Amsterdam, Netherlands, Fri 17 - Sun 19 July 09

Oh Amsterdam, ... well what else can I say except that it was a very eventful and party filled weekend! We were here for Nick's birthday, 8 of us ready to party.

Things Amsterdam taught me?

1. It will take 3 days to recover from a weekend in Amsterdam!
   
2. What happens in Amsterdam, stays in Amsterdam ;)

It was a fun city, we really had a great time. So the run down on who came; Nick and myself of course, my friends from Wellington Cherise and Tracey with their boyfriends Leighton and James, and my friend from working in Auckland Sam and his girlfriend Louise. So 8 in total.

We were staying in two apartments (4 per apartment) in what turned out to be the center of one of the bar districts (yepee!). I had booked it over the internet and didn't really know what to expect but we got really lucky.

They were 1 bedroom apartments so one couple had the room with another in the lounge and full kitchen facilities and big couches and tvs, great for hanging out. We were also literally right in the heart of it all. Although we were on the other side of town from the train station and the red light district we found ourselves in an area called Leidesplein which was the bar/clubbing area of Amsterdam. Perfect! Our apartment was just off the main street and was above a Thai restaurant. In fact people were hanging outside our apartment till 4/5am in the morning. Good thing I had bought air plugs!

We had to pick up the keys for the apartment from a hostel in a different part of town and when we were looking for it we walked up and down the street a couple of times before we spotted the door.. behind a thai restaurant menu! Felt weird walking up next to the outdoor tables with all our bags and unlocking our apartment door.

We had arrived late but luckily we were on a street full of restaurants and we found an italian one who would stay open to feed us even though it was midnight. Once the whole gang had arrived we headed into Leidesplein square and spent the rest of the night at the bars there.

On Saturday morning after a breakie of ham, cheese & fresh bread (yay go Sam our provider of tasty breakfast) we all headed for the Sex Museum for a bit of a laugh. All sorts of weird crazies there. We then split up with half heading off to the Rembrandt museum and the other half heading for Anne Franks house. Sadly neither had much luck as Anne Franks had a line a mile long so we gave up on it and the museum apparently only had print copies so wasn't worth it either.

So instead we went for a day time wonder of the red light district and found a nice pub for lunch where I tried Bitterballen (a classic dutch snack of crumbed meatballs with mustard). Weird texture, less meat and more gooey gravy but tasty. I also really really enjoyed the dutch frites with mayo we had at various times over the weekend. Seriously yum! The dutch know how to make good chips!

We had a big party night Saturday night. A great celebration for Nicks birthday. Of course we were feeling a bit worse for wear on the Sunday so we had a morning sleepin (go the 1pm apartment checkout time!). Again the group split up for the afternoon as Cherise, Leighton, Tracey & James had an earlier flight. So we went with Sam & Louise on a boat canal tour which was a cool way to see Amsterdam although the rocking made me a little queasy and put Louise to sleep! Some really cool houses along the canal fronts.

After that we hired some bikes and biked around Jaaden, an old pretty area of Amsterdam full of cute shops and cafes and then just biked around all the canals till it was time to head back to the airport. It was great fun, cycling is one of the best ways to see Amsterdam.

Milan, Italy, Sat 27 - Sun 28 June 09

What Milan taught me:

1. Milan is for art lovers and rich shoppers, there isn't too much else to do if you don't fall into one of those categories.
2. The food is fabulous!
3. Gelato is one of the tastiest things in the world, especially on a hot day.
4. Italian's like to drive ridiculously fast, even on crowded city streets. They also don't pay attention to red traffic lights or pedestrian crossings.
5. Italian's have a relaxed approach to service.
6. Mosquitoes love Milan.
7. Milan has one of the highest ratios of Smart Cars I've ever seen.

It was a late night in on the Friday and with limited maps it was a bit of a mission to find our hotel. Needless to say we took a wrong turn a few times. When we did finally find our way there we encountered our first introduction to Italian service. We queued to check in for about 20mins. It was 1 in the morning!

We took in the Cathedral in the morning before the sun got too hot and the crowds too dense. The Cathedral is stunning, tall intricate spires with a gold madonna topping the highest and a beautiful white marble exterior. The interior was beautiful too with unique statues and colourful stained glass windows.

We took the stairs up to the roof where you can walk all along the top, a very unique experience for a Cathedral. The sun was packing a punch by mid day so we took shelter in a shady section of the roof.

The rest of the early afternoon was spent walking through the town and up to the Palace where there are lots of museums and art galleries. We stopped for Gelato and to dangle our feet in the fountain, a much needed cooling off in a stuffy city. I had selected two separate types of gelato, mine was strawberry and mango. Nick had a melon, lemon & kiwifruit three type selection. They were seriously the yummiest icecream ever!

We attempted the park behind the palace but the heat and an abundance of mosquitoes made us abandon the idea and we decided to chill out in our air conditioned hotel room instead.

We had dinner in a small Italian restaurant in the shopping district. A bottle of Italian red wine, fettucine and pizza turned out to be one of the nicest meals out I'd had in ages. Italy does food miles beyond your local London fare.

Sunday was pretty relaxed since we'd pretty much seen everything already (yes there really was that little to do in Milan). We didn't venture out till the afternoon which turned out to be good because nothing opened till the afternoon anyway, and in fact many things didn't open at all.

We did some window shopping in the golden quad (think Versace, YSL, Gucci, Prada, Dior etc etc). But by the late afternoon the sun was beating down again and even worse than the day before so we treated ourselves to Gelato's for a second day in row and spent the new few hours people watching with our feet cooling off in the fountain.