Amsterdam - Brussels - London June 25th

Amsterdam to Brussels to London – cattle class train adventures...

So today we thought we were all sorted for our train ride from Amsterdam to Brussels. We had a plan, we got up early, and bundled ourselves off to the tram. We caught the tram to Amsterdam Centraal to catch the train, with about 15 minutes to spare. We had already figured out (we talked to the people at the information desk when we'd arrived in Amsterdam) that we wanted to take the 'slow' train, as it would be free on the pass. To by reservations on the high speed train would have cost us an extra 34 euro each and there were no seats available at the time we wanted anyway. But I tell you what, there were times this morning when 34 euro suddenly seemed a pretty ok price...

We waited for our train, after anxiously double checking that we were on the right platform with the train people. Then we were told there was a change and to move to the other end of the platform. Then, no, wait, we were told to come back and board the train that had been sitting in the initial end of the platform for over ten minutes. This is the train to Brussels? We asked. Yes, we were told, but we would have to change in Rotterdam, because our original train was totally broken. So we shrugged and got on the train.

Waiting at the station, oblivious to the rather random train ride(s) that awaited us...

It was clearly an intercity rather than an international train as it didn't have the usual international facilities including luggage storage. Luckily it was a big train so even though it had all the Brussels hopefuls it had space for us to take up two seats with our bags. Greg out the GPS and we tried to figure out where the heck we were going to and what time we could expect to change trains. The conductor eventually came through the cabin and we found out that we weren't changing at Rotterdam right away, first we had to change again at this other random station, which would get us to Rotterdam, where we could change for Brussels. Aiish!

About an hour later we got off at the random place and waited with what had become a large crowd of Brussels hopefuls, all with luggage. A train with just two carriages, and already fairly full, pulled up. This was our train. Everyone piled on. We had the bad luck to not be standing at the right part of the platform, so we got one late. Hence, I was on the floor in the aisle and Greg was stuck standing at the end with our luggage. We stopped frequently as yet more people tried to squash on. I was confused – I thought we were in western europe not India??

"squashing up" but not in a fun Turkish-dinner kind of way

Anyway at last that horrible stuffy squashfest ended and we got off at Rotterdam and changed at last to an international train! The last leg of the journey was actually pleasant! Even after all that we only arrived about 30minutes after we were initially supposed to, if feeling a bit more frazzled and harrassed than we'd expected! The station was good and we easily found a place to stash our luggage so we could head off on our six hour Brussels adventure!

Emerging from the station into nice weather for a change, it seemed that we were in a bit of a dingy part of town. A twenty minute walk (through the inevitable Turkish section) however so us soundly in the middle of the historical and touristy centre. And bliss, everything was in French! In particular for restaurant related purposes, I could read the signs again and vaguely understand stuff! Greg will tell you, I was quite excited as we walked along and I'd be like “that's about breakfast! That's the daily special! That means ham and cheese!”

Our first priority was food. Wanting something at least attempting to be Belgiumish we tried the lonely planet. When we got to a recommended that restaurant we liked the look of, the prices were way out of our league. So we decided to go try one of the apparently Turkish-run 'authentically Belgium' tourist restaurants nearby. We picked one at random and enjoyed a nice lunch more in our budget... althought the waffles were pretty disappointing, considering they are a Belgium 'thing'!

'

However we wasted no time getting stuck into the Belgium beer!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the old city and through the arcades and shops. 

This was the main square in the old town, surrounded by beautiful iconic buildings.

"Got any waffles?"

Famous statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. Very small! Apparently he has a full wardrobe of clothes and there are people whose job it is to change them every few weeks.

See? Very small!! And surrounded by tourists like us snapping photos frantically!

We found the oldest fanciest arcade and I couldn't resist buying some Macaroons! There were also Mucha style tins with fruit biscuits in them which were tempting but too expensive!

We sat on this temporary stage area in the main square to relax and eat Macaroons, before heading back towards the station. We detoured to a metro supermarket to find some snacks to get us through the eurostar adventure.

Back at the station we were too early to go through security for the eurostar so we had a look round the shops in the station. I got a new pair of earrings as I had lost one down the sink the night before!

The Eurostar ride was less flash that we had thought it would be, turned out to be just like another train ride just with a rather long tunnel in it! The most annoying thing was having to queue to clear customs before we got on and then queue again when we got off to present out passports and tickets. Only two people on checking them for the entire train...

I wonder what London was getting excited about?

We managed to negotiate the tube to Malcolms with ease as we already had our oyster cards. Before we knew it we were heading back down the same road towards Mal's house as we had on our first night in London.

Was so weird to have come full circle in this way – could hardly believe that our five weeks in Europe were over already. It felt like we had walked that way only a few days before!

At last at Mal and Becs at almost 9pm, we sat down to a very welcome home cooked meal and a whirlwind catch up. We admired the new décor and garden at their place and commiserated with them that their roof needs a total redo!

