Amsterdam 2014

One evening we was having gourmet hot dogs and champagne when the idea came to us and we decided to pencil a date in and a few months later we booked the hotel and flights and off we went… 14 years of friendship and this was our first holiday away together.

Love 'em

Friday 25^th July 2014

At 7.30am, I left my house and into the cab. The cab picked all of us up and we headed towards Gatwick North Terminal. Our flight was at 10.50am and we arrived in good time. Despite being extremely tired, I was rather excited. We checked in, went through security, spent some time in duty free and made our way to the gate. When we was boarding the plane, there was a familiar face that I passed but I couldn’t quite work out who he was. Afterwards, we worked it out and we were boarding the same flight as Robin Van Persie. What a coincident! We decided to play a game were we would make up a name and an occupation. We had Scout the infector, the environmentalist; Liz the undecided, the diving instructor; Sky the crackhead, the voice over actor; Brooke the grump, the journalist for glam magazine. 

After some snacks on the plane, we had arrived in Amsterdam. The plane journey was very quick and took about 45-50minutes. When we arrived in Amsterdam we went out and took some pictures. There was some rain but only drizzle. We managed to find ourselves a cab driver that was around at the time and we asked him to take us to our hotel.

We stayed at The Golden Tulip West (Molenwerf 1, 1014 AG). It was about 20minutes from the airport. The hotel looked good from the outside and inside. It felt clean, spacious and the staffs were friendly. We arrived at 14.00pm and checked into our quadruple room. It was a lovely room. They had electronic doorbells, which I have never seen before. We unloaded our suitcases and all chose our beds. There was one double bed and two singles next to each other. We decided to get planning on what our days. We had taken some discount tickets and leaflets on the way up to the hotel too, to help us out with things to do. We checked the weather and also times and we marked things on the map. We had a rough plan of what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do them and where it was. It was a packed weekend but seemed very exciting. As we have been all friends for a long time and we trust each other, we thought it would be a good idea to have a ‘kitty’. This was one purse that we all put X amount of money in it every day and whenever we did activities or ate, we just used money from there. It was just a much simpler idea. Everyone agreed it was a good idea.

Trying to find our way 

Shortly after we decided to head into town by foot and grab some food. We wasn’t really listening to the directions and ended up talking to locals who directed us in the right direction. It was raining and we was hungry but it didn’t dampen our spirits. We got lost a little but stumbled across a restaurant that had nice décor and was reasonably priced. We sat down and had some late lunch. After a nice meal and refuelling our tanks, we walked into town, which, by now it wasn’t that far. We did intend on going to the Anne Frank House, however the queue looked ridiculously long and we wasn’t feeling a long wait so we decided to go take a boat ride along the canal. It was a nice boat trip, which lasted about an hour and 15 minutes. It had started raining hard during our boat ride and luckily it wasn’t as heavy when the boat trip ended. We did plan to go to the zoo but we decided that the weather conditions were not appropriate for going to the zoo. 

Boat Trip

We decided to go back to the hotel and to find a supermarket. The cab driver was nice enough to drop us off by a supermarket and then take us back to the hotel with no extra charge. Once we got back to the hotel, we messed around, drank and snacked, in between trying to get ready to go out. We all got dressed up and off we went to the red light district. It was busy and very strange to see these women in the windows dancing seductively. We then stopped at chip shop and had some famous chips and then a coffee shop and had some brownies. To me, it tasted really good. I couldn’t taste anything else but chocolate brownies. After the brownies, we asked around for a club that played RnB/Urban music. We were given the name Smokey’s. So the hunt had begun. We asked around and was told this way, that way, over there and after a long walk from place to place and asking around, we found the club.

It was a nice cosy club playing some good songs; one friend became a bit paranoid and was acting strange. One, felt dizzy and we needed to sit by the outside and I didn’t feel any effects. I was fine, maybe a bit dazed but I was aware of everything and no symptoms of any substance taking. Along the way to the hotel, I had a small moment of relaxed feeling but that feeling didn’t last long and it could have been because I was relaxed. I had no worries, no work and just enjoying myself in a different country with friends.

At about 2am, we decided to leave the club. We were peckish and somehow we made our way to a Burger King and got some food. We ate and then waved a taxi down and got back to the hotel. I was shattered and did not have any will power to stay awake. I completely K.O’d.

Saturday 26^th July 2014

I felt ok, I got up around 8-9am, and we got ready, as we had booked Room of Riddles for 11am. We didn’t have time for breakfast so we decided to eat after. We called the hotel to get us a cab for about 10.15am, which they did. We all were ready and arrived outside the Room Of Riddles a little earlier. We decided to take some pictures and then we called and got in.

