Reggi Tour 2011: Day 2: Brussels-Amsterdam

Date: 19 December

Hello all,

Today we began our second day of the tour in. We started by driving to Amersterdam passing Dam Square and the Mint Tower. We stopped at a factory were we all learned about the process of diamond cutting and viewed many precious gems and jewellery. This wasn’t as great as it sounds as the warehouse was quite dull and according to Carm’s the jewerelly was outdated.

We then visited a cheese and clog making store on the outskirts of Amsterdam. This was very interesting and our guide was very entertaining demonstrating to us how to make both cheese and wooden clogs (shoes).

However this wasn’t the first time I had seen 40kg blocks of cheese been divided into smaller sections thanks to Nonna Rosina and her famous visits to Samios. All that was missing from the process was a phone call to come out to your garage and being greeted by a silver Holden Astra that still felt the need to beep the horn 8 times.

Proceeding the factory we visited the small fishing village of Volendam where we had fish and chips overlooking the fishing boats floating on the still blue water.

Tonight we did a canal cruise of Amsterdam which was pleasant and relaxing. We then had an authentic Dutch dinner including sausage and pea soup, pork in pepper sauce and cinnamon ice-cream with liquored marinated pancakes. After dinner we did a walking tour of the red light district which was very interesting and awkward at the same time as I was with my family, including Nich who was told to look away on many occasions by the tour guide. Nicholas said he is more then happy to share his experience of the area to anyone who is interested including his offer to watch a certain show with a family discount.

Hope all is well,

Gabriel