Still in Amsterdam

mmm cheese

Still in Amsterdam :)

Friday was very wet, and spent a lot of the time just chillin in the hostel doing the blog.. That arvo I met Drew at the hostel, a mad dude from Sydney who had just come from the Burning Man festival in the States...something I now have to do :) There is also a burning man festival in Australia!!

That night Drew and I went for a huge walk around Vondel Park, this is an amazing place, great to 'chill out' and stroll around. It took around 45 minuets to walk the road through the park (and was really good to get out of the hostel for the day).
We had a few sneaky spliffs did some more exploring, and had some mad chats. I got back to the hostel about 3:30am and I crashed out hard.

Smart Shop

Saturday morning I managed to get a little sleep in, getting up at 10ish, I got down to the breakfast (30mins after it was supposed to finished) and still got some breakky :) lucky break. Drew came down a little while later and we missioned out for the day. We trekked to the down town area (near Central Station), to check out the sights. Drew filled me in on the 'Smart Shops' and we checked out a few on our travels, there is some really interesting stuff to be found in them :)

Nationaal Monument

We missioned all around the area and saw the 'Nationaal monument', 'Madame Tussards', and a few other places, checking out some of the local culture, and clothing shops. I grabbed a 6pack of Amstell on the way back to the hostel made it home and enjoyed a well earned beer :) Re-grouping we met Steve at the hostel and headed out to find a new coffee shop (Steve is a Canadian, who has been working in Edinburgh).

At De Rockery Cafe

We chilled out in the 'Rockery Cafe' 'indulging' and enjoying a few non-alcoholic beer (or maybe slightly alcoholic beer which tasted good - surprisingly), this coffee shop (also just around the corner) looked a little rough from the outside but was nice and chilled, they had a Buddhist theme, and had a DJ playing.  While we where in there we met some lads from Birmingham, then and we all cruised into the Red Light District.

The Red Light district was a real eye opener. Everyone is running on their primal instincts, you walk up and down the canals around the district and the women are standing in the windows in next to nothing motioning you to come in. One of the lads from Birmingham we where with went in to get some first hand experience from one of the girls and filled us in on the experience...lol.

Steve       and                Tyler

I did meet lots of people at Orfeo Hostel, Tyler was another person who I hung around with. He was a mad dude from America.
I changed to the Flying Pig Hostel Downtown, on the Monday morning, where Drew was booked into as well. I highly recommend the flying pig hostels they are awesome, they have great locations and are well set out, i thoroughly enjoyed my time spent there. On the second day at the Flying Pig Hostel I ran into Tyler again and on the same level as my 6 person dorm. So there was now the 3 of us from the Orfeo at the Flying Pig.

Biking in Vondel Park

After checking in I decided to rent a bike, this just has to be done in Amsterdam. The ride through Vondel Park is amazing, and was done many times. After almost crashing into another bike in the first hour, I got the hang of navigating the traffic without further incident. Biking was a great idea, so much easier than walking, and so much easier to cover distance.

Banksy

It did rain a lot over the the next week but that didn't stop me getting out n about. I saw some wicked graffiti around town.
This was actually in at the back of a cafe where Drew and I where having beers, Banksy yew, bit of a score.

Drew    and       Me

The Flying Pig cafe comes with its own 'smoking room', and while the weather bad you could always meet lots of peeps down there. I met Yonatan and his friend. Yonatan was from Australia and Israel, and is a photo journalist, he has some amazing pictures from the work he does in Israel. 

The House of Bols

On my last day I went with Tyler and Chris (from South Africa)  to the House of Bols. This was good fun, only $10Euros, and we got a cocktail and shooters for free. The picture is of a smelling room where you can smell all the different flavors that they offer.

House of Bols

Amsterdam was an awesome experience, it is so chilled there and people are really friendly. I would certainly go back.


Something worth noting is that there is a high number of physiological problems with the youth of Amsterdam, which is directly related to the weed, so it ain't all good in reality.

Some mad graffiti

I am now off to Munich, Germany for a few days for Oktoberfest before I head back to London. This should be exciting yew