Then it was off to bed because Greg and I had a crazy early start the next morning for our trip through the cotswolds!

The Full Van Gogh Experience, complete with depressed weather.

Day two in Amsterdam, 24th of June (Happy birthday Mum!)

Today it rained. A lot.

Based on the forecast we had decided that today would be museum day and when we woke up to find it pissing down we were glad we had planned it that way! After breakfast we headed to the Musuem square – we were going to check out the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum (even though the Rijksmuseum only had one wing open as it was under renovation).

We got to the Van Gogh museum. Well, turns out everyone else had the same idea. So we had the joy of queuing in the torrential rain for over half an hour.

The museum itself was also really expensive (and I am writing this after we had been to the national museum in Cardiff which was free and arguably as good/better...). Inside was steaming as all the wet punters took of jackets and umbrellas.

The collection is undeniably comprehensive and rather fantastic. I had already prepared myself for the fact that none of his starry night pictures were there. However they had a very good Sunflowers one as well as other ones which the audioguide taught us were famous and were rather good. They also had a painting done by his friend (although soon to be his ex-friend) of Van Gogh actually painting one of the sunflowers paintings. The travel through the museum was slow due to the crowds – at the more popular paintings you had to wait until you could get a spot where you could actually see the painting!

Hearing about his life and how that influenced his art was really good, although Greg who was coming from absolutely no background knowledge of Van Gogh didn't find the audioguide informative enough. He was particularly confounded by how someone who was not considered very good or important during his own life could come to be so famous – the guide didn't really mention about how or why he became considered one of the great impressionists during the 20^th century...

Once we had seen everything, we were half starved and it was still raining, so we decided to eat at the museum cafe. Apart from being crazy busy, it was actually pretty good, it had basically everything you could possibly want for lunch available. The system was "cruise around with your tray grabbing things then queue up and pay at the end" system. We decided we wanted something hot but we had to wait for a fresh dish to be ready. Trying to be clever and beat the crowds Greg sent me to line up with my coffee to pay, so that when the hot food was ready he could just slot into the line beside me and we'd be away. But the pay queue moved so fast and the hot food came so slowly that I had to bail at the last minute and go back to the end of the line no fewer than 3 times.

After lunch we contemplated the weather and our museum-weary feet. It was already nearing mid-afternoon and we knew that to go to the Rijksmuseum would mean yet another queue due to the weather, and we also knew that it was only partly open due to the renovations. We were also just so weary of being tourists at this point! (Also I had spent way too much money in the Van Gogh shop and didn't fancy another steep museum entry fee!). So it was an easy decision to flag the second museum and just head back to base, rest up, and then have a nice dinner later on.

We caught the tram back to base and kicked up our heels for a while.

Our seach for a dinner place later on found us in an extremely well established Italian restaurant where the price was right and food was hearty and good. A large (in all the ways) family of Italians were happily eating there so that's generally a good sign anyway right? Incidentally there was an Italian soccer match on that night and the whole restaurant was holding it's breath waiting for kick off. But we were all finished eating and paid before it started (but we still hurried home so Greg could catch it on the B+B's TV). Greg has really enjoyed been in Europe for this European soccer match – it's as big as the rugby world cup was to us!

We Like Science and Stuff

Amsterdam day one, 23rd of June

Our first day in Amsterdam. Started with an exceptionally yummy breakfast at the B&B. Then after taking our time, we were off. We were definitely starting to wind down in our enthusiasm for jumping out of bed and running all over town. We had both done a bit of research into the city and there were a few things we wanted to see, but overall it seemed the joy of Amsterdam was just to walk around and soak up the vibe (and not the pot....).

We took the tram all the way to Centraal station, and decided, randomly, to visit the science and technology museum first. Aimed at children but still rather fun, the museum was packed with interactive science based 'experiments'. Favourites included the large bubble making things and the time when Greg pulled the keystone out of a wooden model arched bridge, causing it to collapse. Then when he went to put it back together he did it wrong and the museum man rushed in to show him how to do it properly. It was too priceless! There was also a whole section on puberty for the 'teens' with a rather hilarious video (mainly hilarious if puberty is a thing of the past for you... if you were about to start it I imagine it would be terrifying!!).

The museum was in the shape of the hull of a ship!

A water clock, using just gravity and surface tension to accurately tell the time. Greg was in love!

Bubble making! I was poos at it

Greg was good!

*Queue evil scientist laugh*

This was a series of contraptions that formed a presentation in which 'energy was transfered' to make everything fall over, mouse trap/dominoes style. I thought I had videoed the whole thing as it happened... turned out I hadn't pushed the button properly... Doh! 

Greg breaks a bridge

Greg tries to put bridge back together

Greg was doing it wrong - helpful member of staff comes over to assist (sorry about nauseating blurrycam)

Have to bite my tongue from laughing as Helpful Museum Employee instructs Doctorate in Structural Engineering Man on how best to build a bridge.

Placing the keystone

Removing the supports...

