A day out in Adam

Yesterday Bronwyn & I spent the day as tourists in Amsterdam
:-) I met her bright and early at the station here in Nijmegen (0800!) after she & Maurice arrived back from Morocco. The train trip from here to Amsterdam only takes about 90 minutes.

We spent most of the morning chilling in the Jordaan area. It's an area not really discovered by hoardes of tourists yet, and is a bit like Fitzroy. Groovy cafes, funky retro clothing stores, cats sunning themselves in windows, and not row after row of "coffee shops"! We sipped coffees by the canal, had a lovely lunch (accompanied by the obligatory glasses of rose) and watched the world pass by on their bicycles. VERY relaxing.

After lunch we ventured over to the "other" side of the city to do the proper touristy thing and check out the red light district. It proved a bit difficult to find, mainly due to the crazy street patterns in the city - they are all in half cirlces (due to the canals I think) and just when you think you are going in a straight line in the right direction, you end up back where you started from! But after some friendly directional advice from a local market stall keeper we managed to find it. Hhhhhhhmmmmmm...........not sure if business is slower during the summer months, if most of the "girls" were having a lunch break, or if the window rental fees are just getting too high but most of the windows had their curtains closed. And they all look sooooo bored, sitting there trying to attract customers. I think most people walking past were like us, curious tourists!

Overall, I think we made pretty bad tourists. We didn't visit one gallery or museum, take a canal boat ride, or smoke a joint in a coffee shop. But we definately had a lovely day and felt like we saw enough of the city to get a feel for it.

Alli xxx