Amsterdam Day 1

Spending a few days in Amsterdam with a friend. This is a typical canal scene. You can see huge pieces of ice in the canal, finally breaking up from the big freeze Amsterdam faced a couple of weeks ago. The canals were so frozen that the authorities gave the green light for people to skate on them: apparently that hasn't happened for 13 years. I wish I could have seen that.

I came here for the first time many, many years ago. In fact I hitch hiked here from Wales for a charity-raising event during my college's Rag Week. The group of us that made it out here only had 12 hours to look at the city, however, as we soon had to start hitching back again to ensure we caught the right boat back to the UK. Most of that 12 hours was spent sleeping in a hostel.

Needless to say, I didn't get to see very much - and even less so because I was suffering from conjunctivitis at the time too!