The next three nights we spent in Amsterdam. What a wild city!

You had to be on your toes the whole time because the bicycles roar around the city without slowing down. If you get in their way, you will surely be run down. Our problem was we kept looking the wrong way and then stepping in front of bikes coming from the other direction. Why can't Australia be the same as the rest of the world and drive on the right side of the road!?!

The cheese in Amsterdam was to die for and Alex and I thoroughly enjoyed tasting the delicious offerings. We even bought a couple of boxes of cheese cubes for our road trip.

The other delicacy we loved was stroopwafels, which are basically two pieces of dough squashed in a hot press, with caramel in between. Oh yeeeeaaaaaah!

We went on a day trip through the country which was OK. The cheese tasting, cheese factory and windmill part of the tour were awesome. The visit to the dairy farm not so much. A very excitable puppy was running through all of the cow s*** and then jumping all over the people on the tour. He was cute, but we didn't really want to be covered in cow dung and had to do an emergency wash back at our apartment. Luckily we had a washing machine in the apartment and our wonderful host, Ester, lived upstairs and dried our clothes for us before we had to leave the next day.

Amsterdam also has legalised soft drugs and there are establishments known as "coffee shops" all over the city, none of which sell coffee. You have to go to a cafe for that. The coffee shops sell magic mushrooms, joints and hash brownies. The girls tried a brownie, but didn't really feel anything. I partook in half of a funny cigarette and found myself laughing like a schoolgirl. When in Rome, hey? I threw the other half out. I like my lungs free of crap, thanks very much. Interestingly, since Amsterdam legalised soft drugs, they have less than half of the drug users, soft or hard, than any other major city. So maybe there is a case for legalising soft drugs in Australia?

While we were there, we took a look through Anne Frank's house. This was really interesting to see where the entire family, plus a few others, hid from the Nazis for 2 years. It was also very sad that her father Otto was the only survivor after someone informed on them and they were all sent to concentration camps. Luckily, we booked our tickets online before we left Australia because the line was hundreds of metres long to get in the general admission queue.

A boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam certainly lightened the mood. The city is beautiful, especially from the water.

We also took a tour of the red light district, which was a real eye-opener. The prostitutes there have to work for themselves (ie pimps are illegal) and there is even a prostitutes union. This has cleaned up the industry and actually enabled a safer work environment for the girls. Apparently their are about 900 girls in their little glass booths, and they make an average of $600 to $3,000 euros per night. There are also girls to cater for any taste, including large girls, girls with extra parts down below, grannies (the oldest being 76 years old) and every nationality you can think of.

A special mention needs to be made of our AirBNB hosts, Ester and Mark. We arrived to our central apartment to find a whole heap of goodies waiting for us, including stroopwafels, wine, beer, cheese, crackers, fruit and more. They supplied us with 2 bikes (you can't really drive around Amsterdam) and were so helpful for the entire stay. Great hosts!