Our second day in Amsterdam started off rather late... we managed to sleep in! We obviously needed the rest, but we still had lots to do. We decided to rejig our plans and go to the Hermitage Museum, have a few drinks somewhere and visit our first coffeeshop. So a pretty relaxed day, but we still managed to walk so much that our feet hurt!

This is a snap of the bank that we were stood on yesterday, to take yesterday's first picture (if that makes any sense). I thought it would make quite a nice picture to get a canal boat, bridge and the river Amstel all in one go... not hard to do as you would imagine!


Martin stood in front of the bridge I took a photo of yesterday. This was actually the first photo of either of us, when we go away we don't tend to take that many photos of each other - we're both more interested in taking photos of the stuff around us! Doing photography at college and uni taught us well, clearly.


However I did insist on at least one photo of the both of us and we managed this... it's pretty sweet! This was taken just after we'd been in the Hermitage Museum. We weren't allowed to take any photos of Van Gogh's exhibit, but we both really enjoyed it and it was amazing to see his art for real instead of in print.


On the walk back it was time for some touristy photos! I had to get a picture of a tram, although they're hardly anything special and are all over the world. In Amsterdam, the order of priority goes bikes, trams, pedestrians then cars - it's pretty bizarre when you think about how it is in this country!


This was taken close to our hotel, just outside Central Station. Just out of shot is an incredibly busy junction where it's just a mass of bikes fighting to get through first! The people on these bikes don't care too much for the rules of the road and will run you over whether it's a red light or not - which took some getting used to! We quickly learned to look both ways several times before crossing a road.


Later in the afternoon/evening we wanted to grab some drinks as we were pretty famished. I'd heard about this chain from a friend of ours so we went to check it out with a glass or two of Heineken! The chain actually split into three buildings, and the hotel/bar was pretty nice inside and bigger than I thought it would be. Although it did have some pretty strange paintings that I will show you in a video...


This was the café part of the chain, we didn't go in but it looked to be mostly the same as the bar we went in. In case you're wondering, this place was in the middle of the Red Light District, (if you couldn't guess from the neon sign) so it's perfect for pretty much everyone who's staying in that area, which we were.


After so much wandering we were desperate for something to eat, so after a quick stop off at the hotel we went for a walk through the Red Light District to find somewhere cheap and cheerful. Martin fancied pizza that night and this place was offering a pizza and a soft drink for 10€. It was a good choice because the pizza was very tasty, but the drink was in the smallest glass I've ever seen!


Afterwards we wanted something for dessert; we'd spotted this place "Crepes & Waffles" (imaginatively named) the previous day and wanted to try the "Old Dutch" crepe. We weren't disappointed, it was very tasty and absolutely huge, with lashings of whipped cream. Heart attack in a crepe but so worth it!


After tea it was time for our first coffeeshop! I'd read about this one online, and with house/trance music it seemed like a good choice. We were disappointed that when we went in they were playing everything but, despite us hearing house music playing from it earlier that day. Still, it was nice enough and had a giant elephant statue on the back wall!


Both of us decided to try a space cake, this one was a vanilla muffin. It did taste a bit strange, there was definitely something in there but weirdly it did taste nice! Nothing happened to us after eating these though, even though we'd shared a joint too and we'd never tried the drug before. Maybe we're just immune! But it was an interesting experience, can't argue with that.

After the coffeeshop, it was getting pretty late so we headed back to the hotel for another well-needed good night's sleep. We intended to get up fairly early the next day to fit in as much as we could... see how well we did with that in the next post!