Amsterdam!

After a few days in Paris, it was time to move on today to Amsterdam. Erica and I packed up our stuff, and ran off to the train this morning, by midday we were in Amsterdam (thank you super fast Thalys!). We met Bridget at the station, and the three of us have spent the afternoon meeting a little bit of the city.

My dad is Dutch, but emigrated to Australia as a teenager, so while he has particular Dutch personality traits (will reliably tell it like it is, likes salted liquorice) he doesn't have much connection to the country any more. Nonetheless I've been very excited about coming to see the place he spent his early years. I think his home town has been taken over by the airport (or very nearly at least), but it's nice to be in the Netherlands for a few days.

We got to our hostel, had a cup of tea, discussed our plans and then set out to explore. We made our way slowly and scenically to a canal boat cruise, and I was hoping to get some good water photos for today's theme - refreshing. Unfortunately my camera view was blocked by the guy in the row in front, who kept taking selfies by holding his iphone out of the window, over the water, looking back in at him. I was very tempted to start a coordinated photobombing attack with my friends in the background, but was too busy trying to squidge my camera through the little window gap remaining/gawking at the very cool architecture/trying to understand the Dutch (then German, then English) commentary. But this one has water, so it's fine!

Afterwards we found some dinner (again via a scenic walk), then came back to the hostel for a Dutch food tasting session - we're in one of those hostels that provides evening activities and a nice vibe for hanging out in. I'd tried a lot of the foods before, but there were a few I hadn't including herring. It tasted like cat food. I wasn't a fan. But I did like most of the other things.

And now it's 11pm and we're all tucked up for a nice 'early' night before a full day tomorrow. So I'll fare ye all good night, and see you again tomorrow.




Also, totally chuffed for my Sacre Coeur view of Paris photo to have been put on Facebook. Totes excites! Thanks BlipCentral!