Just realised I didn’t wrap up the weekends activities.

Robot sex 

We checked out the sex show - the name had ‘elephant’ in it I think and was recommended by the Lonely Planet. What a load of rubbish. I guess I was intrigued so I’m glad I went so at least I can feel qualified to comment and also as it real is part of the Amsterdam experience.

I don’t know how long we were ther but I think we watched the full selection of shows. The show is based in a small theatre with everyone sitting civilized in their chairs while two guys go up and down serving drinks.

You are then treated to series of shows - couples doing their thing on a revolving stage broken up by shows featuring individual girls doing speciality acts. Have to say I was dissapointed not to see and ping pong balls being involved.

The whole thing was so emotionless. The actors were so automated with their routines it really killed off any sexiness. Safe to say that is the one and only sex show I’ll be going to.

What happened to summer?

For the remainder of the weekend we walked all over the city covering the bits we’d missed on the Saturday. It pretty much rain the whole time. Very miserable. I sensibly went out in flip flops. Idiot. Still we perservered and when the sun did come out it was beautiful. With a day to kill we browsed a lot of shops and stopped at lots of bars. Amsterdam is a great place for sitting outside drinking.

Hopefully next time July will feel like July…

As I said previously, I’m in Amsterdam for a long weekend. Just me and the missus. It’s Saturday evening and so far we’ve had a great time.

Got in to the centraal station friday morning and wandered west down one of the lanes looking for somewhere suitable for breakfast. Came across a coffee shop called Barney’s and stopped there for pancakes, eggs and bacon. Very tasty. We sat opposite some other english people who had just driven straight from Plymouth and parked outside. They seemed pretty boxed already, making their way through a large bag of something! I get the impression Barney’s is a popular spot as it features in the Lonely Planet.

Anyway, we headed to our hotel from there which isn’t far from the Vondelpark. One of the great things about Amsterdam is you can walk everywhere, although the tram is available if you’re lazy.
We’re staying at a b&b called Flynt. It is a small (3 rooms) family run place. The owners are very easy going (well they are dutch). There is a kitchen which is well stocked and we are free to help ourselves. This is good for them too as they don’t have to get up and make our breakfast! Wasn’t sure when we first arrived as they have a couple of dogs which kept barking. From experience you can forget a lie in with dogs in the house but they didn’t make any noise this morning - got up about 11. Now that is one of the real benefits of a trip like this. Since being a parent I can count the number of times I’ve slept to 11 on one hand.

Dutch Influence and Power

Walking around Amsterdam felt so familiar. I know I’ve been here before but it was different. Having just recently been to New York it occured to me that the two cities are incredibly similar. I don’t know if I’ve got this wrong but I seem to remember that NY was originally called New Amsterdam in its founding days. Then the brits got their mits on it and changed the name. The architecture is strikingly similar. Beautiful tall, thin terrace houses. I love the place. The edge it has on New York is the scale and the canals. It is just a beautiful city. Combine that with the dutch attitude and you can’t get much better.

It seems the dutch influence on the world is far greater than we self-centred Brits realise. There are so many shops and banks here that I know realise are actually Dutch owned. Thinking about even LexisNexis is Dutch owned - Reed Elsevier (world’s 3rd largest publishing house) has it’s headquarters round here somewhere.

Another Dutch super power based here in the dam is Heineken. We visited their brewery today. It is a good tour. Value for money too as for11 euro entry you also get three beers through the course of the tour. The whole thing is very modern. Not sure when it opened but it was all based around a lot of audio/visual entertainment including various interactive intranet, websites etc. They showed a very impressive corporate showreel that made you want to sign up exclusively to Heineken for the rest of your drinking live. The presentation was amzingly slick with a soundtrack by Tiesto. It seems they own 80 different brands of beer including Amstel, Murphy’s and Cruz Campo. Just shows, here we are thinking there are all these different breweries providing a diverse drinking choice when actually they’re all owned by a handful of major players. Guess the same could be said of most industries.

The Real Amsterdam

One thing that I have discovered about Amsterdam this time round is that there is so much more to it than the Centrum district with it’s red light sleaze, coffee shops and cheap food. This time we been all round the Jordaan district, checking out the boutiques in the 9 lanes (?) area.

Last night we ate at Brasserie Harkema in lower Centrum. The venue is a vast old warehouse beautifully designed and the food was excellent. We had three courses (including a perfect steak), two glasses of white and a bottle of red and the bill was 80 euros. You can’t knock that. After that we had a few drinks at Bar Bep followed by a couple at the Supper Club. I recommend all of them - we were definitely in the minority as non-dutch.

Today we made our way east from the hotel through the Vondelpark and what I can only describe as the ‘kensington” of Amstrdam. The area is beautiful. Away from the canals true, but it is made up of wide, quiet avenues of imposing townhouses and real villagey/community feel. I loved it. That took us to great street market along the Albert Cuypstraat where we ate frites with mayo. From there we just meandered up the east side of the city and back down towards the hotel. I even picked up a new pair of shoes for 50 euros!

The plan tonight is, seeing as we’re here, we’ll check out a sex show. I skipped all that previously but it’s one of those things that has to be done really!

Sitting here doing some work while Yash is watching CSI and they played some classic Kruder & Dorfmiester! That definitely took me by surprise. Saying that, I do like CSI, the producers really know what they’re doing but more than anything the music producer (or whatever they are called) consistently selects some great dance tunes - especially CSI NY.Hats off to the Yanks for that. Here we are, the Brits, thinking we are the dance masters, but I have to say I think CSI, as a franchise, has the best sound track of any tv series going.

They should definitely bring out a compilation. How about a CSI theme club night? Excellent! Everyone can dress up - Grisham, Sarah, Horatio etc. Just play CSI featured music all night.

Talking of CSI, I actually had my own work featured on Vegas a few years ago! You know you’ve made it when that happens… Well. Maybe not, but it was a buzz. The situation was that Sarah used her computer to look up information about a suspect and ‘did a LexisNexis’. The scene featured her go to the computer and put the guy’s name in to one of my search form interfaces!! Still makes me smile.

Anyway, I know I’ve been slack with my blogging recently. My life seems to be 100% absorbed in to the new job. Off to Amsterdam in a few hours. Maybe I’ll be able to add some entries from there.

So it is 20 past 5 and time to to sleep but I’m sitting here with Leo reviewing our notes. Not much to go through! Leo seems to be repeating to word winging alot… Hmmm. What the fuck did that mean? I don’t want to write for long. Just kinda sucked in to it. I’ll hand over to Leo now and see what he’s got to say…. This is going to be a quality speech. Actually I don’t think we’re going to get anything now.

Do you have any goss on Dan?

Send me your stories!

B