurolines station. Its not really in Amsterdam.

Got back into London at 8am, so went straight to work. Its a good thing they have showers there, makes life easy.

I will go back to Holland, all the cities are quite different. The rest of the country still sounds like it may be interesting.

next on the list: Edinburgh, Paris. Tentative – Prague.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am and is filed under London, London Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.