We spent 4 days in Amsterdam, including New Year’s. I wanted to do lots of touristy things like visit the Hermitage museum, Anne Frank’s house, the Van Gogh museum, and do a canal cruise. The only thing out of those we ending up doing was visiting the Hermitage. I don’t know where the time went. We got up and went out early every day but the time went so fast. Most of our days were spent wandering around, exploring the city, as well as doing far too much shopping.

I had read quite a bit about Anne Frank before we got to Amsterdam so was looking forward to seeing where she and her family had lived during the war. Unfortunately, both times we went by, there was a massive queue. It would have been about an hour wait and in sub zero temperatures, that wouldn’t have been a great idea.

Of course, we also had to wait to get in the Hermitage. Almost an hour in the snow. Not worth the wait. Not that I didn’t enjoy the museum. I did. They had lots of beautiful costumes and dresses from the royal court in Russia. The clothes and accessories were amazing. I also found the history of the Hermitage museum and the Russian relationship with the Netherlands to be interesting. Peter the Great went to Amsterdam where he worked in a shipyard. He then tried to modernise Russia on his return because he felt Russia was a bit of a backwater compared to Europe. Lol, probably still is But again, that was not worth waiting an hour for in freezing (literally) cold.

On our last night there, I was awoken at 2am by the hotel fire alarm. Actually, it wasn’t a proper alarm just a recorded message which repeatedly said, ‘you must evacuate the building immediately’ in about 5 different languages. I was lucky to wake up because it wasn’t very loud at all. F didn’t even hear it until I woke him up. I was so out of it, trying to get dressed and wondering what to take with me. I looked in the corridor and there was no one to be seen and there were no fire engines outside. I decided to call reception but it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which number it was to call them. Luckily it was a false alarm. Apparently someone had a super hot shower which had set off the alarm. Oh really? I’m sure if there had actually been a fire we would have been burnt to a crisp, lol. We were hopeless in an emergency.

I really want to go back to Amsterdam in the spring or summer to see everything I missed out on this time. Maybe I’ll even venture into a coffee shop next time

Amsterdam is a great city and I love it. It’s a very young city, with people obviously heading there to have a good time and party. New Year’s is no exception and I’m sure many people went to Amsterdam especially to celebrate the new year.

We headed to Dam Square at around 11pm and found it was much quieter than expected. I had heard there are a few different places to go to see the fireworks but there was little going on in Dam Square, that’s for sure. A few people were setting off small fireworks but apart from some guy almost blowing his head off with a mis-fired firework, there wasn’t much entertainment.

We decided we may as well go back to the hotel but on the way stopped off at Rembrandt Square. Much more was going on there with a live band, a lot more people, and a lot more crazy fireworks.

Without a doubt, I have never experience a New Year’s Eve like this one. In Australia, most people go to see the fireworks put on by the local government, not set off their own fireworks. In fact, I think in most states fireworks are illegal. So seeing people set off thousands of fireworks and firecrackers in the street and in crowded squares was crazy and scary (for me)! I even saw many parents giving fireworks to their kids to play with!

Along with the guy who had the firework go off in his face, lol, I also saw one guy get hit in the backside with a stray firework, lol again.

At midnight, I’m not sure if there were official fireworks or not seeing as the fireworks were going off all over the place I couldn’t tell what was going on. The constant explosions and smoke made the city look and sound like a war zone. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We got a taxi back to the hotel not long after midnight, driven by an Afghani taxi driver who must have thought we were in an actual war. Driving through 3 red lights, cutting off countless other cars, and narrowly avoiding drunk pedestrians, we made it back to the hotel in one piece, barely.