Blighty to biking

So after a champagne breakfast with my beautiful wife I cabbed it out to the airport for my first international holiday I've ever taken by myself. I went through the checkin process then located the Etihad lounge. This was awesome as they immediately asked if I wanted some champagne and handed me a menu with steak for mains. After polishing off a steak and some champagne they asked if I wanted a chocolate fondant for dessert, I don't think they have ever heard the word no in that place. I was feeling pretty happy about having 2 lots of champagne in one day before even making it to France yet. 

Once well on the way to London I saw our friends Imogen and James were on the same flight to Abu Dhabi. Their second leg was to Rome though. We had a chat near the loos as you do on a long haul flight. Such a small world. 

I arrived in old London town with a record 6 hours of sleep on the 26 hour journey. Thank you inflatable boomerang pillow. After clearing the heinous immigration lines I hopped the Heathrow express and then cabbed it to Cannonbury(near Angel and Islington stations for those playing monopoly at home). I was staying with Paul and Laci who you may remember from such blogs as "Not too chablis", "More Champagne!" and "The fat duck bill". They greeted me with some coffee and a bacon and egg sarnie and I was feeling about 1000 times better.

We quickly worked out that it was going to be a spectacular day and whipped around to the bottle shop, stuck some Ruinart blanc de blanc in the fridge and were canning it in Placi's backyard by 11am along with the greatest English snacks, scotch eggs from Waitrose. This was followed by more wines in the sun. James and Vanessa(who everyone called "The Dame") dropped around and we continued canning more wines with them. After this we went to the Dame's house to cain wines in her immaculately gardened backyard and I met some more of Placi's lovely friends, Richard, Sarah and Chantelle. I have been lead to believe that all they do in London is drink wine in the sun in people's gardens. Anyway I managed to stay awake (I think) all day until we watched Bond - Die Another Day back at the boys' gaff. Take that jetlag!

Laci and his busted leg in the sun

Champagne, scotch eggs and chips, the brunch of champions.

Hopefully this instagram thing works below as promised otherwise it will just be white space.

In the morning I Skyped Heidi and Laci helped me formulate a plan to get to Gatwick airport. An 11 squid taxi and 10 squid airport train I was there in no time. I hopped the (sl)eazyjet flight to Amsterdam and went to go get the train. My darling wife had prepared instructions for me to get to my accommodation called Hotel Aspen which is kinda just south of and in between Jordaan and the red light district (the old town areas). Anyway the first step was to catch a train to Centraal. I scanned the train timetable just as a train was coming in and it said Centraal so I quickly jumped aboard. Anyway I soon realised this wasn't right as we were in the countryside with cows and what not. I asked a lady where this train was stopping and she said it was Leiden first, then the Hague. Luckily most people here speak perfect English. 

I got off in Leiden then caught a train back to Amsterdam, or so I thought, I looked up the stop and it was even further away. What the hell? I got out in the middle of I have no idea where and soon realised I had made 2 mistakes. One was every other city has a Centraal station and 2 the 2 screens they have at the train stops aren't for each platform, they just have all the trains up there for the next 2 hours or whatever. So the screen on the right trains are arriving 1hr later.

Anyway I got to see a lot of the Netherlands and came in via Haarlem.  Once in Amsterdam I made my way to the hotel and noticed at every coffeeshop it smelt a lot like Otto's jacket or San Francisco. I dumped my bags in the hotel which was up 4 flights of ridiculously steep stairs and went out for a bit of an explore.

4 flights of these were not fun with a 20kg bag or after
a bike ride.

I wandered around the canals for a bit then went to a bar called Barco. This was not your usual bar as it was a boat that had been permanently docked. It had a bar area upstairs and live jazz music downstairs. Pretty cool, anyway I ordered a pint of Amstel and some "latke met gerookte paling" which is apparently some kind of potato fritter with smoked eel, pretty tasty. I retired after walking back via some more beautiful canal scenery.

Barco the reperposed boat

That eel when.

This morning I went for a walk and found the food markets, unfortunately not much happens here in Amsterdam before 10am, even the cafes were not doing much, I spotted about 2 that were open before 9am. Anyway I grabbed some koffie and a croissant from one of the few places that was open and read the NY Times International edition until the Van Gogh museum was open.

Museum area

The Van Gogh museum was amazing, I love his work and it was great to see the narratives about his life and see how his styles changed over his career. Unfortunately the end of his life isn't the most uplifting story but still I love his paintings, especially of the farming landscapes and streets of Paris. The museum had some cool exhibits where they put the brush strokes from some of the canvases and sketches under a microscope which you can look through to demonstrate different techniques. The top floor was closed for some reason so I am not sure what was up there. Probably something awesome, goddam.

I went back and got a bike from near the hotel for the day and rode out along the mighty Amstel river. The country side was really beautiful and it didn't take long to get out of the city. It was really amazing riding out there, even though there are cars it never feels like you are in any danger or likely to be. It is completely different from riding in Sydney(every day the tour de F you). The feeling was serene. I felt even more serene after I stopped about halfway for a cheeky Amstel on the Amstel.

Me and my obnoxious green tourist bike

Little town Street outside of Amsterdam

On the return leg I crossed over a bridge to ride the other side of the Amstel river, it was pretty picturesque all the way back into town. I went to a brewery where they use a windmill to process the hops or barley or whatever goes into the beer. Anyways whatever that windmill is doing, it is making some good beer.

It started raining a bit so I went back to the hotel for a while then hit the streets again a bit later. I followed the trail of coffeeshops and went to the red light district. There were heaps of people out there but not nearly as many British stag parties as I had been lead to believe. I tried to wander around until it was after dark to get some photos of the old buildings in the area and the canals by night but I think the bike ride and windmill beers got the better of me and I headed home still in broad daylight(10pm).

Is Amsterdam awesome? Dam Straat it is.

So far Amsterdam has been completely amazing and is one of the most beautiful cities I've been to. It is not just the aesthetics of the amazing buildings and bridges built on the canals though, it is like some kind of peaceful vibe going through the place. I cannot believe I am so relaxed in a city and no, I have not even gotten high yet, at least not with first hand smoke, maybe there's just so much pot going around you cannot help breath it in and feel so chilled out.