traveling 16

It's a wet day in Paris, it's also the May 1st public holiday which means that most things are closed and we'd planned a 'walking about day' but the rain has now put a damper on those plans. After getting cold and wet we're now back in our apartment waiting for the rain to stop. Barry has fallen asleep on the couch and I'm taking the opportunity to do an update of the blog. 

So, back to ...

... our final day in Amsterdam with Emma and Sam was a pretty good one.

We packed up our gear, took the apartment keys to the agency, put our bags in lockers at the train station and then went off to have a look at the World Press Photography Exhibition which was on at the Nieuwe Kerk which is a very big church on the edge of the Red Light District. As we wandered our way through the streets to get to the church, in a round a bout way because we were heading to the wrong place we realised that we were in fact walking through the Red Light District and I kind of felt a bit odd about it. It's one thing to look at buildings, shops, art etc - inanimate objects, I guess, but quite another thing to look at women selling themselves, as they sit or stand inside their little glassfronted boxes along the streets. Emma and I both felt a bit uneasy with it all as we walked through there. 

Finally we found the church that we were looking for and spent a good 3 - 4 hours looking at the photos and videos. As well as the photos in the competition,and documentary videos of between 10 - 30 minutes there was also a video showing the different photos with the judges explaining what it was about the photo that made it better than others. 

It was a very good exhibition and food for a good discussion over a late lunch which we had lin a tiny little downstairs restaurant. The most memorable thing about the lunch wasn't the food, but it was that the toilet was 3 floors up extremely steep stairs and coming down them almost involved absailing. 

After lunch, and every one had made it up and down the stairs safely, it was time to go and get our bags and find the platform for the train that would take is to Paris. Sam and Emma's flight to London was a few hours after our train so they 'dutifully' came to see us off, or maybe to make sure we got on the train, which of course we did and after saying "goodbye, see you in June" we were on our way to Paris via Antwerp and Brussels. 

some photos:

 

Emma and Barry walking into the church

 

Inside the church while they waited for me to finish looking

After the grandness of Rome, the fascination of Venice and and the beauty of Prague I didn't really garner any kind of feeling for Amsterdam, unfortunately. I don't know why - people were nice and friendly and we got around easy enough - either on foot or on the trams with no problems and the tram stops were close to the apartment. Once the apartment got sorted we had no problems. 

However, I must say that I'd been looking forward to these few days in Amsterdam with Emma and Sam with keen anticipation and I wasn't disappointed at all. We had a lot of fun, laughed lots, had some great conversations, saw lots of interesting things, and did some silly things like random dancing in random places - not Barry, he didn't do the dancing thing. When I think of Amsterdam mostly I'll remember thousands of mad bikers and fun times with Emma and Sam and Barry.

And now some random photos of Amsterdam

an Amstetdam tram

 There were lots of these tiny little cars and the zoomed along the bike lanes and, as you can see, parkrd up with the bikes

  all sorts pf things get carried in these, including 1, 2 or 3 children

 Sam's photo bomb!!

So it was goodbye to all that ond onward to Paris. This was a much shorter journey of 3 hours 20 minutes with the first couple of hours in daylight.

Some photos from the train window as we were speeding along

 

there were acres of glass houses between Amsterdam and Rotterdam

 the last photo taken somewhere between Brussels and Paris before it got too dim to take photos

And now it's time to go and find some dinner.