A final night of tour group fun!

For our final full day with the Top Deck Czech Mate tour, it was up fairly early for an included bike tour around the city of Amsterdam. This was fantastic and our third bike tour for our entire trip. Our guide was a young English guy, who gave us a very entertaining commentary as we went around. The bikes here are everywhere. It is the main mode of transport and you're more likely to be hit by a bike than a car.

Once handing the bikes back, 14 of us had a hankering for pancakes. We should have gone for poffertjes, as our pancakes resembled more of a crepe but were still nice. The waiter was a really poor listener and stuffed up our order at least 5 times. It was actually really funny, rather than stressful.

Next the group's size dwindled a little more and six of us headed to the Heineken Experience. This was an absolutely awesome place to visit. The amount of money that they have clearly pumped into it, to be fun and highly interactive was brilliant. We would go back again! The best bit was the interactive movie where we stood on a platform that moved and rumbled depending on what was happening. We were actually the beer itself going through all processes from mixing the four main ingredients, right through to bottling, transporting and being enjoyed - experiencing every moment! There are too many things to mention, but it is highly recommended to all people, even the non beer drinkers would enjoy this place. Yes Myles, even you!

After the Heineken Experience, we took their included water cruise to another part of the city. This was totally unexpected and a massive bonus. The guide on board was fantastic. We got a 20 minute ride around the canals and ended up near the other Heineken merchandise shop to collect our free aviator glasses gift. So in the end we paid 17€ each and did a fabulously interactive tour, with three beers, a pair of aviators and a river cruise! That's hard to beat.

The six of all us decided to head back to the Botel to rest and freshen up before we headed back out to dinner. We all tried Febo along the way, which is massive fast food vending machine service. The curry croquettes and burger were pretty damn tasty. The dinner tonight was at a floating Chinese restaurant on one of the big canals. This was the included farewell dinner, albeit a strange choice of cuisine for Europe. It was ok...but we have had MUCH better.

Next was the optional boat cruise with included drinks. It was only people from our tour group on board, so it was really fun. Our tour theme songs really pumped people up, the cameras were out and it was a good chance to get some group shots on our final night.

Some left after the cruise, but the majority of us headed out to some nightclubs. Unfortunately Carmella's efforts doing limbo on the slippery floor led to a dislocated knee and a trip to the hospital. She is still intending on committing to her travel plans after our tour, so luckily she is cruising with two friends in a car. We're assuming she'll call shotgun for the back seat! An added bonus was that the hospital did the cast in the colours of the Dutch flag, which was a nice touch.

The incident didn't seem to stop people too much though. Once Carmella and some of the others (including our tour leader) had left, we all resumed our dancing. Another fun night with such a brilliant group of people. It will be nice keeping in touch and meeting up in the future. The only good thing about departing from these guys, is the opportunity to catch up on sleep. That's what travelling is all about - good times....no, friggen awesome times and a truck load of memories!

We're in Holland, isn't that veird?

Well done to those who picked the Goldmember reference above. It was goodbye to Berlin and halo Amsterdam this morning. Up early as usual on the drive day, with only a limited amount of sleep from the Ampelmann party. Lots of people were tired on the bus this morning, but not hungover. There were a number of people sleeping through the loud bombs of Saving Private Ryan for the first section of the drive.

After our break, Brent our tour leader got us playing Battle of the Sexes. Well the boys absolutely smashed the girls - it was pretty much a drubbing. Although it was a one sided affair, the girls got back to even Stevens on the music trivia game. Our 80s knowledge massively assisted our respective groups. Woot! Team RaT was back, but was not as much of a force divided. The final deciding challenge will be on the last drive day.

Today we had only a roadside stop for lunch at Subway and then continued onward bound to the cheese and clog factory. This was a pretty short and sharp demonstration of the production and tasting of their local cheeses, then to see how and why clogs are made. The shop was cool and we were quite close to buying some clog slippers, but their sizes were limited. They kicked out girls in the shop and were pretty rude. It was a little strange, because the presenters were really funny and very welcoming. The cheese was awesome, but after the incident in Paris we weren't too keen to take away a mega slab!

It was good that we could pull over to have an extra photo opportunity at a locally occupied windmill and as an added bonus we saw some Scottish Highland cows. They're extremely hairy compared with cows that we're used to. After this we jumped back on the bus and headed to our Botel. Yes that's right, it's a boat hotel, hence
Botel.

