Friday 11th May 2018

*Just a heads up there is many many photos of flowers and also a fair amount of information regarding prostitutes within this blog. Happy reading!*

With only four nights back at home in London we were back on the road Friday afternoon heading to the Netherlands for the first time. Lew went to work early as he is furiously trying to get a project finished by today and has been working equally long days as me with us both coming home just before midnight. I met Lew at Kings Cross St Pancras station at 4.30pm having already picked up our tickets for today and our trip home. Security is so easy and you don’t even have to get laptops out of their cases like you do at the airport. I even had a couple of forks with me since I had cooked up a peanut and tofu stir fry for us on the trip and they didn’t seem to care about those either. Once we had been through border security which always seem to be French despite us going through Belgium before getting into the Netherlands but not actually France? We were in the holding pen again when I finally looked at our tickets and realised it only cost £35 ($68.90 nzd) each for these tickets! An absolute bargain! Lew ate his lunch whilst we waited since he hadn’t had time to do so at work today. He looked like an absolute mess as he had been up late for the past few nights and also had dried blood all over his pants from accidentally drilling his finger today whilst hurrying to complete the project. The platform for our train came up and instead of rushing like everyone else we just took our time since we had no large bags. Finding our seats it looked like we were going to be stuck in the middle of a heap of English boys and men heading to Amsterdam for a lads weekend. As the train begun to move at precisely 5.31pm we could tell they were going to be loud the entire time as they brought a heap of beer with them. The train ride was 3 hours and 40 minutes and we stopped off at Brussels and Rotterdam before arriving in Amsterdam station. I worked on the blog from last weekend and Lew watched Netflix. We both had to have ear plugs in playing tv or music very loud to drown out the immature behaviour of these Englishmen. We realised perhaps why they are disliked so much especially since they were rather drunk and disorderly in a public space. They were vaping inside the train and got off at each stop to have a quick smoke outside also. When we finally arrived at Amsterdam and moved towards the door we saw that one of them clearly can’t handle their alcohol as there was vomit on the carpet of the brand new train. Lew and I were prompt to get off the train as we were meeting out Airbnb host here to pick up the keys as well as Nick who had decided to come across from Lyon to join us. Our Airbnb host Elke was lovely and was heading to her parents house for the weekend which is why we had the use of her place. Nick also met us by the piano in the main station and he certainly had a intense journey taking a train to Paris and then flying into Amsterdam in which he just managed to catch the flight as his train was late. We were lucky to be graced with his presence! After getting the keys we decided to walk the 24 minutes to the apartment just outside the trendy area of Jordan. The street we walked down was bustling with people on bikes, scooters, pedestrians and even the occasional car. There were so many types of transport it was difficult to look out for them all. Nick had been here a few times and said that no matter what pedestrians never have the right of way so we hadto be careful. The street we walked down had so many cool shops along the way that we would have to come back to. I was sure we wouldn’t see everything this weekend anyways and would have to come back again. Once we located the apartment we walked up two flights of very steep steps to find our place on the second floor. It was so well decorated and had a large couch which Nick would be able to sleep on tonight. We hung around long enough to drop our stuff before we headed back out to locate a supermarket. Of course with it being 11pm it was well and truely closed and we made our way back to the main street we had already walked down. The boys were in need of a snack before bed and we knew there would be things open down here. As we just begun walking down the street we heard a few men yelling before one launched at the other punching him hard enough to knock him to the ground. There were people around but I decided to take a look since he wasn’t moving and there was a pool of blood gathering around him. He was clearly drunk but his eyes did flicker open as I spoke to him but he wouldn’t talk back to me but it was hard to know if he understood English. I could tell all the blood was pouring out of the eyebrow laceration and I wanted to roll him over so I could assess his GCS (for you non medical people it’s basically a score of alertness, we should all be GCS 15/15 because we are eyes open, orientated and can obey commands butthis often isn’t the case with head injuries such as this) a bit more. But there was another women wanting to keep him still until the ambulance got there. I gave up not feeling as confident at my abilities as I was at home since I feel like all I do with my ED nursing in the UK is just make cups of tea and do as the Drs say. I decided we should continue on our hunt for food as he was maintaining his own airway and I don’t have anything appropriate to stop the bleeding anyway. Afterwards I did feel a little more guilty I didn’t stay around and also make my “expertise” known. The boys eventually decided on pizza to share and we took it to go as we walked back towards the apartment. Just after midnight we called it a night with ambitious ideas for tomorrow. Nick is leaving early Sunday morning so we really only have Saturday with him unfortunately so we hoped to make the most of it. 

