It’s a busy life being a tourist, so much to see and do and really never enough time. So forgive me if my current writing is lacking, remembering of course I am writing this for my old age so I can remember my life. Some would say old age is just about now. I don’t. I refuse to get old.

Today, after a rather substantial buffet breakfast in our hotel, we headed off for a walk around Old Town.

Such an interesting city.

Many of the buildings are crooked with large hooks extending out from their top floors.

It’s quite bizarre to see such crookedness, we couldn’t quite work out why. Ann reasoned it was to bring furniture up to the top floors. Very good reasoning I thought. MoD figured, some by design, some by nature. Later in the day our boat tour guide Christian told us that many buildings were initially warehouses (hence the hooks) so they were built to lean slightly forwards to ensure the facade wouldn’t be damaged when they pulleyed goods up. He also said some were built on ‘sticks’ which had moved over time.

I took A LOT of photos….

MoD and I had to eventually leave the group to head back to the hotel – due to a required toilet stop and no public toilets to be found. Having said that, on the way back we found a little underground type of shopping mall with a toilet sign. Unfortunately you have to pay to use toilets here. The turnstiles are quite tricky to squeeze under.

After our big walk it was time for a rest before we all reconvened for a wine and beer boat cruise. As we sat down another boat pulled in behind us, which impressed MoD and I quite a lot. Couldn’t hear a Kiwi accent though.

I’m not sure where our hosts Christian and Captain Pablo took us, there are so many canals here it gets confusing, but we did go by the Opera house and through the richest area in Amsterdam. Where the Rolling Stones have property. They didn’t appear to be in residence. It was a pretty cool cruise with lots of laughter and making sure we got our money’s worth of wine and beer. To start the ball rolling Christian gave us all complimentary housemade caramel vodka shots – which were delicious. Naturally Ann and I had to buy a bottle. Somehow Julie Kay got a smaller bottle thrown in for free. Not sure how that happened Julie? Did you bat your cute little eyelids again????

There were a lot of interesting house boats. Apparently you can Air BnB them and there was some talk that we will do that next time. These photos below were taken by Julie (thanks Jules).

By the time we docked we were all pretty merry, in fact the next group asked us to come back and go with them. Alas we had other things on our mind.

Like food. When we travel, it seems all of us have two meals a day. Breakfast and dinner. By 4pm we were all a little hungry.

I was keen to get some hot chips. Brian and Mark had decided a good feed of meat was in order – Argentinian was on their mind. Killing two birds with one stone, we found a cool little Argentinian Grill and by 4.30pm, there we were, sitting down to eat, like old people. The food was delicious and due to that rather large intake of alcohol already consumed, and just the fact we all love being together, it may have been a hilarious and rather loud meal.

And just for that, here are some more photos from the day, beware there may be duplications, which naturally I shall blame on the internet here.

After that it was time to take in the seedier side of the city. To be honest, I found it quite a sad life for these girls. Standing in a window, calling out to passers by to seek business, and being googled by tourists like us.

I didn’t take photos of course, but took these two (below) on the way back to our hotel.

Another early night. Big day tomorrow with three different museums to visit, including the Anne Frank House – can’t wait to see that. The first ‘war’ book I ever read. It had a lasting effect on me as it would have for anyone who read it. I will take tissues.