Sunday in Amsterdam

Bob Simms had won a trip with Microsoft touring Europe

Sunday 1st November

This time Chris and I would be more organised. We would see the city from the canal. We walked into the outskirts of the centre and bought a couple of hop-on, hop-off boat tickets. Amsterdam is different from the water. For a start, you don’t have to be on the constant lookout for bicycles, although you can hire a ‘bike boats’ or pedalo. We took a relaxed ride up to Central Station at the northern end of the city.

Then the game of ‘What do we do now?’

When I was a teenager we spent a family Christmas in Belgium. On New Year’s Eve we hopped over the border to a tiny fishing village in the Netherlands. It’s main claim to fame was that it had the highest concentration of porn shops per square metre in Benelux. My parents, of course, could not go in because they had we four kids in tow. We kids couldn’t because, well, you see the dilemma.
I felt a little bit like my father now.

“Come on,“ I said. “I know you want to. The red light district is just behind that church.”

The red light district, despite its best efforts not to be, has become a tourist attraction. The denizens don’t want it to be. All the guides warn you against taking photos, and women, especially women on their own, are not made to feel welcome. We kept our cameras firmly out of sight as we walked through the streets, until we came across a large church, bells calling the faithful to Sunday Mass. It was incongruous, but where else would souls need saving more? We took a couple of snaps.

The cafes were dark and unwelcoming places. We occasionally caught the whiff of burning grass as we passed. Some had hookah pipes openly on the table. We didn’t go in. It would be too Clintonesque to have to explain to the owner of the sniffer dog at Berlin airport. “I entered a Dutch cafe, but I didn’t inhale.”

Far from being exotic or even erotic, I found the streets in the morning light to be seedy. There were conventional shops and offices in amongst the sex shops and cafes, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stay at any of the hotels there. My education was expanded by one shop, though. I had never heard of the word ‘condomerie’ before. Examples filled the window display, of every conceivable shape and size, and many I would never have conceived of if I had tried (am I over-using ‘conceived’ in this context?). In fact, some of the sizes were just showing off.

Chris had started sniffling. His Toulouse constitution not gelling well with the Dutch weather. We walked over to Anne Frank’s house. The queue was enormous, so rather than queue up we went and had a hot chocolate in a cafe. We’d seen the outside of her house; that was a tick in the box.

Back on the boat and off to Central Station again. I’d read the best view of Amsterdam was from the top of the library on the edge of the harbour. The library was a magnificent new building. Chris’s camera bag set off the security beeps at the entrance but we were waved through. Inside everything was brightly lit and spacious, with the latest technology. It was a thousand years from the dark and dusty reading room of the British Library. We rode the escalators up and up to the viewing terrace at the top of the building. Fighting the gale-force winds there we snapped a few shots.

“See that notice there?” asked Chris. I peered across the harbour. There was a tiny square of white on the railings there. Chris zoomed in on his digital display. And in. And in, until we could read the sign. “I love my camera,“ he said. I hated it, but remained silent.

Exiting, Chris set off the alarm again. The guard took him to one side and asked to look in his bag.

“Nice camera,“ he said, before waving him on without further searching. Apparently owners of such showy cameras were above suspicion of book theft.

We took a stroll towards the city zoo, and another boat stop. It started to rain, so we sheltered in a cafe and waited for the boat to arrive to take us back into town.

“I think I am allergic to rain,“ said Chris.

“Well, walking around in a fleece isn’t going to help.”

“I know, but I didn’t have enough room to pack a coat.”

“Well, maybe packing a camera that didn’t make you lean to the side when you walked might have helped,“ I said, but not aloud.

We boated back into Amsterdam as the rain worsened. We took shelter in a cafe in a packed shopping street and had some tea and cake.

“Have you had enough?” I asked.

“Yes. Let’s go back to the hotel and wait.”

So we sailed and walked back to the hotel. We were meeting the others there about six, then moving onto a hotel nearer our sponsors. I sank into the bar sofa, my jeans clinging to my thighs and my hat a sodden mess. It was half-past four. At a quarter to six Tjeerd’s hand on my shoulder startled me into wakefulness. In dribs and drabs the rest of the crew assembled, including two new members of the entourage, Stephen and Ian.

When I first heard of Stephen – especially when I saw his video - I had him marked down as my competition. Everything about him is big. He’s a giant of a man with a shock of black hair that looks like a hairbrush and a matching shaving-brush of a beard. His voice, when he wants it to, booms. He can deliver an unbroken used-car-salesman patter without pausing for breath. He’s also a comedian, throwing a comic Bruce Springsteen T-shirt at Ken when he arrived and demonstrating his sound-effects T-shirt he bought especially for the bus. I conceded the contest.

I quickly learnt that Ian is my real competition. He had a quick comeback for any attempt at wit from me, but was open and friendly as he did so.

We ate, then piled into the bus. Half of us were moving to another hotel as we needed to split into two teams to cover all the events on Monday. A seven-fifteen start in the morning meant we went straight to bed.