Saturday 12th May

We had all decided 8am was a good time for us to get up and I had set an alarm to ensure we did so. I got up and showered and begun looking at how to get to the tulip fields today as I wanted to bike or hire a car so we didn’t get stuck going to the famous Keukenhof gardens since that’s where all the other tourists go and there are other fields around. Once the boys had finally got up and showered we walked down to the local supermarket and picked us up some items for a cooked breakfast - tomatoes, eggs, orange juice, baked beans, bread and what we thought was bacon after much discussion and google translating. It looked like bacon but the translating wasn’t exactly coming out as that, we went with it anyway. So for €9.50 (£8.34/$16.40 nzd) we left with a good feast. Frying everything up once we got back to the apartment we sat down for a decent breakfast. Whilst I cleaned up I made the boys decide on what/how we were getting to see some flowers and using the brochures on the table they decided that a tour bus would be the easiest at €38pp (£33.40/$65.50 nzd) instead of having to take a train to another city and then biking for about 1.5 hours. It was a beautiful day and a bike ride would have been nice but 35 km of biking on rental bikes made for city commuting would have been a little intense. We left the house a lot later than planned but at least we had full tummies plus spare bread rolls and peanut butter cookies in my backpack for later. We walked down the canals to central station where we found the tour company that the boys had planned on using - there is a lot so just make sure you shop around to get the best deal! We purchased tickets for a private tour bus and entry to into the gardens and were given detailed instructions as to where we check in and catch the bus from. Finally some helpful people working in tour companies! We liked the guy since he told us to walk through a tunnel to the right and to look for a name stating with B. He said it’s proper name Buiksloterweg-veer but told us to just remember the B and we would be fine. The ferry is even free to get across to the other side and we just had to line up with a few other hundred or so people some with bikes and scooters and the rest pedestrians trying to cross. Here we checked into the building called the A'Dam lookout which has a large viewing platform on top with swings that also go off the edge of the building. Unfortunately there wasn’t a bus available until 12.15pm and it was only 11am at this stage so we would have to wait. Lew found a market close by and we begun to walk down the canal to it. We came to a dead end and Lew then decide to work out how long it was to get to the market since he had just guesstimated before. We would have enough time to walk, touch the edge of the market and then walk back if we wanted to make it to the bus on time. We decided to go back to where we came from and sat on the waters edge watching the boats go by. When 12.15 arrived we were ushered to a brand new tour bus that was incredibly nice. The boys decided they would sit together so I sat next to a random young guy who spoke no English. The countryside around Amsterdam reminded us of home with the smell of grass and cows invading the bus. Our driver pointed out fields of what looked like dead tulip plants and she explained that these were blooming a few weeks ago but they are not grown for their flower but for their bulbs. So once they have flowered they are left in the ground for a couple more months for the bulb to grow before they are removed and mostly exported. Something we absolutely love about the Netherlands is the amount of wind turbines there are littered across the countryside. I know a lot of people are against them as they are a bit of an eye-saw but Lew and I think they are very majestic and wish we had a few more of them back home. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have your own one in your backyard to power your house! Obviously not in the suburbs so much but if you lived outside of town and had a bit more land. Mini turbines on top of the caravan Mum and Dad? As we pulled into the town where Keukenhof garden is located we could see the mass amounts of cars, tour buses and even bikes parked up and we all looked at each other with amazement at the popularity of this place. We hoped it was huge so it didn’t feel as cramped as the London Underground at rush hour This was after all the last weekend that the tulips are able to be viewed as the season runs from the end of March to mid May but they recommend aiming for mid April to see the tulips in their best condition. We were a little concerned that the tulips wouldn’t be in their prime and that was true for a lot of them. In some flower beds the heads of all the tulips had even chopped off which I guess looks better than half dead flowers. However we were by no means disappointed at all as the garden covering 32 hectares (79 acres) still had a lot of tulips and other flowers in beautiful condition since they do plant over 7 million bulbs each year. They even had a few big flower shows in cleverly designed buildings to give you a bit of variety. The most memorable ones being the orchid and also the lillies. The orchid basically covered floor to ceiling in all different colours it was unreal. These flowers are very expensive back in NZ but in Europe they arnt so bad. The lillies thankfully didn’t make me