Farewell to Amsterdam

We woke early this morning, up before 7am. Now Suzie and I both like our early morning wake up fag, so we trotted down to the street - all hotels in Amsterdam are non-smoking - in our jarmies with coats over the top. Sat on the chairs of a cafe not yet open and watched Amsterdam wake up.
After brekkie we planned to walk in to the centre of town and take a look at Madame Toussards. As we wandered from our hotel, just a dozen or so doors down we found the most beautiful little Dutch quilt shop, selling fabulous reproduction Dutch fabrics. Could have spent a fortune, but resisted, just bought a small sample of fat quarters and a cute little scrap pack for Fi. She will definitely find a use for these. Almost an hour later we came out, and next door was another one!!! This had more modern fabrics, with beautiful big prints of tulips and irises, plus bright cat fabrics and fabulous vegetable prints. Suzie bought some irises fabric, and I bought some quilt labels.
We finally made it to the centre of town, Madame Toussards had a queue down the street and around the corner!! We are not a patient trio so it wasn't for us. We spent a bit of time checking out the souvenir shops. Gillie - check the Amsterdam magnet box. Tried to get an Ajax top for Rude, but the only had kids sizes. Spent the rest of the time sitting in a cafe watching the crowds around the canals.
We were picked up for transfer to the ship at 2.30pm.

It is magnificent!!! It is a floating 5 star plus hotel.
Will fill you in on bit more later on. About to be briefed for our tours for the next day.

If anyone knows how I can get photo's from my iPad on to the blog I would appreciate a comment or email, so I can share some fab pics on here.

Hope all is well at home, totally relaxed and still plenty of time left here.

Love Nellie, Suzie and Gram

Finally we are here!

It has been almost 48 hours since we flew out of Hobart and we are sitting in the bar of our hotel in Amsterdam. we arrived 11 hours ago and we have spent the day wandering the city. we did an open top bus tour, but sat downstairs as it was raining. We then hopped off at the Royal Palace and Suzie spotted a horse and coach ride.
We then spent the next hour sitting in a coach, being shown the sights of smaller back streets and lanes we wouldn't have seen in a bigger tour, drawn along by our trusty steed Ari. Gram was fascinated by the red light district and even had the honor of being given the finger by one of the lovely window girls.
It will be an early night after only dozing since our early start on Sunday morning. we join the river cruise tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully will have more to share in the next day or two.

love Nellie, Suzie and Gram.

PS It is really hard to blog and add photos when you are in Holland as the blogger now has everything in Dutch!!

2 more sleeps

Friday night here and only 2 sleeps to go.
As ready as can be with only packing to do tomorrow.
An early start on Sunday with a flight out of Hobart at 6am. Depart Sydney at 2pm.
Will be great to see Cass, Jason, Jason and of course the goregous little man Henry between flights.

Felt rather rich today, went in to Travelex to get Euro's and also found out I could get Hungarina Florints as well - so 50 000 florints later it was all mine - took everything they had in stock! The princely sum of $326.00.

Hopefully next time I drop in to write I will be in another country - well at least another city!!
Cheers
Nellie