"I had the best intentions, yeah honestly"

I'm sorry. I really did mean to update a lot more frequently. I actually started a big old detailed post about Nice & I's trip to Amsterdam. I ended up shying away from the post because it was going to take so damn long to do.
(sigh) achievable goals Flash, achievable goals.

Anyway, let me distill our trip into a bitesize selection of photos & words...

The little short building with the 2 windows & a sign above was our favourite coffeeshop viewed from the rear. It was taken just as we started one of the canal cruises.






This was the main entrance to the same place. It was just up our street (literally & metaphorically) & we ended up going back there several times during our weekend.
As you no doubt know, I'm quite partial to a doobie now & again. In this place, I first experienced the liberation of being able to sit in a public place with like-minded folk whilst enjoying a spliff or two.


This huge painting (sadly obscured by the light fittings) was in the back of the place where we often sat & I became quite attached to it. I thought it would make a really interesting conversation opener on my living room wall.
Alas, it was far too large to steal.
And it's not just because of the titties, right?



Of course, it wasn't all about getting stoned.
We spent a large amount of time simply wandering about; exploring the place.
I have to say that I found Amsterdam to be a odd city. It had a few beautiful sights but it was all a bit ropey in places too. Some areas simply looked dirty & some places (most obviously the red light district) had a very unsettling undercurrent of bad vibes.
Speaking of the red light district, I found it to be quite different from the scene I'd always imagined. For a start I'd never put a canal in there! I also always figured that it would be much more like a row of shops on a high street with each individual place having it's own unique way of displaying it's wares, rather than the totally uniform windows that the girls stand in. On our first visit late on Friday night, the girls were all fairly attractive & some of them were stunners. If I were the sort of fella who would ever consider paying for sex (which I am so not, by the way) I wouldn't feel too bad paying 50 euros for some of them. The next time we went round there (Saturday afternoon) we saw a marked difference in the type of ladies in the boxes. I'd feel robbed paying 50p for some of them!
On Saturday night we had decided to go & see a live comedy show. It's certainly something I'd always fancied doing. So we went to a place called Boom Chicago. Oh it was so desperately not funny. It's not like they didn't try but it was one of these affairs where the "comedy actors" did lots of improvised "comedy" taking their leads from audience suggestions. In the whole 2 hours I didn't laugh out loud once. Nor did Nice.
It was a major disappointment. We did, however, redeem the evening by having the most delicious ice creams afterwards.
(The photo has no relevance to that last bit, it's just nice.)
Our hotel was utterly shocking, by the way. Our room was more like a cell. There wasn't even a window. Oh, hang on, what's behind those curtains? Of course there's a window! It's just a frosted glass window that backs onto another frosted glass window from the adjacent room!
I'm sure it was put there simply so the hotel management could say "There's your window!"

Of course, we saw Mr. Rembrandt here but other than that we didn't really choose to be cultural.



We chose to be stoned.


I thoroughly enjoyed Amsterdam but I didn't totally love it has I had New York & Lyon.