Amsterdam and more

Hallo Hallo!
I know I know…. I haven’t written for a long time… sorry. I can think of few reasons for this; reasons not excuses. Firstly, incredibly busy! In the last month I have spent no more than a few days at a time at home, since I went Amsterdam, then Berlin twice and then Munich and inbetween that working. Second is a slightly weird language type thing, which I shall try to explain. I have bursts of desire to write, sentences and descriptions form in my head, and I have to get them onto paper. But recently that hasn’t been happening. It seems I may only have so much space in my mind or in my life for words and writing. And since my main purpose for bumming around in Germany is to learn German, when I can, I try to live my life in German; speaking, reading, writing and studying, so I wander around trying to translate stories in my head into German instead of just writing them down. Strange. Third, Nico had most of the photos, so I waited till I could put both story and picture up together.

Well, where to start? It has long since turned to autumn here, and everywhere the streets and landscapes are filled with Autumn colours! The days are often quite warm, but like in Australia the mornings and evenings get rather cold, although the scale is shifted a little to the colder side here. Nevertheless, I was able to enjoy the last of summer here, and since sunshine is rather more valued, the streets and parks have been filled with people obviously enjoying the warmth, me usually one of them…

This is the Englischer Garten and Ice Stream I wrote about in the last time in Munich.

And me… this is my ‘I am happy to be here’ pose. You may have seen it before... and you may see it again...

and now… the story begins… AMSTERDAM!!!!

A picturesque city of tree lined canals and bridges with their fairy lights reflected in the water, quiet pedestrian and bicycle only streets, old tall narrow buildings with simple yet beautiful decorated facades and of course one mustn’t forget the Coffee Shops and to thank the Dutch for their tolerance.

We rented bikes and made like the locals, wandering around without a plan, admiring the city’s atmosphere and experiencing everything and anything we came a across that took our fancy. We took a boat tour, went to the Anne Frank museum, watched a free concert in a park, went to a little art gallery, found an amazing second hand English book shop, strolled through the flee market and tulip market, and enjoyed all the usual pleasures of drinking coffee and beer, eating and chatting.

We stay with a girl from Couch Surfing who lives in a student complex build from shipping contains, all stacked on top of each other...!!

Have you ever seen such a house?

And...happy to be in what is definitely the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

What came next… BERLIN x 2!! But, sorry, I am all out of writing energy, that can wait for next time... which I promise will be soon-ish.