Easter in Amsterdam 8

Arose early had breakfast in the site cafe and made to head for the long road home. As I was decamping I noticed these ducks clucking around me, they had it down to a 't'. They really knew how to work human beings for a bread meal, I had noticed them around the camp before and now it was my turn.

They sort of put on a performance, so in the interest of reinforcing what was quite a delightful little ritual, I went and got a couple of slices of bread.

After they had eaten the bread, then they sort of had a kip in formation, I had noticed this somewhat odd symmetry the other day, but with more ducks, I assume they have evolved this routine. A famous psychologist Skinner used to be able to get pigeons to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things by rewarding the behaviour he wanted.

The last shot of the trip, Camp Zeeburg from the motorway, the bridge seen on the right hand side of the photo, is the bridge I had crossed on my scooter to get into the centre of Amsterdam without going through the tunnel.

Easter in Amsterdam 7

Well the penultimate day of Amsterdam trip, forgot to put the scooter on charge the previous night, so had to wait for ages for a full charge.


Set off for Lempicka bar.

The 30th of April is the official birthday of the Dutch Monarch, I used to wonder why the British Queen had two birthdays, now I understand. One special day of the year, is set aside as the Monarch's birthday, as I have no recollection of the Brits celebrating the Monarch's birthday, it did not seem to make sense, that was until I saw thousands of Dutch people many of them wearing something orange, that I understood in Holland, the Monarch's birthday is an excuse to get drunk and have a party.

When I finally arrived at the Lempicka bar, the whole atmosphere was different from the day before, for a start it appeared that most of the staff were drunk! More than one glass got dropped and after a while we were told that we would not get waiter service, but would have to go to the bar instead, not that I'm complaining things are just done differently in England, my only complaint was the music, 'drum and base' I think it is called and it sounds as though someone  has recorded some drums and base and then just looped it over and over again, whereas the day before they played some very nice tracks.

So I went back to the 'van and had another quiet night in.