Long weekend in Amsterdam!

The last weekend in May saw myself & 4 of my work friends from Touchstone off on a long weekend to Amsterdam. Monday was already a public holiday and three of us took Friday off work as well to make the most of the weekend away. I was really surprised how close it is, only a 45 min flight from London but usual story with delays and bag problems meant the journey ended up quite a bit longer for Jess, Dave & I who went Fri morning. We finally arrived at the house we were renting for the weekend about 2:30pm and after a bite to eat walked into town to check the place out.... I loved Amsterdam - it's a very relaxed place that has a quaint beauty to it - it was great to just wander through the cobbled streets getting lost in little neighbourhood pockets in between all the canals.

I think our best move was hiring bicycles on Saturday for 2 days which was loads of fun and great to get around town on - if not a bit dangerous ducking & weaving our way through busy streets of cars, trams, bikes & loads of pedestrians! There were a few near misses, particularly since Jess & I hired dutch bikes which by definition only have foot-pedal brakes and no hand brakes... I actually did come off at one stage as we turned a bit too quickly the wrong way down a one way street - the first of our group to become properly Amsterdamaged!

Saturday night we tried out the nightlife which is slightly dubious given the nature of the place but nonetheless we had a very good night, downing vodka & redbull like there was no tomorrow! We went for a walk through the red-light district and saw all the girls lit-up in their windows ready for clients to just wander in and a few interesting characters out & about.

The house we stayed in was massive with 4 bedrooms, lounge, dining, kitchen, etc and was located just south of town in the museum district.

Weather was pretty good as well, reasonably warm & only rained on our last day, and yes, we did do something cultural - went to the Rijksmuseum & saw alot of Rembrandt paintings & other old artwork including the famous Night Watchman canvas wall painting which was interesting.