Okay, I’ll admit it! I’m a bit of a train geek.
Growing up with a Dad that worked for the railways resulted in 
fantastic train holidays on First class sleepers usually. So that’s why I always try to plan a train journey as part of our experience. The Eurostar from London to Amsterdam, via Brussels, did not disappoint. I sat by the window like a kid loving every moment travelling at about 320km/hr at top speed! There was a bit of a worry after Brussels with a suspicious package found on a station, but trains were just diverted through without stopping at this particular station.
We finally arrived in Amsterdam. Matty surprised us at the station and I got my hug straight away!! He pedaled back to work and we made our way to our little flat located in an old canal house situated in the Old West district of Amsterdam. Matty said it was a cool part of town, so my research paid off! There doesn’t seem to be many tourists in the area (except us) and it’s quiet and pretty.
Our first impressions of Amsterdam: 
Very cold (12 with an icy wind); bikes, bikes, bikes; interesting architecture (usually 3-4 stories high, small bricks, and some tilted forward quite noticeably); friendly, helpful locals; very flat; and the beautiful canals fringed by spectacular elm trees (75,000 of them)… Overall, very, very pretty.
For the bewildered tourist (like us), it can be a little tricky learning how to cross the road and remain in one piece. Besides the cars and trams, there are bike lanes on both sides of the road. Now this doesn’t sound like a big deal, but the bicycle is the preferred mode of transport for the majority of the population and they have the right of way everywhere. They don’t stop at pedestrian crossings, in fact, you can often see them ride right through the red light. Pedestrians are at the bottom of this food chain – you take your life into your hands if you don’t respect the fact that they rule!
Bikes are part of the landscape here and there are far more bikes than people. One of the reasons for this is that they are so cheap to purchase. According to our reliable sources (!), cigarettes are even used as currency when buying a bike. E.g. 7 Euros and a cigarette if you’re in the know. So that makes it much cheaper to buy an old bike than replace a tyre.
We are loving exploring Amsterdam and spending all the time we can with Matt.
Looks great, I’d love to go there sometime.
Have you guys done any cycling?
Hey Ben, yes you need to put this one on your list.
We really wanted to cycle around the city, but we figured that there were already enough lunatics on the Amsterdam roads, so we hired bikes and rode around Vondelpark, which is like our Centennial Park. It was beautiful!