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Friday 22 February 2013

A m s t e r d a m 2 0 1 3


We didn't get off to a great start on Tuesday morning. Everyone was happily seated on the plane, everything was going as planned, taxiing down the runway - but then the engine cut out. Engineers came aboard to try and fix it but they couldn't so we needed to take a coach to another plane, wait for it to be de-iced and wait for the crew to arrive. We were delayed by over three hours but as my younger brother said, "let's just be thankful that the engines didn't stop while we were in the air". Once we arrived at Amsterdam airport, Schipol, we got the train to the city centre. Within the first five minutes, we'd witnessed a drug deal and had seen a man pissing on the street corner, completely in open view for the public to see. Yummy.


Have you ever seen such a crazy amount of bikes?!

Things definitely picked up from there though: we arrived at our hotel and then went shopping, visited a tiny Catholic church, had a tour of a diamond factory, and visited a Rembrandt exhibition. We found a lovely Indian restaurant for dinner and I discovered the delights of butter chicken. Deffo my new favourite Indian dish.




The next day, we hit up all the markets and I bought some gorgeous boots (they're my new babies). It was pretty much a day of shopping. We also went on a canal cruise through the city which was beautiful and walked through an enormous park. I think we walked about twenty miles over the three days, so crazy. Oh, and we also accidentally wandered into the Red Light District... a little awkward. There were actually prostitutes out at 11am on a Wednesday morning. Mad. We had an Indonesian meal that night which is my new favourite type of food. Even more than the butter chicken.




Yesterday morning, we looked at a few more markets and did a lot more walking. We visited an old merchant's house which was beautiful and was a lot like the National Trust properties here.There's also this amazing shopping centre which is absolutely huge but everything in it is so expensive so I didn't actually buy anything. Our flight was at 4.50pm so we left the city at about 2pm. Thankfully, our plane was all fine this time and we were back at our house by 6pm which was so great. It was an amazing trip, and I'm definitely going back one day but I think it's more of a place you visit with friends than with your family. 

The shopping centre





Song of the day:

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GemKqzILV4w

2 comments:

  1. Sounds lovely! I hope you had a good time! And those boots are lush :)
    Kimmy x

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely, it's my new favourite city. Haha thanks, I'll be wearing them every single day from now onwards! x

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