Success! Structurally sound, as bravely tested by resident engineer.

Greg teaching me about more structural design principles. Apparently I had put the yellow cross thingies on wrong

This was a really creepy robot!!!

Lunch had been proposed to be on the rooftop terrace of the museum but the options were average and prices too high. Also no cover, and it was drizzling on and off. So we headed into the main streets of the city to find somewhere. Amsterdam is expensive!! We rejected restaurant after restaurant (and were reduced to buying a sandwich in a dairy-type shop and sharing it to avoid being so hungry that we just walked into the next restaurant and paid a fortune for something crappy).

The hunt for food revealed some pretty photo ops.

"Millies" 

Finally, we came across “Millies Cookies” which turned out to sell normal cookies (not dodgy ones) as well as paninis and cake, for not overly crazy prices. We sat at the window bar and enjoyed our sandwiches, cake, and hot drink, feeling like we had found somewhere properly Amsterdam (I later found out that Millies was a chain and there were Millie's Cookies all over England...).

Cafes, we discovered, were the thing when it was sunny. But we didn't find that properly until we left the crowded very central shopping area and got into the canalish part of the city.

View during lunch.

After lunch we wandered, heading towards a street recommended for nice typical Amsterdam houses and good canal views. We stumbled upon a central square which by evening was Amsterdam's Euro Soccer Fan Park and by day seemed to have school children performing with drums and be otherwise generally flooded with locals and tourists alike. Some prominent buildings surrounded the square.

We carried on to the street and eventually made it. Out here was where the cafes had come to life, people thronging the streets and stuffed onto the outdoor tables and chairs with coffees and beers, socialising with their neighbours. 

We stumbled upon a Saturday market, just winding down (as it was 4pm). 

Our next ultimate goal was the Anne Frank house. We had thought about going home and then coming back, as it was open until 10pm on a Saturday, to avoid the lines. But we decided that as we were already very close to just go and see it, queue or no.

On the way, we passed these things...

They said 'museum' but they meant 'shop'

Tulips! In Holland! It's a thing!

The queue.

Queue there was, but it was just a 30minute wait which I think is about average. The house itself was interesting and basically what was expected. Chilling and sad, but also triumphant in a way, that little Anne's story has become so famous and so well read, when that was always her dream to be a writer. Small blessings I guess when you died in a concentration camp at such a young age and never knew of your own fame, but more than most other children of the holocaust got. It was interesting as well to be reminded about the other people in and supporting the 'secret annexe' as it has been a very long time since I read the book. Seeing the actual rooms they all hid in gave a very real sense of what it must have been like – cramped and tense and horrible, basically.

When we emerged we were well really to find some dinner and call it a night. As I said before, we were definitely wanting to take it easy from here on in. The end of our time in Europe was something we could both feel coming very close and even though everything was still amazing and still being appreciated we were looking forward to the feeling of being back close to friends and family in UK/Ireland and also being somewhere where we spoke the language again!

The tram ride home was interesting – barely 5 minutes into the journey the tram came to a stop. After a period of time passed Greg and I came to realise that it didn't seem like it was going to be going anywhere. There was an announcement in dutch over the loudspeaker, and the tram person came out and spoke to us (also in dutch, obviously). Everyone began to file out of the tram. Greg and I shrugged and followed suit. There were three more trams stopped in front of ours, and outside the frontmost tram a small crowd and a man who seemed to be deaf was shouting/wailing unintelligibly. We shrugged again and joined the throngs of Amsterdam communters who were now walking home.

For the next ten minutes we walked in the direction of home, and stopped into a shop curiously called “The New Zealand Auckland Shop”. Turns out it's an expensive outdoorsy clothing shop. Who knew?

At length an ambulance came screeching passed us and then a few minutes later we noticed the trams were running again. Still no idea what had happened but we were feeling slightly put out – our 24 hour card which had still been valid when we first got on the tram (and therefore would have gotten us home) had now run out. We explained this to the tram lady when we got back on and she wasn't very sympathetic – she told us we could still get on but it would be 'our fine if there was a control check'. So we sweated a bit all the way to our stop (but we refused to buy another ticket – blimmin expensive in Amsterdam!) but there was no 'control' so we were safe.

Dinner was in a little pub round the corner from the B&B. The food was average and quite expensive – but probably normal for Amsterdam, we were learning. The most exciting things was Greg figuring out that as the restaurant had free wifi he could translate whole chunks of the menu at a time using Google Goggles (on his smart phone). The guy who ran the place was also very interested in where we were from and where we were staying. He wanted to get in touch with the B&B as it was nearby to see if he could do a deal with them. We told him the name of it but we were thinking 'good luck' since the B&B already has it's own, rather upmarket, restaurant(s)!

On the way back up the stairs, we ran into the B&B's cat "Furry". We may be guilty of calling him "fatty" when the B&B host wasn't around...

He was a pretty kitty and very friendly.

There was soccer on the TV when we got home Greg watched that while I read, and then it was bedtime!