Day two took us to Amsterdam to drop off and pick up the Dutch contingent. Now I understand the strange diversion North; the Cruise actually starts and ends in Amsterdam and they drop off and pick up stragglers on the way.
The Amsterdam Ship Canal from the North Sea in to the city centre is quite an experience, floating along at 15 knots, 10 storeys up, looking over the flatland vista of huge wind turbines, and massive barges.
Amsterdam city looks a somehow more modern since the last time I visited without a taxi dispatch salesman in tow, some 20 years ago. The harbour and docks area has (like most European cites) gone gang-busters with expansion; what is it about city dwellers that attracts them to slightly smelly former docks? Maybe it's our distant amphibian genes.
We spent the day wandering amongst the narrow streets and canals of the old quarter, still awash with Asian restaurants, cannabis cafés and (this always amuses me) signs for “slagroom” maybe that's what the note in the ship's instruction manual “go as hore” referred to, but I'm reliably informed that it has something to do with cream cakes. Oh the joys of language!
We ended up with a gourmet lunch of pizza, muffins and coffee squatting on the floor of the memorial in Dam square. We know how to live... :-)
A final wander round a market that seemed to consist mainly of junk, bicycle parts and tee shirts with vaguely drug-themed logos, then we made our way back to the ship in time for the lifeboat drill.
Now, imagine if you can, what Italian lifeboat drill is going to be like. Firstly, everyone will be checked for the correct designer labels and issued with Armarni sunglasses. Then the ship's hairdresser ensures that none of the ladies get in to the lifeboat without a shampoo and set, and a full manicure, while all men under the age of 40 are instructed on how to ensure that their mothers get a seat with a sea view. At one point a potentially dangerous situation occurs where a group of Italian teenagers flatly refuse to don the life jackets because, “like , orange-a just does not-a-go with my green shoes!” Finally, in a flurry of arm-waving everyone else makes a mad scramble for the boats.
Tomorrow a full day at sea, sailing down to la Rochelle for our first landfall in France.
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