Now that I’m Drunk, I want a Kebab

The next day was a series of events different from one another but all very indicative of the nuances of Amsterdam. Started off with a 4 hour bike tour on “Mike’s Bike Tours” in which about 13 of us were led by a young tour guide on California Beach Cruisers through the city and out to the countryside. No helmets, no waivers, we didn’t even pay before we left, just hopped on and made sure to pay attention when the guide would look around behind him and shout, “Watch out for that car!” Bikes take precedence over pedestrians, but you have to make bloody sure the tram isn’t coming through the street when the single file line of bikers are trying to get across! The tour guide told us some interesting stories about the city. Amsterdam experienced many firsts in its day; first to have a stock market, first to make a republic, first to legalize prostitution, etc. Learning about the history made me really understand why Amsterdam is the way it is, and why the Dutch are such laid back, honest, and care free people. The countryside part of the tour included a stop at a windmill which appears in many of Rembrandts paintings, and then on to what the tour guide called a “mad farmer’s” cheese and clog farm. (Imagine Goldmember from Austin Powers) This crazy Dutch farmer gave us a personalized tour and even crafted a clog right in front of us with woodchips flying everywhere – health and safety completely out the window.

The afternoon put us back in time for a tour of the “Heinken Browerjen.” This brewery tour is quite new in existence and was extremely modern in its design. It was incredible to see how the Heineken family have strived to produce a superior quality of beer and was interesting to taste the key ingredients barley, hops (a green plant - probably why Heinken tastes like weed to me!), and “A” quality yeast used to make this beer. The tour ended up taking us over 2 and ½ hours and did include quite a bit of free beer drinking in a futuristic neon lit bar with rowdy European beer drinkers. After this was a mad rush back to Central station to hop on our 9 hour train to Berlin arriving at 4:30am! I couldn’t wait to see the family the next morning and later get back on the ship…