Big Adventures, Little World

We arrived in Amsterdam nice and early and made our way to the hostel where we dropped our bags off then went for a wander through the city and had some food. We didn’t really do much to start with as we were all a bit tired, we just wandered really, and saw some of the buildings and walked up and down the canals before having something to eat then making our way to Anne Frank’s house where we were meeting Dung. We met Dung out the front and then we went in to go tour through the house. It was very interesting reading about the time when Anne Frank was there during WWII and hiding from the Nazi’s. The house itself isn’t anything special as a lot of it is blocked off from public access and looks nothing like what it would have in the 40’s. There is a lot of photos and information though, and it really is quite a remarkable story, but I’m sure is just one of a lot of cases. The only difference with Anne Frank was that her diary was found and therefore her story was eventually told.

That night we went out for a wander through the red light district. As Elese and I had been before we knew what to expect, but I think it was a bit of an eye opener for all the others and a bit shocking. It’s funny to watch how others react to things like that when they have no idea what to expect, but you do. There isn’t really much else to say about it all as I have seen and written about it before. The rest of the group wanted to go see a sex show, but seeing as Elese and I had both been to one before, we just wandered around the city for a bit before heading back to the hostel while the rest went to the sex show and had one of the shocks of their lives!

Out the front the Heineken Factory

Our next day we were up and out in the city looking around before we made our way onto the Heineken factory for the Heineken Experience, a tour of the factory. I’ve been to quite a few beer factory tours now and this is definitely one of the better ones. It is self-guided to an extent, but really only one way to go. You go at your own pace though and go through the history of Heineken and get to see some of the equipment that was used to make the beer. You then get to the good parts where they show you the characteristics of a poured Heineken beer, and then get to drink it as well. After that you get to go on a short 4D movie experience of the complete process of making the beers where you are supposedly the beer. It was quite cool and a bit of fun, then it was to the bar at the end of the tour for our free drinks. It really is the best place to drink the beer and is by far the best tasting Heineken I have ever drunk. It is just so cold and the taste is just perfect. There’s no other way one should enjoy Heineken after that experience.

We came out of the Heineken factory and I was feeling a little bit tipsy! Maybe the beer is stronger there too, or it could have been that I had had about 6 or 7 beers, and although small, it was in a fairly short amount of time. Not far down the street were some markets so we strolled along there for a while looking at all the different things they had on offer. It was similar to a lot of other markets, but markets are cool so this was good fun. We then made our way through the city to one of the must-do things in Amsterdam and that was the IAMsterdam sign (as you can see in the picture below). We played on that for a while and got our photos taken on different letters and in different positions. I don’t know why but for some reason climbing all over these giant letters is just a lot of fun!

The I amsterdam statue in Central Amsterdam

That night it was out on the town for a pub crawl. The bar that we started at we got free vodka shots for half an hour, which was in actual fact a guy walking around with a weak mix of juice and vodka pouring it into your mouth! It was pretty funny watching him pouring it in everyone’s mouth, or all over their faces in some cases. This went on for a while and then we had a couple of rounds of beers before we headed on to the next bar. At each bar we went we got free shots of the worst, or best, drinks, depending on the way you look at it. We went from bar to bar every half hour or so and we got to the second last bar we were going to which was a small little place which no one really liked at all so we went to wait out the front until we moved on. As we were waiting out the front the bus driver from my Topdeck tour last year came walking out. When he saw me he tackled me half way down the street. It was such a random encounter. He introduced us to another Topdeck leader who then took me to find the cook from my tour who was also in Amsterdam that night. We eventually found him and had a chat for a while before we went back to find the others and then head on to the last bar. There wasn’t many people left so the last few of us went on to the last bar where we had our last shots and before long headed back to the hostel at about 3 in the morning.

Our last day in Amsterdam we decided on a walking tour through the city with New Europe tours as I had done in other cities. This one wasn’t as good as others that I had been on unfortunately, and half way through we left the tour. Amsterdam is a really cool city, but the tour guide wasn’t really that great at selling it. He tried though, which I think just made it seem more desperate. It was still a good way to get out and see some more of the city though.

After the tour, Kate, Lucas, Elese and I decided to venture outside of Amsterdam a bit and out in to the country site to a cheese and clog factory. It was a little farm run by a small family where they cows to get the milk to make the cheese, as well as some chickens and goats as well, but not for making of the cheese. They also had the equipment to make clogs, which we were shown, although we go shown the old fashioned way when they were made by hand. These days it is all done by machines and doesn’t take anywhere near as long to do. Seeing as we went in the afternoon, we didn’t get to see them making cheese as that was done in the mornings, but we did get shown a video of how it was normally done. Then came the fun part as we got to taste the different flavours of cheeses. They were delicious mostly, so we even bought some to bring back with us. They were little cheese wheels, covered in wax so they keep for ages as well. After spending a bit of time at the farm though we got the bus back to the city where we met up with the others so we could all grab our gear and start the journey back to London. We all had a lot of fun for the few days and it was a great way to celebrate Kate’s birthday!