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Stop #1 - London,
England
Stop #2 - Dublin, Ireland
Stop #4 - Brussels,
Belgium
We had too much fun at Dublin and Amit was
not feeling well on our way to Amsterdam. We finished at about
midnight in Dublin and had to wake up at 3:00 am for our early flight to
Amsterdam. Amit did not have ample time to recover and was very sick at
Dublin Airport and had to use the sickness bag of
Aer Lingus, the
airline we took en route to the Dutch city.
Upon arrival at Schiphol airport in
Amsterdam, I was amazed with the volume of passengers running around who
tried to meet their connecting flight. Indeed, Schiphol was a
connection hub as there were only a handful of us who passed through
immigration.
From the airport, we took the train to
Amsterdam Central station where the bed and breakfast we stayed at was just
5 minutes away from the main train terminal. The train fare was EUR 4.20/person/way (CD$ 6.00).
As soon as we alighted from the central
terminal, it was incredible to see the large parking lot exclusive for
bikes. I thought it was only in Beijing were bikes were very common
but in Amsterdam, there were special bike lanes and the Dutch would have run
over us if we blocked their "right-of-way" as bikers.
It was an easy walk from the central train station to
Amsterdam B&B Barangay and the owners, Wimmo and Godwin made a great welcome to us and even gave tips on the major
attractions in Amsterdam and how to get there. Godwin was a university
classmate of mine at De La Salle in 1990. As soon as we checked-in,
Godwin and I reminisced our college days and caught up with news about our
classmates and activities. While keeping tabs with my former
classmate, Amit had to rest to recover.
At about 1:00 pm, we started to explore the
city and walked towards the
Dam Square where a
carnival was happening at the time. The
Royal Palace was also at the
square but we did not bother to go inside and just strolled around the
carnival. We had some local pastries, donut like ball covered in fine
sugar.
We went to the
Sex Museum which
presented various sex items/information from different cultures. From
there, we just walked around towards the
Hash Museum but it did not interest us to go inside for EUR 9/person as
Amit and I did not smoke. While looking around the surrounding of the
Hash Museum, we realized that we were at the famous
Red Light District
already. Very daring place especially for the workers since they
literally opened up their glass window panels as a way of enticing clients.
Live sex show was also in abundance in the area. Within that area was
a block of "coffee shops." When you mention coffee shop in Amsterdam,
it was a special cafe where they smoked pot and where they served "special
brownies."
Second day, Wimmo strongly suggested the
canal tour.
The regular price was EUR 13.00/person but they were able to issue
discounted tickets of EUR 10.00/person (CD$10.00). The tour had
multiple stops at points of interests but we got off at
Rijksmusem where the
Heineken Brewery was
located. For EUR 16.00 (CD$23.09) entrance fee, it was indeed an
experience and was worthwhile. The entrance fee included the whole
tour and two (2) glasses of freshly brewed Heineken beer.
From the beer brewery, we took a quick look
at the Van Gogh Museum
and went back to the Rijksmuseum stop for the next boat that completed our
canal tour.
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