This weekend’s adventure was to Holland and Belgium. It was an early start Friday morning, again. I woke at 4:30 to be at a bus pick up point at 6:15am. Mark and I headed to the tube to go to the pick up point and the line we needed was closed due to a signal failure or something dumb. It was almost 6 and we were like – let’s find a bus. We head to the bus stop and ten minutes passes and I’m like – we can’t miss the bus!! I get a taxi and we get there at 6:15 and the bus doesn’t show up till 6:30 cause it was running late too. Haha. The bus was really nice and I got my own row which was amazing. We did a 90 minute drive to Dover, got on the ferry for another 90 minutes and then landed in Paris. Then, a wonderful six hour drive to Amsterdam. We had a stop for lunch which was nice in Belgium. We arrive early to Amsterdam and got an hour of free time exploring. Mark and I went to little shops and checked out the small city which was really cute. We headed to the hotel and had a dinner there which was free and called it an early night cause we were exhausted.
Saturday we got a bus tour of Amsterdam and then free time till dinner. First, Mark and I went to a sex museum. It was really interesting but woah. It showed sex throughout the ages. There were photos, manikins, movies, art work from all over the world, and some disturbing things haha. There were Scottish men EVERYWHERE because there was a football/soccer game against Holland and there were about 20,000 Scots there our tour guy told us. It was a riot and I felt in Scotland again.
Then we went to Anne Franks house. It was really awesome but at the same time scary because we went through the rooms that she lived and hid in for a few years. There was no furniture because the Germans confiscated it all, but when the museum was built, the father didn’t want it to be refurbished with new furniture. We went through the little door behind the bookcase and adventured though the few rooms. In Anne’s room, the walls still had pictures that she put up. Going through the office part of the building and then her part of the house had quotes from her diary that helped the tour flow and what it was like for her.
We adventured around town and saw different shops, stores, and cafes. The reason why the houses are narrow and tall and long is because back in the day, house owners were taxed on how wide there house was so that’s why many are sooo thin. There is also a hook and rope on top of each house because it helped moving furniture in the house than going on the steep narrow stairs.
After dinner, our group went to the red light district. The red light district is where women stand in windows trying to find customers. Amsterdam is very very liberal and prostitution is looked upon, not against. They pay taxes like any other job. We went to a sex show which was very interesting. I thought it was going to be worse than it was, but it was just couples banging on stage. There was a girl who smoked a cigar with her vagina which was CRAZY.
Sunday, our group went to Brugge, Belgium for the day. The city is really small and we pretty much walked a lot of it. We grabbed lunch and then went on a small boat tour of the canals. It was really pretty and cute. After, we did some shopping and got some chocolate haha and headed back to the bus. We didn’t get much time there like the itinerary said, but oh well. We went to a chocolate factory which was really small but the chocolate there was cheap and many free samples. Wooo! Then we bussed it back to France, caught the ferry to Dover, and landed in London around 9.
