Ian Rambles
When I booked our Amsterdam acommodation it had mixed reviews. Guests were generally either scathing or amused. We amuse easily so I thought we should give it a go.

The guesthouse is a typical Amsterdam building - five floors with a beam at the top to winch up furniture. It could be four hundred years old. The front wall leans over the street at an impressive angle.

I had always imagined these Dutch town houses as having quite a lot of depth - like many Victorian terraces in the UK - so it came as a suprise to find that this one was only six or seven metres front to back. Just inside the front door a steep and narrow spiral staircase led up to the upper floors and down to the basement. Luckily the boys room was on the ground floor, so Fi and I could clutter their space with our bags and save having to winkle them up and down to our basement room.

Fiona's Journal
A tranquil crossing of the North Sea and a good night's sleep later we awoke approaching Europort in Holland. Stennaline offer an “Eat as much as you like” breakfast for 10 Euros, half price for under 16's, so we decided to fuel up for the day's exertions. It took an inspection of Arthur's passport to convince the stewards that he really is only fifteen – he got very good value for his 5 Euros!.

Loaded up like mules once again, we staggered our way out through customs and across to the railway station. I have to report that it is not much fun getting twelve items of luggage, two of which I can barely lift, and two tired and emotional young boys on and off trains, up and down stairs and escalators and through crowded station concourses. Arthur has been a real asset because he is very strong for his years and inclined to be cheerful. Ian has been grimly stoical but I know his dodgy knee is giving him grief. However, we got ourselves to Amsterdam Central and the rooms we had booked were described as “a 4 minute walk” from here. This last half mile turned out to be the final straw for George who went on sit-down strike in the middle of the pavement – the rest of us relayed the bags from here to the doorstep of 61 Speistraat.

This is a most interesting address with a shop called “The Magic Mushroom” and a Cannabis Cafe immediately opposite and a scantily clad girl in lace-up boots, sitting in her window, three doors down. The rooms we had booked lived up to their surroundings being of a style I would describe as “bargain basement Gothic brothel”. The boys loved it at once – it had big beds and a TV and they were just happy to stop lugging bags around.

The first mission was to send Mum and Dad their Amsterdam postcard which I duly did. We had chips and mayonnaise in a paper cone for lunch and spent a happy afternoon in Amsterdam's excellent Science Museum “Nemo”. We had a fairly brief but intense moment of panic when we lost George, while stopping for a drink on our way back to the hostel. Then a rather good kebeb house provided tea and we retired early to bed. Tomorrow we join mv Isa which feels like the real start of our journey – we will, at last be moving West . So far we have been going backwards!

Arthur's Log:
5 am woke up, went back to sleep, 5:30 am woke up, went back to sleep, 6 am woke up fell out of bed bumped my head went back to sleep. At some point, when I had finally got up, it was trains, more trains,bla bla bla

Arrived at the hostel where we would stay the night. What a weird room it was - like a cross between a Gothic brothel and a really cheap tacky honeymoon suite, with dark wood walls and patterns on the bed covers made from roses and hearts shapes.

So another thing I noticed is that this place is full of prostitutes which I had been told by people was true but I hadn't imagined so many. In the single half hour I was looking for George, I saw two. One was in a house just 50 yards down the road were a woman was sitting in the basement of her house waving, smiling, beckoning out of the window looking up onto the street wearing just the skimpiest of clothes. As well as the prostitutes there are loads of sex shops, there are more of them than MacDonald's not to mention the sex museum.

The Harry Report
After we got off the ferry and lugged our luggage through two train journeys and got to our hostel (a very strange place indeed) I was a bit put off by the fact id have to share a bed with my little bro in a bed that says roses of love on it.

We had a great day out at Nemo though which is this great big hands-on sciency thing. A couple of the things that I remember are.

A thing where you stand on a little black spot surrounded by bubble liquid and lifted this metal ring up and over your head making a tube of bubble,

A creepy giant talking mechanical girl who could actually sense you were there!, A mini water cleaning factory,and loads more as well. We ate kebabs for tea then slept comfortably in the beds.

George's Musings
Nemo was fun and quite wet. I got lost looking for the magic mushroom shop - which I thought was a toy shop ( it wasn't ).