sneeze and I usually promptly pull the pollen out from inside of them as soon as they open. Lew though began sneezing for the rest of the afternoon but it was still worth it since they decorated the lillies so well with them growing out of anything and everything. We came across the windmill in part of the park and decided to rest our legs for a bit and eat our snacks. We had taken so many photos of beautiful flowers it was going to be hard to choose the best ones! After a snack we continued walking around the gardens admiring the different variety of flower. The only annoying thing was that there wasn’t any names on them as there was this one flower you will see in my photographs with a perfect yellow circle inside of it that I would have liked to have in our garden in London. They had a lot of Amaryllis flowers and even books with photos and name of each type of flower so you can buy them. I thought of Nannie as quite a few Xmas’s ago now I brought her a pretty pink amaryllis plant that she still sends me photos of how much it’s grown each year - turns out they are hard to grow so it was quite an achievement to keen it alive. Luckily green fingers runs in our family. The garden was massive with a couple of big eating areas and we managed to get to majority of the sights dotted around the place. It was lovely seeing the amount of families out enjoying the sun. We came across this organ called "The Adriaen" built in 1978 from old organ parts. It had 75 keys, 11 registers and 406 organ pipes and percussions. It was making an awful racket but when we went behind it we realised how clever it really was. It runs off the perforated book system invented in 1897 where you insert this wooden ‘book’ with holes cut up in different places and as it runs through the belt driven machine it plays the tune using all the different instruments. Amazing but I still wasn’t enjoying the racket it was making! The best places to enjoy the tulips was where they had been underneath the trees sheltered from the hot sun so they were in a lot better condition that the rest. We took many many photos and I continued to be surprised by just how many varieties of tulips there actually is. We had a confirmed seat on a bus at 4.45pm but it was only 3.30pm and we were finished. We had to wait until they made sure that the 3.30pm people weren’t wanting a seat before they allowed us on and thankfully the bus wasn’t full at all so we were all able to get back. I edited photos whilst the boys slept the hours drive into Amsterdam. Once we got back into town Nick had some plans to show us around since he had been here a few times already. We were in the central part of Copenhagen where lots of tourists visit and we walked past the more famous beautiful buildings of Copenhagen in the main town square. Then we made our way into the Red Light District since it would be too crowded and rowdy later on tonight. Nick took us down these side streets and as we had been told sure enough there were scantily dressed young women behind the small doors posing to attract the attention of potential clients. If you are completely unaware of what I am speaking of the Red Light Distinct is where the prostitutes in Amsterdam are found and you can either visit the windows or the brothels if you are that way inclined. Lew and I were absolutely fascinated at such a thing as we had grown up with the manky looking prositutes on the side of Manchester Street in Christchurch. Driving at night time our parents has always tried to advert our eyes from the half dressed grubby looking women (or men!) flaunting their assets to people driving by. This was a whole new experience as every one of the girls seemed to be of a similar age to ourselves and were reasonably trim.  Nick steered us down a few of the main streets as we headed out of the area and there were many many shops full of sex toys, advertising for sex shows or even selling cannabis. I had SO many questions about this industry I wanted answering and I didn’t know how to get it - I considered paying someone to give us an insight into their lives but we just resorted to asking Siri once we got back to the apartment. Nick then took us around into the area of Jordan where we walked past Anne Franks house and the queue to get into it. Unfortunately I had been told by everyone to get advanced tickets to this but I didn’t realise that they release them 2 months beforehand and there is only limited tickets available online for advance purchase before you potentially have to spend all day waiting to get in. So definitely buy these in advanced people - and by advanced I don’t mean 24-48 hours in advanced like I though it did. We promised to come back again and I would be more prepared. The neighbourhood of Jordan is 100% my favourite, it is very trendy with many cute shops, restaurants and cafes to keep you occupied. The canals are also much more beautiful here and the bridges are more decorative. House boats with large windows allowing a view into their well designed interiors made us feel we should have had the real Amsterdam experience and stayed in one. Perhaps next time as well. It was late in the evening at this stage so all the clothing shops were closed but I saved them in google maps so we could come back tomorrow. Lew was starting to lose it with hunger and we still had to go through a grocery shop before relaxing at home. Noticing a cool looking taco shop we decided to get