I was walking down the main street between the main train station and Dam Square avoid puddles during a sun shower; the sound of bicycle bells and the smell of pot lingering in the air. I had arrived in Amsterdam.

My hostel was right in the heart of the Red Light District of Amsterdam, with some red light windows and a ‘Thai massage’ place on the same street. Unfortunately tho, the hostel was a ‘Christian’ one and wasn’t quite the same atmosphere as other hostels. It was however half the price of the big name hostels in town and had free breakfast, and the absence of other Australians and rowdy Englishmen was a plus.

My stay in Amsterdam was without pub crawls, museums and coffeeshops. All I wanted to do there was take photos of the beautiful architecture of the old terrace houses and canals. The weather didn’t help me much – rain followed by sun followed by rain. Still, I enjoyed my free reign on the city as I happily snapped away at what I found interesting.

I did meet up with a few people in Amsterdam. Amanda – a design student I met in Copenhagen was there with some of her friends and it was nice to see a familiar face at the hostel.

An old work colleague of mine from CSIRO, Niels, lives in nearby Delft and he caught the train up one evening to catch up over dinner and a few beers. I learnt a bit about the Netherlands’ history and about good Dutch/Belgium beer too.

My time in Amsterdam was short, but I had visited here before and wanted to move on and explore more of Holland outside of the tourist mecca of Amsterdam.

This post is tagged Amsterdam, The Netherlands