In Amsterdam

We are in Amsterdam on a mini-holiday and the following is my diary for today:

It's 9.35am and we have just arrived in the port of Ijmuiden and we can barely see a thing. The mist is thick here. The ferry is in the process of mooring and once that is done we will be off on the bus to Amsterdam.

10.15am: just through passport control. The officer thumbed through my passport. "You travel a lot," he said. I certainly do. Pity that next year I need to get a new passport. There are only 4 pages left in my current one but they won't be used up before the passport is due for renewal.

We are now on the bus waiting to leave the port of Ijmuiden.

2.30pm. It was a 45 min bus ride into Amsterdam. We got to our hotel, the Bridge, to find it sitting next to an interesting loch on one of the canals. Unfortunately, due to the mist, I am avoiding taking photos and video today.

Our first visit was to the Resistance Museum where we spent longer than expected. We left about half an hour ago and are now in a bar having some lunch, on our way to the Van Gogh Museum.

8.30pm Very pleased we did the Van Gogh museum. Learnt quite a bit about him in the process. Afterwards we stopped off for a coffee in a bar on the way back to our hotel. We are now in a Javan restaurant. We came out looking for a Dutch restaurant, found only one and it was fully booked, so went for the next best thing - Dutch colonial.

11.15pm Back at the hotel now. If I stay awake I will watch some of the early election results from America. Failing that, I'll sleep. In the meantime, I've been getting emails about how to get the wreath for this Sunday's Remembrance Day ceremony in Whickham.

Next report tomorrow, probably from the ferry.

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