When we arrived we expected to have a day to ourselves before we caught up with our Oktoberfest buddies again, but turns out they were there a day early as well. We decided to get stuck into it and headed out for the night. We were staying in a funky backpackers with awesome 2-4-1 deals so we didn't leave in a hurry.
Amsterdam at night is like one big neon light show - everywhere you go there are blue, pink, red, yellow, orange, green glows coming from every corner. It was enough to keep anybody with a short attention span entertained. We also came across a bit of an amusement park with lots of rides but try as we might we couldn't get Matt onto another ride!
And we did cruise the red light district, which is just a must when you visit the city, kinda hard to miss. Although it had the feel of a wondow-shopping sleazy style. Walking past all these street level glass doors with red lights in the background and a different girl in each window "selling" herself. It is definitely nothing like we'd seen before! And the district seemed to go on for miles!
So our three nights were spent pretty much in a different pub or club. Matt and I managed to squeeze in an English-speaking movie, which was very novel! It seems like the most mundane thing to do when you're visiting a city like Amsterdam, but we were so excited to find a cinema. We also had a good time watching England go down to Russia in the Euro Cup qualifier and then reading about it all in English papers the next day, ha ha!
We also met up with Matt's cousin Helen who showed us round the shopping district, the flower market, and pointed out some good places to visit if we were there for the culture as opposed to the pubs. We had a really nice lunch in this cramped three story cafe but seeing as it was rainy and freezing outside we were happy to stay there for most of the afternoon. Matt and Helen figured out it had been 13 years since they last saw each other, so there was lots of catching up to be done!
The strangest thing that did happen on our visit was a bit of role reversal for Matt and I - I visited spew city on our last night (ewww) and he got up in a karaoke bar and sang his heart out. It was all the sing star practice he had before we left Brisbane! He belted out Ice Ice Baby and Baby Got Back and oh how we laughed and laughed and laughed! Lots of fun though. And we met up with some Irish girls who invited us to visit them in Cork when we get over to Ireland. We just may do that cause they were lots of fun and we had a great night out.
So big and good times in Amsterdam. The worst part was boarding a cramped EasyJet flight for London with the worst hangover I've had in a long long time...
