Went to bed after midnight last night. Stayed up listening and singing along with the ship entertainment for the night (great singer James ?)

After a not so smooth nights sleep on the ship and the noises that came from what sounded like an injured “sea monster” from above Steven’s bunk…(which lead to a sleepless night) we woke up awaiting our arrival at Amsterdam.

It was bizarre to see kilometres worth of wind generators out in the middle of the ocean about an hour out to sea from the boat. There were literally millions. (Ok maybe thousand or so of them).

Well I must say we weren’t that impressed with the cruise itself. The staff were courteous but not friendly and sometimes quite abrupt… Food and drinks were very expensive.

Amsterdam Ahhh what an experience so far and we’ve only just gotten off the boat!

After a long bus ride from ferry terminal to central Amsterdam we found it quite difficult to know where what and how we should go to our hotel. Amsterdam is an “organised” mess and mesh of narrow streets, canals, tram lines, bike lanes bridges and overpasses … How people get around here is beyond me…. So after stopping in a cafe to catch our breath and gather our information and of course to have a coffee (people here don’t believe in customer service and can be quite abrupt in their manner) my trusty navigator (SRS45) got us on the number 1 tram to our hotel…

A good 15 mins away from city centre.. Too early to check in, we left our luggage at the hotel and with my SRS 45 sat nav… We set off on foot to explore Amsterdam.

It’s quite nice despite the chaos.. So was our little picnic by the canal.

Next time we come here we’re definitely staying in a canal/ river boat!

A leisurely 1 hr canal tour was informative and interesting.

I didn’t know New York was settled by the Dutch and many of the NY names such as Harlem came from Holland.
Next a fascinating visit to Anne Frank house ….then Greek for dinner opah!!