The Smoky Fun House

17 october - Got woken up by the sunlight and felt rather good despite the previous night because we'd had a mostly full nights sleep. Checked out of the hostel and proceeded to try to get in touch with Marcel - it took us until the afternoon because he wasn't answering his phone and we were stuck to calling in Internet cafes because we didn't have a number we could be contacted on.
We weren't going to meet with him until late afternoon so we decided to go for a bit more of an exploration of Amsterdam. First stop was the print media museum near the Dam - enormous blown up photographs taken from newspapers and magazines around the world as well as a fair collection of arty gritty portraits of wasted musicians (even Cliff Richards to our profound shock). Next we headed down to the Heineken brewery for the self-guided tour - on the way we were interrupted by the Amsterdam Marathon, which was being run that day - the runners we were passing for the most part looked like they'd been going for quite some time and I had a bit of sympathy for them but it was too depressing to hang around watching and the brewery was calling us.
It was pretty tacky, with a glamorised history of the shadowy corporation hidden behind the supposed passion of one man's desire to spread the joy of drinking his beer and a how-it-works display. There was a lot of space devoted to the commercials and some very unimpressive video rides where we learned what it was like to be a bottle on the assembly line (we had to BE the bottle) and a simulation of riding on a horse cart. At the end we were given a few free beers which could have turned out to be quite a few free beers (in the fifteen minutes we were at the bar we were offered several more but we had a schedule to keep).
We did do a bit of sampling throughout the day but we were taking it in our stride this time - and we didn't spend nearly as much time wanderingin circles, our map and the city seemed to correspond this time.
It took us quite a while to get back to Centrum to pick up our bags and then take the tram down to Marcel's small but functional flat.
Sander and Marcel and a couple of other people where there and there was much rejoicing. We had a few drinks and then ate a traditional Dutch meal of sausage and smashed vegetable and potato dish that was very, very filling.
Marcel, Sander, James and I then headed back in to town for a tour of the Sunday nightlife - quite a bit more booze and we were a little liberal on the other delights of Dutch intoxication - we'd wandered around the red light district the night before but even thoughit was a sunday the whole city seemed to be alive (and off its face). We did have a few drinks at a karaoke bar but we hadn't emboldened ourselves enough at that point so we had to be content with laughing at the combination of failed jazz singers, drunken businessmen and deluded-in-love duet-singing couples who were all very amusing.
Due to some of the medicinal qualities of the products we were ingesting we found ourselves constantly stopping off to buy food - and most of it was incredibly unhealthy - at the end of the night my stomach felt scarily stretched I was at a loss to think how it could all be digested. Considering our earlyish flight time and the Dutch's workingthe next day it was a very late night.
After we got up the next day and were steeled by some palatable coffee (on the whole the coffee in this country is, to me, pretty awful - quite strange considering that coffee shops are what it is famous far) before we headed down Marcel's very steep stairs and made our way to the aiport. I was quite impressed with how directly we made our way through to the aiport although there were some pretty woeful queues and no shortage of checks and rechecks (we were electronically screened twice and I was given one of the most intimate gropes i've ever received from a man in an airport). We finally made it to our plane and boarded just at the scheduled departure time only to be told that due to bad weather in London we're going to be delayed at over an hour (1020 tp 1130) - not very good to be waitinng around on the plane for so long but at least we know we're not going to miss it. Just been told until 1200 ... 1215 now ... Grrrrr. ...
Certainly was a very different city to anything else i've seen on the trip - very enjoyable but I don't think an excessive stay would be a very healthy option.