De Lastage Apartments Amsterdam

... pretty well lit up and never felt unsafe.
Ended up back at my hostel playing pool and drinking til we all farewelled again as we're all going different ways tomorrow.

Wednesday was going to do the 11am walking tour but it was raining and miserable so did some washing and hoped it would be better conditions by 1pm for the tour then. Good decision as the rain was only intermittent during the 1pm tour which was good (apart ...

... a coffee drinker.

I was blown away in both Rotterdam and Amsterdam at how many bikes there are. You can literally go anywhere on a bike there, and many people do. I’m not used to seeing separate bike paths beside every road. When I got to the hostel I rented a bike and explored for the afternoon, but close to 2 hours of that was spent at the train station waiting to book some trains up north. But I did manage to ride along a ...

... to have someone lead us all around the canals of the outer parts of the city and take some pictures for us, but other than that, I probably should have gone on a free walking tour of the more historical downtown area.
So I decided to rent the bike for an extra 3 hours to bike a bit out of town along the Amstel river, to see some countryside and windmills, since my tour was relaxing, but not very scenic. I headed off with two guys from Leeds ...

... American coffee, but not as strong as French Coffee. That was the description of the coffee as given to us by the bartender. We were now just a few blocks from the Anne Frank House. As we came to the block by Anne Frank's House, we saw two large buses from the Tahitian Princess full of passengers on tour. The line to enter the house was about two blocks long. We were just passing as we have visited the house before on a previous trip to Amsterdam. The house sat on the edge of a ...

... over the floor, and a few seats. At least, I HOPED that it was chocolate cake ... I finally arrived in Amsterdam - I absolutely LOVED this place the first time I visited it, and vowed to one day return. If you want to read about the highlights of Amsterdam, this blog probably won't do it for you - this return trip is about doing the things I missed last time, and perhaps doing some things again that I loved the previous time (such as dinner in the ...

Today was tulip day !! After starting the day off with a hardy breakfast, I am off to Keukenhof. Keukenhof has to be the largest, most beautiful garden in the world. As you pass through the entrance gates you are overwhelmed by the aroma of the hyacinthus. Everywhere you look is a different bulb, crocus, narcissus, and of course tulips. Tulips of every size, every color, every shape. I have never seen so ...

So here i am at the end of another stay in Amstel-er-dam. Okay i so don't remember it being this busy last time i was here...although i did end up sleeping a lot so that could account for it Mum and I have been tearing it up, getting a full dose of kulcha and calories....well maybe it was only me on the calories :) ahhhh waffles. It was weird that i had no waffles in Belgium but in Amsterdam we went nuts. Saw lots of Rembrandt and ...

... and Rembrants house, and then to Waterlooplein to take a sneak peek at the markets, admiring many fancy buildings along the way... And city views... I then managed to ...

... the ubiquitous sex-shops and sex-shows). Now I am in no way against prostitution and, if someone wishes to make a career of it then I wish them the best of luck. However, I couldn't help feel sorry for most of those girls and their little rooms. It seemed kind of sad to reduce a human to a supermarket-ready product. However, Louise and I couldn't ponder this for long before we were dragged in to see a ''live-show'' by a man with a very-greasy head of hair who promised us it was the ...

... the milk to maturing the cheese in the drying room (for at least 4 weeks by law). We learnt the history of ‘klompen’, how they are made, and the various styles including different painted patterns from different parts of the country, decorative wedding clogs and the pointed nose of the fisherman’s clogs (traditionally used to help hook fishing nets onto boats).

It was my first time in the Netherlands, and although it was a new place ...