The Dam

Second year in a row I've spent New Years Eve away from home. Last time in London with Ruby ( I never got around to write about it though :( ) and this time Amsterdam with Mr. Special :) 

We got there on the 31st and were welcomed by the hotel administrators warning: Beware of the fireworks that people blow up randomly on the streets and she wasn't exaggerating: every now and again you could hear a big boom somewhere. The culmination obviusly came at midnight. Before that we went to have our last meal at an Italian ristorante close to our hotel, it had been recommended. Ummm... not so good though :D At first they wanted us to sit right next to the door that didn't close properly... well no, do you have any other tables? Upstairs they did, so we could sit next to the window which was better. Now my favourite food is pasta carbonara probably but if not made properly it can be awful so I'm always too afraid to order it and this time probably with good reason. My next usual meal is lasagne which is always alright, so I ordered that. Lets just say I wasn't fond of it this time :( To be fair it wasn't a proper Italian restaurant: the people running it weren't Italians - just some frauds :D

It was raining and initially we had planned to start going to the main official event around 9o'clock. In an unknown city you just can't expect how many people would turn up and how early. I think in London we were at our place waiting at least 2 hours, probably more but it wasn't raining... So I was hesitant to go there that early. The journey should''ve taken us about half an hour or so... I think we started walking then about quarter to eleven... Everyone was out on the streets and now you could hear loud bangs and booms more often obviously.What was confusing though was that people went in every direction, usually you can follow a mass of people to a big event but not in Amsterdam since mini firework shows are all around town made by normal people so when we asked someone who was helping people and traffic etc, where do we have to go he just looked at us stupidly like stay here if you want (we were on some square), doesn't matter. We were persistant though and made our way to the main spot where luckily for us weren't a huge mass of people so you couldn't move or see anything but a nice crowd :) We got a spot were we could see a panorama of fireworks: the official city's show on the water, behind and around us fireworks by normal people. And the latter didn't stop until about 3 o'clock in the night and it was constant wow.... I've never heard anything like that before so a good experience.

Getting back to our hotel was an adventure in itself and yes we are the boring people who don't go clubbing and drinking our arses off :D There was practically no room on the streets to walk and every now and then someone in front of us would stop suddenly: someone just lit another firework right on the street where hundreds of people are walking! We will die this evening :D and soon enough we heard a loud bang next to us and a minor explosion under a row of motorcycles... no fire though so I guess it wasn't too bad but the initial reaction was like omg!!!!omg!!!

The three days we were there weren't enough surprisingly. I felt that there was so much more to see and do. We obviously did all the main tourist attractions: Anne Frank's house - well worth a visit! But be sure to book a ticket online because the queue outside the door is enourmous, about 1,5 hours... The Heineken Experience from what I kinda expected more, don't even know what but more like a factory sort of thing but it is made for masses and therefore doesn't have that educational factor that much as a wine celler would have I guess. Although I'm glad I've been :) The Tulip museum - didn't know tulips had that much history!!! For example that they are actually imported from Asia and once were very and I mean VERY expensive. Of course multiple cheese stores/museums :P That was our lunch because in every shop you could try the cheeses: free food yay ;) üüüüüü and we visited a sex museum :D when in Amsterdam...

Didn't go to any coffee shops or tried special brownies, because neither me nor Mr. Special are particularly fussed about that notorius side of Amsterdam, we did buy chocolate though that had a tiny tiny portion (probs just flavour though) of cannabis. I didn't even try that :D For some reason whenever I'm with him I don't want to eat chocolates or sweets really :D Oh boy how he was nervous of bringing it back to the UK with him in hand luggage: he now calls himself a drug smuggler -.- Dude relax... It's just chocolate... But a new thing he tried - I don't experiment with food because I'm picky - was a bacon and banana pancake... he liked it... Weirdo.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...