Amsterdam Canals

This morning we enjoyed the luxury of a sleep in, only possible when you're staying somewhere at least a couple of days. Heinze Stuke, the German cyclist who has been bicycle touring for more than 50 years, described home as anywhere you spend more than two nights. He is pretty hard core, but we are starting to feel quite at home here. Hard not to like a place with so many bicycles - where else would you see three random bicycles chained side by side, each with a Brookes saddle?

 After breakfast we bundled up our washing and went to see how we would cope with the IQ test of a new country's laundromat. Short answer is epic fail. We managed to stuff up just about every step. The smile of the brisk but friendly lady was becoming a little fixed by the time we finally exited with a wonderful bag of clean warm clothes each. While we were waiting for clothes to wash and dry we found a supermarket and had a brief, efficient and eye wateringly expensive experience with the Dutch health system, as we got a prescription which Anne had forgotten to fill back in Australia.

We got tickets for the obligatory canal cruise, and after lunch we wandered down to the pickup point. The cruise was great fun. The skipper was a extraverted multilingual guy who did a nice commentary in three languages over the top of the dreary canned commentary. I guess he gets plenty of opportunity to practice his patter doing the same circuit multiple times every day, but we enjoyed it. He was full of cheerful facts about the city and its waterways. According to him, though the canals are theoretically 3 metres deep, one metre is mud, one metre is stolen dumped bicycles, and only one metre is water.

Boat is a very nice way to see Amsterdam on a sunny afternoon. After disembarking, we stopped for a drink on the terrace of the Amsterdam American hotel, a nice spot to watch the world flow by. I don't know what the road toll in Amsterdam is. It is amazing watching a busy intersection, to see how the trams, cars, cyclists and pedestrians manage to avoid one another. Particularly as a high percentage of the cyclists seem to be texting, talking on their phones,  smoking, or carrying multiple objects like chairs, plants or large bags. Most have earbuds from their iPods and no one wears a helmet.

But it all seems to work. It is the most relaxed city I have been to, and there seem to be more people out on the streets, sitting by the canals, in little restaurants and bars, just having a nice time and enjoying life, than anywhere else I know. Could be because it is a public holiday here -Whit Monday - and it will all be back to business tomorrow. I doubt it though - those party boats will keep on coming I think.