Day 16 (Thu): Ingenious, simple, and relaxed

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I wake up this morning feeling very excited to see Amsterdam!  …but I’m very tired.  I haven’t slept well the last couple of hours.  My eyes are sore… well, my left eye is sore.  It keeps scratching with each blink like there’s sand in it and rubbing it with my palm isn’t helping.  I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror.  Oh no!  My left eyelid is puffy and red!  I have a sty.  Wonderful.  I’m going to head out into public today looking like Quasimodo or like I’ve been in a fight and have the residual bruising of a black eye.  I’m still excited to see Amsterdam from my right eye!

First stop: laundromat.  It’s time for clean clothes.  Hang on, what’s this?  I also seem to have sore leg muscles.  That run in Paris to the ATM just before departing has left me a gift of sharp pain covering my entire calf muscles when walking up and down stairs.  Sore legs and a bung eye.

The first dry cleaners we come across charges €10/Kg and will take no less than 24 hours.  If we have about 7Kg, that would be €70!  Almost $100 for a load of washing seems a bit excessive.  So we trudge along further with our washing and come across the second laundry where the owner will wash, dry, and fold for only €10/load.  That’s much more palatable.  We are really itching – including my eye – to start seeing the sights but washing clothes on holiday is an evil necessity.  We leave our washing behind and catch the tram to the city.

So many people in this area of Europe travel around on bicycles and the roads are laid out accordingly with bike lanes taking a lot of importance.  It’s not long before we hear bike bells being rung behind us, nearly being hit every ten minutes because we keep forgetting they’re there.  The delineation between footpath and bike lane is very sublime.  Crossing the road has never been more unfamiliar: not only do the bikes and cars ride and drive on the right, to cross the road we have to look left to cross the bike lane, the car lane, the tram tracks, and anyone turning into any of them, then look right to cross the tram tracks, the car lane, the bike lane, and anyone turning into them, and finally end up on the footpath.  It sounds easier than it is!  I should just scare people off with my puffy eye and cross the road unabated.

We find some of the buildings similar to those in France where the top of the walls extend outwards beyond the base, which looks like it was planned.  There are also a few lopsided buildings, which do not look like they were planned.  The bridges crossing the canals are many, varied, and beautiful.  We come across a flower market so you can imagine how long we spend looking at flowers.  Although tulips are out of season, there were bunches of tulips for sale so at least we can say that we’ve seen them.

We need information so we set off for the nearest McDonald’s for wifi.  It’s amazing how much having information at our fingertips back home that we take for granted.  Right… there are some hop-on/hop-off buses around.  The weather is great so it’s a good day for a tourist bus.

We discover quite a lot of information about Amsterdam on the tourist bus: how it was named after the dam of the Amstel river, why the buildings are wonky due to soft ground, how the Jewish community were welcomed and hidden when they were fleeing persecution and brought diamond cutting skills with them, and generally what Dutch people are like.  Fascinating stuff.  Let’s hope I’ve got all that right!  Our ticket also includes a free stopover at the Gassan Diamond cutting premises and a boat cruise through the canals.

Three words I would use to describe the Dutch: ingenious, simple, and relaxed.  They are also very welcoming and friendly.

By the time we finish the bus and diamond tour, we’re feeling a tad exhausted but we have to pick up clean clothes.  Walking around the city and sitting on our bums on the bus is hard work.  We don’t have enough time for the boat cruise so we’ll leave that for another day; probably tomorrow since it will be our last day!

We pick up our clothes and return them to the hotel.  Some of them are a little damp but that’s ok because our hotel is heated.  In fact, the cupboard with the heat from an inbuilt bar fridge works better than a clothes dryer.  So we put some clothes in the cupboard to bake and we head off to dinner.  I had been told that the Dutch have amazing Indonesian food due to their history of exploration by ship and I walked past an Indonesian restaurant only one block away from the hotel last night.  Mum thinks it’s a good idea so we sit down to enjoy a lovely dinner.  It’s quite delicious.  Wine is cheaper than water here at only €2,25 per glass so thats my drink of choice!  My eye is finally calming down.


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