7pm boarding a flight alone for the first time, not as bad as I'd thought. A bit of turbulence but the flight was over in an instant, catching the sun rise as we descended & flew over a beautiful stretch of coastline & a few miles of flat farmland before touching down in the dam at 9am.
9am a few simple steps through arrivals & down to the train platform headed to central station. The huge double decker was packed with passengers but 15 minutes & I was there. What an awesome surprise to see Marty as planned at Starbucks. A welcoming start & a refreshing wake-me-up trip back to his place on the back of his bike in classic Dutch style!
11.30am we pulled up at his place on Westerkade, just as it'd looked on google maps ;) I surprised josh & the girls with my bear hood disguise & greeted them all with big hugs for the first time seeing them since our farewell at the prince in Newy!! I met their friend Lars from Colone & caught up over coffee.
12.30pm we headed out in the cold & not after long it began to rain :( but we explored the city crossing endless bridges over the canals, still beautiful in the miserable weather. Marty made a great tour guide telling us about the history of the city. Then we went to the sex museum which was interesting but not particularly somewhere I'd recommend. It was a laugh though, and we shared Marty's delicious chips with coronation sauce afterwards, before stopping for soup at a cafe close by.
3pm gradually making our way back to Marty's we did a loop around town down the main high streets, then recovered from the cold after buying supplies & alcohol from his local store.
5pm Marty blew up a double bed for me & Roseanna & we all snacked on Livvys biscuit peanut-butter-like dip with apples hanging out for a few hours, showering, pasta for dinner & pre drinking whilst exchanging catchup stories.
10pm it stopped raining in time to head out to the bars recommended by Marty which was cool & Dom arrived a few hours later - another friend from first semester at church street. Kirsty & roseanna were pretty drunk, I had a few white wines & from there we slowly headed back with a detour through the red light district & a stop at another bar opposite one of the red light windows. Similar to how I'd expected, with a few more hidden alleyways, I think the others were a bit taken back by the idea so Marty kindly lead us away, I would have liked to explored for longer but it seemed to be much of a muchness. The Phuket or Pattaya of Holland, but with all the regulation & none of the Asians. So we headed back & stuck on a cartoon movie about vampires. All in all a pretty interesting, fun day!