Have You......

Ever had this much fun with a frisbee ?

Can't You..

Just see this as a future album cover?

Would You.....

Like a crisp?

Amsterdam ...... Part 3

Unfortunately our time in Amsterdam was over all too quickly and we were sitting on the bus heading back to the boat , there were still a few photo opportunities though.



can you see the windmill in the distance ?



A double decker train... not something I've ever seen before.



And a self portrait by Hub.



Leaving Amsterdam I was quite surprised to see all these beach huts,



as for some reason I never thought of it as being a ' beachy' place



but according to Hub some of the best kite surfers in the world come from the Netherlands.

Back on deck , there was entertainment for the young ones, Milo helped out Magician Mike



but I think Gabe liked the disco the best



he loves a bit of a boogie..



After such a long day we were all a bit pooped so it was a bit of an early night, for 3 of us it was anyway.





I was up bright and early the next day so I decided to go and watch the sunrise and look for dolphins which I was told you quite often see as you are heading up the English coast.



I didn't get to see any dolphins ( which was a pity ) but the sunrise was just amazing , well worth being on deck at 6am for.



If I showed you all the pics I took I think I might overload your computer :-)

All in all it was a great spontaneous trip and fingers crossed we'll do it again. Amsterdam is definately a place that needs to be explored more .

Amsterdam ...... Part 2

When I was looking through all my Amsterdam photos I realised that I didn't have nearly as many of the Red Light District as I thought I had which is a pity as this was one of the nicest places architecture wise that we managed to see in such a short time . Bearing in mind that we were there on a lunch time there were still "ladies working " but not nearly as many as I would imagine there to be on a night.
We were told that the Amsterdam officials are trying hard to improve the image of the area and were giving empty spaces to young designers to sell their designs and you could really tell that they were making a difference.


















As for saying this is the city of bikes - oh they are so right . Apparantly the dutch have another meaning for the word ' recycling'..... for example .... you bike to work or wherever and then when you come back to pick up your bike if it isn't there you just take another one .... simple as that . We saw a bike park where there were literally thousands of bikes parked over 3 levels !

Some bikes are more distinguishable than others . This one had a wooden box on the front with seats for the kiddies to sit -- wouldn't mind one of those myself ..



This was just a tiny bike park!!









We saw a few street artists but this guy was by far the best , when we tried to take his photo the first time he cleverly hid his face with his trident and moved his fingers in a ' pay me first ' motion, so when Milo took a few euros across we were allowed to take his picture. You'll get a better look if you enlarge the pic, in fact if you enlarge most of the pics you'll be able to see things better.



I think I'll leave my last few photos for the final part of the trilogy...... hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Amsterdam....... Part 1

Sitting at home on Monday lunch time when this conversation happens.

Hub ... let's go to Amsterdam?
Me .. When ?
Hub... This afternoon ..
Me .. What , are you mad that's too short notice - tomorrow?
Hub.. Ok, ( lots of button pressing on the keyboard ) booked ..

So Tuesday teatime we arrived at the boat, took our case to our little cabin with four bunk beds



and then went up on deck to wave bye to England. The big ship behind us was getting ready for a cruise around the Baltic.



The ferry crossing is an overnight crossing so it doesn't seem as though you actually spend that much time on the boat itself. We left at 5.20pm , and for once the boys were allowed to stay up late - there isn't anyway they would have gone to sleep as they were just so excited.



While they checked out the view I took some sunset pics.






It was a bit of an eventful night , with Gabe falling out of bed twice , getting used to the slight droning of the engine and Hub waking me up to tell me about the Blackjack he'd been playing on one of the upper decks!! We arrived in Amsterdam bright and early and then got a bus transfer to the heart of the city.

First stop food ..... the biggest chip portion ever and we had to scoop out nearly a bottleful of mayonnaise.



I had to take this one for all you UK peeps, can you believe they still have Clockhouse too !!



It is such a busy city and first impressions were not of the Amsterdam I had pictured in my head, there were too many shops for a start but things started to change though when we found the floating flower market ( where I wish I had taken more pics )



There were so many different types of tulip bulbs, fresh flowers galore , bonsai trees , even branches of cotton flowers , it was a lovely sight.





This is the back of the market with paintings on the back of the actual stalls and in amongst all that lot was a little shop that sold Christmas things and it was so pretty but there were big signs everywhere saying NO PHOTOS.....bah humbug.



There were so many backlanes we just didn't have time to explore them all but down one of them we stumbled across this little square.



Inside it was so quiet and peaceful, It was hard to believe that outside were hundreds of people going up and down one of the busiest shopping streets.





After the peace of this gorgeous square we ventured across to the Red Light District - but I think I'll leave that for part 2..