Amsterdam

Monday 4th October 2010

Our transfer from the ferry terminal into the centre of Amsterdam took about 45 mins. Lots of people appeared to go from Newcastle for the day. Assuming everything ran on time you would get in to the centre about 10.45 and the last bus back was due to leave at 4pm prompt. Worth thinking about.

We had a really good day. We spent a not inconsiderable time trying how to work the left luggage lockers! When we left home we had appointed John to be time monitor, Donnie to be money monitor, Cath - medicine monitor and me blog monitor. Having finally deposited our luggage Cath had the additional responsibility of technology monitor. Within minutes one of us was nearly mowed down by a tram and another 2 by cyclists. As a consequence Donnie became health and safety monitor!

We took a canal cruise in lovely warm sunshine, had a beer outside at a cafe, walked around the red light district then had the most fantastic steaks in an Argentinian restaurant. They were not as good as we had in Argentina but fabulous all the same.

By the time we were safely installed on the train John was now officially travel monitor and I am also camcorder monitor. Division of labour is de rigeur with us!

Whilst in Amsterdam we had spent a while looking for a supermarket to buy provisions for the train. Cath and I showed our female side and asked someone. We were directed to a biggish one not far from where we were. Having made our important heavy glass purchases and a fine selection of salady things and carried them around we realised there was a branch of the same shop actually in the station. C'est la vie.

We got on the correct train no bother and left Amsterdam enjoying a beautiful sunset. So exciting.

There were not many in our coach - a single man who was English, a lovely Russian girl who worked in Amsterdam (she was immediately christened 32 'cos that was her compartment number!) and us.

We spent the rest of the evening making sure we would not have extra glass bottles to carry around and enjoying our picnic in good spirits.

It takes me half an hour to do all my eye drops before bed so the world was asleep by the time I had done all of that and been to the loo. The problem was that I couldn't remember our compartment number and there was silence everywhere! I tried one door which fortunately was empty, gave a gentle knock on the next one, nothing happened so luckily a call of "John!" let me in - to a different compartment!

End of a wonderful start to our trip.