The Journey Home Pt 2

We landed in Schiphol airport at 10:30am. I’d managed about 3 hours straight sleep on the plane even with the sleeping pills, Ellie faired far better with closer to 8 hours.
We now had a 6.5 lay over and Ellie wanted to try to get into the city centre via train.
We headed out of security and then found the bag holding point and dropped our hand luggage off for €12. This seemed an extortionate amount considering we would only be a couple of hours but the minimum holding time is 24hrs for €12 so we bit the bullet and paid.
From the bag holding we found the train station and purchased 2 return tickets to Amsterdam central, then we waited 10 minutes for the train to arrive and within 20 minutes we had arrived in Amsterdam Central.
It was at this point I realised Ellie didn’t actually have a plan for being here so I pulled out my phone, opened google maps and we started walking.
Our first impression of the city was how dirty it was. There seemed to be rubbish everywhere and quite a few homeless people sleeping in cardboard houses outside closed shops. Our second impression was how busy it was. It was heaving with people. Yes lots of tourists but quite a few Dutch aswell. Considering it was march and not holiday season this place was packed. I’d hate to come back here in summer.
We walked to the city square where there is a huge Madame Tussaud’s, a huge cathedral and the sex museum. We couldn’t justify spending €25 each to get into Madame Tussaud’s and I wasn’t allowed in the sex museum so we stuck our heads in the cathedral realised we had to pay for that too and promptly left.
We headed down side streets that looked like any other street in any major town in the UK except that every other shop was a tourist shop selling weed in one form or another. Biscuits, tea, cakes and roll ups, if you could put weed in it, it was made and sold here.
We were feeling a little hungry and thought we’d get some chips but at €8.50 for a cone each that wasn’t happening so we headed to McDonald’s where we had to pay nearly €8 each for a burger, and we got the smallest drink we had ever seen for €3.50. Amsterdam is seriously expensive.
At 2pm we gave up looking around and smelling the weed thick air and jumped back on the train and back to the airport.
I was seriously hanging now having been up for almost 36 hours and we retrieved our bags and then went and sat in the airport lounge. We had 90 minutes left before our final flight home and as I stared out of the window looking at the planes coming and going I just fell asleep.
At 4:15pm Ellie nudged me awake and I felt like I had been in a really deep sleep, I felt delirious and as we queued to get on our final flight I just couldn’t wait to sit down again.
Once on the plane the captain announced that the flight would only take 35 minutes and once we were up I closed my eyes again and was awoken 30 minutes later as we touched down.
Once we were off the plane we passed back through customs and I had to wait for my bag. I was dreading that it hadn’t been transferred onto this flight considering we’d had a six hour layover but then it finally came out on the conveyor belt.
I put my rucksack on my back and then we left the airport and walked 400 meters to McDonald’s where Leah was waiting for us and 45 minutes later we were walking back through our own front door.
We had made it. Our self drive safari had been a success. We hadn’t been eaten or trampled by elephants and all of Ellie’s bookings had been a success. This had been a great trip and has given us the confidence to do it again and on our own. Africa……..We will be back!!!Baca selengkapnya