Friday July 22 - Nuala meets her Uncle, and other stories



Are we paranoid? - Yarmouth, Brighton, Amsterdam....?

The text message from Nuala came quite early, saying that she had landed at Schiphol, so before long, we were off the ferry and greeting her at Central Station. Then, as previously arranged, we met up with Terry & Kathleen for quite a family reunion in a café across the square. (Note that we met in a café, not a coffee-shop. “Coffee-shop” is a term reserved for those places where they can legally sell wacky-baccy and other choice products.)

Nuala meets Uncle T & Auntie K

Parting with T&K, we set off back to the boat and after Nuala had been inducted, oriented chatted and rested, it was off again for the day’s touristic adventures.

A shared chuckle

A note here is required about the very informative and helpful advice given in the Amsterdam Tourist Guide ;  In the Red Light District, one has to be very careful, apparently, as some of the women in the windows may not actually be women! Also, it seems, alcohol can produce undesirable activities such as jumping in the canals, which is not permitted. We read further that urinating in the street is frowned upon, this being an offence  practised mostly by men.

The centrepiece of the day was our  visit to the Van Gogh Museum, which we reached via a 1-hour walk through the squares, streets, boulevards and canalsides of the city—a great experience in itself. We had decided earlier not to visit the unique Sex Museum, since Nuala seemed to think that Debretts might frown upon visiting such an establishment with one’s father.



Van Gogh here we come



We rested the weary legs by returning to the centre on a “bendy-tram”, another memorable achievement. This gave us the opportunity to discuss our opinions on Van Gogh’s art over some pre-dinner refreshment  and then a fine dinner at “The Red Lion” ( not at all similar to the one in Freshwater, IOW). Finally, we were rested well enough to give our new guest  a guided tour of the “RLD”, before going back to Middlewatch for an end-of-day sundowner.

A well-recommended "Red Lion" (De Roode Leeuw")