a snack and a drink to tide us over. It was one of those hipster places that turns into a raging night club after dark especially since I couldn’t find the toilet door as it was camouflaged behind so much graffiti. Despite this the menu looked excellent and we each ordered a taco and a drink. Lew was nursing a potential stress fracture in his femur so we had both not packed our running clothes for the weekend and it was the first time in a long time we had just a chilled evening after a big day of walking. The food was excellent and I would highly recommend Mr Haz Taco Bar if your craving some Mexican. The supermarket was a short walk away and we had decided on a typical kiwi easy meal of steak, salad and potatoes. The plan was to cook this up and then quickly head over to a bar called Plink which is popular with the locals to watch the sunset. We knew straight away as our tired bodies hit the couch there was no way we were getting back out there. Especially since we had potato chips to munch on with some fresh strawberries and apples. I made the chips and salad and the boys cooked the steak to perfection. Our lovely Airbnb host had given us a complimentary bottle of red wine and we all enjoyed this with dinner whilst discussing some of life’s big issues and how we need to change the world. Or rather asking Siri about the life of Amsterdam’s prostitues. We still planned to head out and observe the night life but as time ticked on the plan became harder and harder and we work out another trip to catch up instead. We booked flights in July to Geneva, Switzerland where Nick would pick us up in a car and take us to one of the many mountain bike parks in France (currently undecided as to which one). Flights weren’t overly expensive either and its nice to have something to look forward to as our planned adventures are coming to a close as of Edinburgh in two weeks. We also discovered we had a booked a checked bag for our trip back to London tomorrow which was a bonus as we could hit the shops tomorrow! We called it a night just before midnight again and poor Nick had an early morning train back to Paris and then another to Lyon. France is in the middle of train strikes right now so he wasnt even sure if he would be able to get home at all! Oh by the way Happy International Nurses day to all my fellow superheroes out their ❤️

Sunday 13th May 

We set the alarm just before we knew Nick was leaving so we could at least say goodbye. Only 1/6 trains were running today in France and so far it looked like his one would be running with it being a main route between Paris and Lyon. After a round of hugs we said our goodbyes until we meet again at Geneva airport for yet another adventure in July. Since we were up so early and it was supposed to rain today I wanted us to go and do a boat tour early before it begun. There was a park our Airbnb host had told us to go to since there was some big festival on so we thought we would walk to Westerpark first since it’s close to our house. The park was pretty with rivers flowing through it and we could see the remnant of what would have been the festival yesterday which was now just piles of rubbish and bottles. There wasn’t much else to see so we made our way to Anne Franks house where you could catch boats for a tour. It begun to drizzle and after looking at different tour options we decided we wanted something off the beaten track since we had walked all the main canals anyways. There didn’t seem to be an option for this but we did notice that you could buy tickets to the Museum of Prostitution - red light secrets which I was interested in as it might answer some of my questions that Siri didn’t know! We made the decision to ditch the boat tour and to head to this museum 20 minutes walk away. On our walk we found this amazing furniture place called Bolia and we wandered around here admiring the beautiful furniture wishing we could deck our own place out with it. P.s there is a toilet down the back of the shop if your ever struggling to find a toilet in the area - its free of course and its rather easy to fake being interested in stunning furniture! We continue to the Red Light District where the museum was and clearly this place had been the center of a rowdy night and is every weekend since they had locals and street cleaners water blasting and sucking up all the rubbish from last night. A lot of it went into the river unfortunately which confirmed to us that no you would not want to swim in these canals like you would be able to in Copenhagen last weekend. Even though it was early on a Sunday morning we did see the occasional prostitute standing in the windows and for the first time I even saw one older African American women. By old I mean she looked as though she was in her 50's, now this would not usually be considered "old" to me but after seeing all the girls roughly in their 20's yesterday she was looking a little more saggy than them. The museum cost us €19 total (£16.69/$32.70 nzd) and to be honest it was actually cheaper to buy the tickets at the place where you can buy the boats from since they advertised tickets for €8 pp. The tour company is "Tours and Tickets" https://www.tours-tickets.com/en/ although perhaps they were having a sale on those particular tickets this weekend. So a bit of history of the Red Light District or 'De Wallen' area as it is known of by the locals before we get fully into the museum. This is the