I woke this morning to a hostel in near darkness. The electricity had gone out and wouldn't be coming back on until the afternoon. This meant no shower, not because there wasn't any hot water, but because I couldn't find the thing. I managed to get a wash and brush my teeth with the aid of a few well placed tealights.
Today I felt should be a day of exploration and yesterday I made an observation. All the "everyday" "normal" "boring" people of Amsterdam seem to ride bikes, yet the good looking, young and cool people all ride scooters. This meant only one thing...... I needed to get me some wheels!
I hired a bike from a place behind the trainstation. Was a good deal I thought, 2 days for €12. This is my ride >>>
Now, I'm a fan of extreme sports and I like to get the old heart pumping and adrenaline surging, but no extreme sport can compare to trying to ride a bike in Amsterdam. It's chaos. Infact here's me tying it >>>
It doesn't look much like chaos. But they come from nowhere. They're like ninjas.
I soon found out how the roads work, especially after nearly been hit by another tram and then seeing a man crash and bail off his bike.
If you've never been to Amsterdam before, here's what to expect:
Bikes, trams and cars have their own designated roads, yet car's drive in the tram road and a bikes cross a tram road. Bikes go down a car road and cars go down the bike road. Oh, and bikes can go on the path. Clear?
I rode around for hours, just getting lost. Was a lot of fun. I went to loads of museums including the Van Gogh but they were all pretty expensive so had to give them a miss. I went to a diamond museum instead which was pretty cool seeing all the diamonds being cut. They tryed to sell me some stuff at the end but I didn't have a spare 18 grand for a necklace.
I managed to find my way to the Anne frank house though which was quite good.
It was quite weird at the end though because it was showing a video of the EDL rioting and it showed Bradford. Random.
And on that bombshell, I'm off down to the bar for a drink.
Night!
