Amsterdam, Netherlands
Today, we arrived at our first port-of-call, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
It was cold… bitterly cold… perfect for a walking tour. In a fit a madness, I’d agreed yesterday to escort the walking tour, while Tracey escorted the warmer, coach-based ‘city sights’ tour. On the plus side, there was very little time wasted waiting around in the terminal, while poor old Tracey and her group had to endure a long delay for her coach to arrive. On the not so positive side… it was perishingly cold outside.
That’s not to say the weather was entirely unpleasant; the sky was clear and the sun was shining – it just didn’t seem to make much of an impact on the general outdoor temperature.
As a general rule, I make no secret of the fact that I’m not a huge fan of walking tours, but this one wasn’t too bad at all. Anna, our guide, was informative, and attentive to the group’s needs. We arrived at the city centre from the terminal via a different walking route to the one that I was familiar with, so my appreciation of the guide went up quite early on anyway, as I realised that there was so much more to Amsterdam than I’d hitherto been aware of. She led us through the red light district to Dam Square, the main square in the city, overlooked by the impressive Palace of Justice building, and down through tiny alleyways and narrow streets that would be easy to overlook; alongside canals, and finally to a refreshment stop in a museum cafe where we were served tea or coffee and ginger biscuits. I say ‘refreshment stop’, but it was so much more than that; it gave everybody a chance to thaw out slightly, and get the circulation running properly again. The cafe was so warm and the deep sofas so plush that I wasn’t entirely confident of getting everyone moving again.
Move we did, though. Our cafe stop was about an hour and a half into the tour; there was still another two hours of walking to go, and one or two passengers seemed unsure of whether they had the stamina to see it all through to the end.
It wasn’t so much the general outdoor walking bit that was the challenge as the standing around bits, when the guide was gesticulating to our surrounding location and explaining something. That’s when the cold really began to bite, and the muscles started complaining.
We did manage it, though, and the entire group arrived back at the terminal in fine fettle, at nearly 1:30pm, the all-aboard time, ready for sailaway at 2pm.
I did say yesterday that everything seemed to be running far too smoothly; I was right to be skeptical. Having thought that the arrangements for divvying up the art and craft times had all but been bashed out, it seems that all the work that had gone into coming up with the perfect solution yesterday, by all the relevant parties (ie. the tutors) has been completely scuppered due to an earlier arrangement that no-one knew anything about. It seems a mystery group has, for a long time, already been allocated the use of the Conference Room (mostly because of its audio/visual capabilities) for most of the mornings of the coming trip, leaving the public area outside the Conference Room the only available location for arty activities. That’s a single location that needs to be shared amongst three tutors… which means that I won’t get a class every single sea-day, and I won’t get the use of the Conference Room, which is where I’ve always worked before.
At this point, I’m not going to say anything more on the issue (according to Tracey, my ‘neutral face’ simply isn’t neutral enough to mask my true feelings, apparently… so that’s definitely something I’m going to have to work on…). As underwhelmed as I am with the finalised schedule, I’m sure everything is going to work out perfectly okay; it also means that I’m going to get some days off, when it isn’t my turn… surely, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Finally; the smooth start has hit another hiccup. We were supposed to be leaving Amsterdam at 2pm, but by 4pm, some time after the conclusion of the lecturers and tutors meeting, we noticed, with some concern, that the ship was still docked, and hadn’t yet moved. Finally, an announcement was made, informing the passengers that the delay had been down to some bunkering operation (which sounds like it had been late starting – there may have been another, earlier announcement, which I missed, which was more specific, but that’s how I interpreted it). Whatever the problem, the bridge has been informed that a pilot will not now be available until 7pm this evening, so chocks away is unlikely to be before 8pm. That’s a six hour delay from the original leaving time; hopefully, we’ll be able to make that back up between here and our next port stop, Lisbon, in three days time. Hey ho…
