Wednesday 10 January 2024

Left over, doggy-bag beef rendang and nasi goring with a fried egg for breakfast and a strong coffee. Now, that will start the engine! An amazing blue sky out the window but the dog piss and puddles are frozen, so still cold. Northern Europe is having a very cold winter with roads closed and snow and ice in lots of places. Good thing we’re here!

Lady P has booked the boat tour actually called ‘Those Dam Boat Guys’ run by an English bloke who just made it pre Brexit by having an Irish grandmother. The little boat took four of us and the skipper. I think he was a little hungover. He growled at his dog, a lovely little mut who despite his hot water bottle and rug, shivered the entire trip. Nonetheless, he was pleasant enough after scoffing two pastries and having a quite fart.

On board with us were an Irish mum (about 50 and well preserved, if not a little skinny) and her 18yr old son. Lovely company. As soon as we heaved ho, Shaun the son, lit up a joint and she Rachel, opened the Champers. Now, you can’t ask for better cruising companions.

It was a nice, relaxed cruise in a mini boat, no more than a 16-footer. We were given hot water bottles and a blanket, too.

Having read all about the ‘adult’ cruise mentioned previously, Flashy thought the little hot bottle contained hooch. Just good luck he didn’t spill scalding water over his nether regions! It was actually A HOT WATER BOTTLE.

We came prepared with cheese, terrine, eggs and red wine to sample on the cruise, and managed a glass of wine before the one and a half hour trip was finished. We now know a lot about the early history of Amsterdam and appreciated the architecture of the housing on the canals.

Afterwards, in need of hydration, we went to the equivalent of DJ’s. A very upmarket department store in an amazing building. It was called De Bijenkorf and I have included a photo of some smart person’s lego build of the building, encased in glass on the top floor. See how you go with that, Andrew.

Here’s a couple of interesting things I found out today. In the rich part of town, the parking on the street outside the apartment buildings costs 65,700€ per year. They charge by the hour and I have a calculator. Seriously? That’s more than I paid my PA back in the day!

Ah, so the ‘feeling better now’ skipper told us, it was to discourage cars in the city.  Well, I can tell you, there’s buggar all cars in Amsterdam. That’s why the city is so quiet. There’s 800,000+ people; 881,000 bikes and only 220,000 cars. Give or take. And a lot of the cars are EV’s as well.

After lunch of a burger and bouillabaisse in the food hall of De Bijenkorf, we went to the Resistance Museum. This was an excellent little museum full of how the Dutch dealt with the Nazi occupation. Not their finest hour. Next door was a little bar. That was pretty good too.

Home by tram to our spacious apartment.

The lego build of De Bijenkorf

Some canal pics