Are you getting married soon?

Then why not head to Amsterdam for your stag night/hen night. Every other bugger seems to. So, Amsterdam; get comfy, this may be a long one.

I arrived in the Netherlands at about half four on Friday afternoon, got from the airport to the city center no problem (my parents didn’t; oh how I laughed, I didn’t get lost and they did!). It took me a while to find the hotel because it was at the opposite end of Dam Square from where I entered. I met up with my folks in the hotel and headed out to find a place to sit and have a pint, but we ended up having a meal there too because I couldn’t really be bothered moving. We then headed back to the hotel and just chilled out for the evening.

On Saturday our first port of call was to the Canal Bus shop to buy tickets. These are boats that you can either treat like a bus (take it from one stop to another; tickets are valid for a day and a half) or take the canal tour, which takes about an hour and a half. We started by doing the full tour and pinpointing the stops that we would need to get off at for various places of interest. The tour also told us a great deal of info about Amsterdam and its canals.
After returning to the start of the tour we took the opportunity to re-group and discuss our next action by going for a pint of larger, actually it may well have been a litre.
We hopped onto the canal bus again and head for the Rijksmuseum stop. We found a little restaurant and had some lunch and head straight for the Van Gogh Museum. It was very interesting, but I will admit that it wasn’t really my thing. The shop does a nice cup of coffee and a good apple strudel though.
After a pretty full day of walking around we all headed back to our rooms in the hotel and chilled for a bit.
Saturday evening was wet. We headed out to find somewhere to eat and ended up in this amazing side street pub/restaurant thing. I can’t remember what it’s called otherwise I would give it a shout out (my blog holds such commercial appeal). It was brilliant. It’s very rare for my Mum, Dad and I to all find a menu that is so hard to choose from. We had really amazing food and a good time laughing out how I could of dropped the head of a king prawn into my drink (I didn’t, honest!) We all walked back to the hotel slowly feeling that kind of sick you get when you’ve eaten too much good food.
I also did something on Saturday night that I haven’t done in years; I sat and watched Casualty with my parents. Goodness.

Sunday was a more leisurely start. We walked up to the house of Anne Frank (we didn’t go in. Nothing says 'fun' like visiting the house of a family who were dragged off to their eventual death in World War II) and got on the Canal Bus and head for the Rijksmuseum stop again. Heineken Experience here we come!
It was closed for renovation. Balls.
We took a walk down the canal and stopped in at a pancake shop that I spotted from the boat the previous day, stuffed myself full and waddled back to the boat. We headed back to the city center for a few bits and bobs (thanks to the nice man in the Apple section of the De Bijenkorf Department store!), hung around the hotel for a bit and headed to – what I consider to be – the high point of the weekend: The Amsterdam Dungeon. Not having been to the Edinburgh or London Dungeons I can’t really compare them, but this was GREAT fun. We were in a group of about fifteen to twenty people who had a really good time. As usual at these kind of things there were two or three people who got picked on a bit more that everyone else; one girl and two guys. Unfortunately I was one of the two guys.
The bit I enjoyed the most was the mirror labyrinth or possibly the haunted house section were stuff moves and doors bang and stuff. The whole thing ends in a little rollercoaster, which was pretty clever. I will check out the Edinburgh Dungeon, check that out and report back at some point.
Sunday evening it was decided to go back to the same restaurant as we had been in the previous night (we knew we would find something we liked!) but we didn’t eat as much as the last time! We also went earlier as I had to pack for the next day.

So all in all a good weekend with my folks. Thank you once again to my Mum and Dad for everything. I could give you today’s events in detail, but there’s no point. I got Catriona home with no bother and that’s what I went out to Amsterdam to do.

Now, I must go and hook the espresso machine up to my veins so I have some hope of staying awake until seven this evening.

Until next time: Cheery-bye-bye!