Flying visit to Amsterdam

It's been a few days since I posted on my blog, one pretty good reason is that late last night Robin and I returned from a brief visit to Amsterdam!

Robin was having an interview with a Dutch company and we took the opportunity for me to go too. We left Oxford at 2pm on Monday and set off to a job interview in Wokingham for Robin.

At quarter to five we then started for Gatwick airport - alas, the traffic was not on our side and when we finally arrived to check in they were not sure we'd even make the flight. Thankfully we did (after a bit of running through the airport - and some anxious minutes waiting for our passports to be checked!)

The flight itself was fairly uneventful, although there was a lot of turbulence.

Taking a taxi was again, rather stressful - mostly because we suspected we were on a wild goose chase which cost us 60 Euros!!!!!!! And the hotel was not the best. We found the room oppressively hot, and it smelt of stale smoke. Plus the decor was very dated and needed updating. Oh, and the towels....... Don't get me started on the towels!

I slept fine in the end though, Robin less so. Breakfast proved a bit of a muddle too, but on the most part was okay.

We then took a taxi to the company Robin was interviewing with, this left me close to the Ajax stadium. With a few hours to explore. I walked to the nearest Metro station, and after asking for a bit of help in understanding their ticket system I made it to Centraal station in the heart of Amsterdam.

Having clearly identified the areas I did not want to visit, I set out to explore the city. There were piles on mobile phone shops, McDonalds, H&M, C&A, Hema, Etos and many of the other high street names in the Netherlands - I found that it is THE place to buy shoes and ornate jewelry (I did however resist buying any!) but thought it lacked much character really - the obvious cannabis and sex related items, which were everywhere, were pretty annoying after a while.

The canals were pretty, there were some tulips around the place, and piles of shops selling clogs of all kinds. All of which you'd expect I guess, but Amsterdam held no charm for me I'm afraid.

The highlight for me was sitting on the side of a canal and enjoying a bit of the sun, when it finally stopped spitting with rain, oh, and the ease with which we were able to take a train back to Schipol airport.

Both Robin and I didn't much like Amsterdam, it's certainly not somewhere I'd visit with our kids, there was little to hold their interest, and lots I'd like to prevent them from seeing. Funny though, as we have really enjoyed other parts of the Netherlands.

I have to comment on two of the services we used, but I'll devote separate posts to them....