Off to London this morning to Pete and Di's house.
Thought I'd give a little update on my day trip to A-dam yesterday tho.
Headed off to the city by train from the airport - looking the typical tourist with my Lonely Planet out. Wandered around town for a bit and was actually quite taken aback when I saw my first real postcard-perfect canal - it really does look different here. Also visited a veritable condom musem - a shop selling all sorts of hand-painted, crafted, stretched novelty ones. Was patriotically pleased to see the novelty koala condoms sold out before other national emblems! Later, a canal cruise taught me: A-dam's smallest building is a coffeeshop about 1m wide wedged between two other buidings and about 5 stories tall and one car a week drives into a canal.
The cruise tour was given in three languages, Dutch, German, then English. It's odd to be surrounded by languages I don't understand and not hear much English (except inside my head). While many people here speak English, I've actually mostly been approached in Dutch. Then when I look bewildered and blurt out a sentence including "Australia" they switch to English! I've found it helps to start all conversations with G'Day, just to eliminate any confusion.
Some observations: Catching public transport in Adelaide is no preparation for Europe's train system.
There is graffiti everywhere in Amsterdam, and lots of construction underway, construction workers everywhere, and quite a bit of rubbish in the canals. There's even roadworks on the canals! (blocking off and fixing the bridges)
You won't know you've wandered into the Red Light District in the middle of the day until you're walking past a shop with the banner "Nana's - the most vibrating shop in town".
Every major city has a Chinatown!
Mistakes made: wearing my plane clothes (jeans and a black top) out walking - its stinking hot over here atm.
Looking the wrong way when crossing the road - have decided its best to just look both ways several times and take safety in numbers.
Mini victories: managing to stand on the opposite corner of the street to the awning where a pigeon dropped a voluminous, wet poop on another tourist!
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