After some freshening up time, we took the free ferry straight over to the city centre, which is right amongst the action. We started with a walking tour through the red light district and to see some main squares and some good eating areas.

We had a great time here and will endeavour to catch up with you in person about it, rather than blogging. No need to let your minds run too wild!

After finishing up in town, watching Spain's 4/0 demolition of Italy in the UEFA final, a large group of us headed back to the Botel and had a farewell drink with our friends who were leaving in the morning. It was supposed to be an early night but once again finished around 1am. Like Bon Jovi says "I'm gonna' live while I'm alive and sleep when I'm dead!"

The Third Reich

This morning we chose to get amongst the optional Third Reich walking tour....good move! This was an excellent tour and the guide was outstanding! We always appreciate someone interesting and highly knowledgable. Thanks Alex.

This tour started out the front of the Reichstag government building, built in the late 1800s and was the sight of Nazi propaganda during the lead up to WWII. This building was heavily bombed during the war and was reconstructed to its current state and is still used as the main parliament building today.

It was absolutely fascinating seeing the former sight of Hitler's bunker and final days of his life. The bunker was destroyed many years ago by the government, but you basically stand on top of the land where it was. Plans on a board nearby give an excellent depiction of the size of this area and detail of the rooms.

The Holocaust memorial was a somber place to visit and an amazing place to reflect on the persecution of the 6 million Jews during this time, as well as the many gypsies and homosexuals killed at Hitler's command. The German people and government have gone a long way to repairing the damage and are now very much a proud and unified country in the main.

Our next stop of note was the Brandenburg Gate. Surprisingly, this iconic Berlin monument was minimally damaged in the war and is an important part of Berlin's history. At the beginning of the Cold War straight after WWII, this opulent toll gate lay between the sectors dividing the Russian controlled East Berlin from the 3 sectors in West Berlin controlled by America, France and Great Britain.

One of our final stops on this very in-depth tour, took us to the Topograph of Terror area. This place was built specifically in grey underwhelming tones, to actively discourage people from forgetting the atrocities of the time.

We headed off on our own after the tour and took our time cruising around. The Bugatti Veyron shop was definitely a little distracting and got us wondering about new higher paying careers. Just a cheeky $2 mill required for the fastest production car getting up around the 400km/hour. Reasonably fast!

The earlier tour was so great that we felt we could have a bit of a shop without feeling like we would miss out on something important. So it was off to have a look around and find things to fit our limited spaced backpacks.

Eyes pealed and meandering along, we spotted the Berlin Food Lounge in a good looking spot. Surprise, surprise we found ourselves eating wurst again, but this time it was local specialty called currywurst. It is a bratwurst that is cut in sections, then covered with a tangy sauce and loads of curry powder sprinkled on top. The country seems to use a lot of potatoes with their main meals, so it was nice to have a potato salad with our currywurst. Delicious and something that we recommend people to try, if the opportunity arises.

After lunch we headed to the popular Alexanderplatz shopping area. We seemed to be in the mood for it and had quite a few successes! Space is really becoming a big issue for us now, but we have some ideas that we might investigate. Speaking of space, our limited array of clothes needed washing desperately, so heading back to the hotel earlier was imperative.

Another couple from our group were heading out at the same time, so going on the journey together was a good idea. Unfortunately, the directions from the hotel were very sketchy and we ended up going about 6 bus stops too many! It was so ridiculously far regardless, but this made the situation very tight for time. We managed to spot the waschsalon returning from the other direction and got out just near a street where we suspect many good times are had. See picture below - wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

Thankfully we managed to get back with 30 minutes to spare for quick showers and getting ready for our Ampelmann theme party. Ampelmann is the stop and go walking figurine that was synonymous with the East German traffic signals. He is quite different to regular signs and has become a highly recognised character of the area.

Clearly a few people from the group had found some good Ampelmann souvenirs and so off to dinner it was. We were all dropped off at a popular restaurant area and given an hour, before starting the pub crawl. This was actually an optional tour, but everyone was keen to go out and dance up a storm.

As you can tell from the pics below, we clearly had a fun night going to two bars and two nightclubs. The second club had seven dance floors, so we definitely had our needs met. MANY good times!