The Room of Riddles was a very fun. The idea is that you are locked in a room and the key is in a locked safe with a code. The code is then hidden in the clues within the room, which you had to find and use logic to work out. It was very exciting and we worked well as a team and were told we found the first clue very fast. We definitely recommend it but I cant say more otherwise it ruins the fun.

Room Of Riddles

Hot dogs

Waffels

After the room of riddles, we got a Tram into Rembrandt Square, we saw hot dogs and we had to have that for lunch as that is how the idea of going to Amsterdam came about. The weather was good today and it was quite sunny and warm but rain was expected later. We got some hot dogs and we decided to get some waffles too. As we finished our lunch, it started to rain. It was quite heavy and so we stayed under shelter for a little while. We then looked at the map and Heineken experience wasn’t too far, so we decided to walk with our umbrella’s to the Heineken Experience.

Heineken

We arrived and there wasn’t much of a queue, which was good. It was better than we expected. There was a variety of things to do and learnt a few things about Heineken. It was great fun, it was a shame that none of us were big beer drinkers as you get two drinks free with the admission fee.

As we came out the queue had grown, thankfully we came earlier. The weather had brightened up and it was warm. We decided to hit up the zoo. We got a taxi to the zoo. We all was tired so we decided to go into the planetarium first. It was dark and a show was about to start. The man told us it would be in Dutch but we was welcome to stay to watch the visual effects. We decided to stay. The dim lights made us restless, where my friend actually fell asleep and started to snore. I couldn’t help but laugh. Shortly she woke up and we decided to leave the show. We left via the back door and we stopped for a toilet break and to refresh ourselves before seeing the zoo animals. We walked around the zoo and took pictures. It was lovely. I enjoyed it.

We headed back to the hotel and chilled after the zoo and we decided to just have a break. We made use of the coffee machine and we just sat about and spoke about life. It was really nice to do that, as we don’t get many opportunities to get to know each other as much now that we are all grown up with different jobs and busier lives.

Silly hotel moments

We got ready to go out and were an hour later than planned as we was too busy talking. We ended up eating at 11pm at a really nice steakhouse.  I ordered lamb chops and it was one, if not the best lamb chops I have ever had. It was really good. We wanted to head to the ice bar for some drinks before hitting up a club but when we arrived at Ice Bar, all bookings for the night were full. We decided to go straight to the club. We ended up going to a club called Abe, which was nice. It played some old school RnB and some urban music. We didn’t leave until about 3am and we had ordered a few drinks and I was definitely feeling it. I didn’t feel sick but was feeling rather tipsy. I again KO’d when we got back to the hotel. I tried to pack before I went to sleep which I managed it a little.

Sunday 27^th July 2014

I woke up around 8.30am and felt extremely hung over. My head was still spinning and I was still a little disoriented with a small headache lingering. I made a coffee hoping I would wake up a little, which sort of helped. We all finished packing and checked out of the hotel. We left our luggage with the hotel and decided to go to the Anne Frank House. The queue was probably worse then the first day we arrived but we waited, as it was something we wanted to see. We queue for 2 hours but had taken turns to leave the queue for a bit of browsing. We played some games to kill some time. Two hours later, we were at the front of the queue. The house was much bigger than I imagined.

After Anne Frank House we went to a well-known Pancake house, we had some Dutch pancakes. It was yummy! We had a bit of time to kill so we decided to walk back towards the red light district and go into a sex shop. We found a sex shop and went in for a nose. It was rather strange, not awkward though. It was rather funny. We then stumbled across a temple. We went in and learnt a little bit about the Buddhism and lit an incense stick each. We also stopped by a market place and did some shopping and had a look. We still had time to kill but we decided we would go back to the hotel lounge and chill on the chairs. We got a taxi back to the hotel and had about 30-40minutes to kill. We was just using the Wi-Fi and just talking. We then called a taxi to the airport, collected our luggage’s and off we went. We had some food at the airport and before we knew it, it was time to fly. Our plane left on time, 20:55pm. We got back to London but had to wait for a cab that took about 50minutes to come. We finally got home around midnight.

The trip to Amsterdam was jam packed and full of fun. It was definitely a memorable one! I had a lot of fun despite being extremely tired. Great trip and at a reasonable cost.

Total cost of trip for 4 of us -  £792.32 (Including flights and hotel, a quadruple room, for 2 nights) that is £198.08 each. Deal found on lastminute.com

I Amsterdam

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smbMOOW-eWc