oldest district in Amsterdam and ever since it was built in approximately 1385 it has been both well known and notorious for women inhibiting the streets. Amsterdam was a large trading city with a sizeable port between the 14th and 15th centuries and sailors waiting for their ships required entertainment and alcohol which the De Wallen area readily provided. Prostitution itself was legal but visiting a prostitute was not which all changed in the 16th century when Amsterdam became protestant and the new city council forbade prostitution. Despite threats towards men and women involved in the business of prostitution and the clients deterred no one and a blind eye was turned to what was going on in that particular area of town. During the 17th century there was rampant growth of the business of prostitution and during the occupation of the Netherlands by Napoleon from 1795 onwards large beautifully designed brothels were opened and Napoleon legalised prostitution with the implementation of twice weekly medical inspections and high incident of sexually transmitted diseases were high. Those that were given a red card were healthy and could continue working and those who were given a white card with the name of their illness on it were provided with free treatment before they could return to work. In the 19th century police no longer allowed prostitutes to loiter in doorways enticing men and they were made to stand behind windows which was the start of window prostitution which we see today. Today prostitution is considered a legal profession and anyone over the age of 21 years with a European passport or greencard can work but they must register with the Ducth Chamber of Commerce, pay their taxes, complete an 'intake interview' with the brothel owner and rent themselves a window. Moving into the museum itself we sat down and watched a video from a mans perspective on his trip to Amsterdam and the Red Light District. It basically runs through his entire day from arriving in Amsterdam, getting his haircut, starting his night at the bar and the continues to show him enjoying many of the strip clubs, sex shows and even choosing some women from their windows! It made us 100% pleased that we did not head out last night into this area to watch from afar what this place is really known for. We were given an audioguide with stories from one of the most famous prostitutes from the Red Light District called Inga. She is Russian and was forced into prostitution in Germany before she ran away and came to Amsterdam where she continued to work for 15 years without a pimp. Over the course of the museum we were able to scan our audioguide on certain points along the way that would give us different stories form Inga about what her life was like. After the movie we were taken into the office where we were introduced to some of the typical people involved in the running of a brothel/prostitution itself. There is the 'pimp' which is a name most of us are familiar with and in short these are men or women that help a prostitute perform their work. Then there is the brothel operator who rents out the rooms and ensure the prostitutes meet the legal requirement to do their job. There was also the term 'loverboy' which is something I hadn't heard about before but basically it is a technique some traffickers use to manipulate a women into prostitution by initially making them fall in love. Continuing through the museum we came to the windows which look out over the street much the same as if you were a prostitute at work in your window right now. A slightly strange feeling with people looking up at you from outside! It was at this moment we got a text from Lews dad asking us why we were at the Museum of Prostitution! Haha we may have to turn off Find my Friends since it is obviously very accurate! We were given information as to how much a window usually costs which is €150 (£131.90/$259 nzd) for a 10 hour shift. The museum then lead us behind some curtains where we were shown a room with a bed, a bath tub, a sink and then another room out the back with cages and lots of equipment for those clients who enjoy domination through sadomasochistic role-play or SM as you may known it as. Probably the most disturbing bit of the entire museum is yet another set of windows that are playing a movie of what its like for the girls behind the window. It shows you different men walking past, some giving you the full head to toe look before walking away, some offering a price, some being dragged quickly past by their girlfriends and then some plain creepy old men. It really makes you think about how you treat these girls behind the window as you walk past even as a tourist and there was a list of 'principles of behaviour towards prostitutes' on the wall. This room also gave us an insight of just how big the Red Light District is with over 15 legal brothels and approximately 400 windows. We were then given an insight of what it is like in the day to day life of a prostitute and it was just so strange as the girl was about the same age as me and seeing her arriving in Amsterdam and getting her permits checked you really wouldn't be able to pick her out from the crowd! I guess its just amazing how someone seemingly normal would be enticed into such a derogatory profession when there are so many other options out there. On our way out there was a place where you could write your own sex confessions on a piece of paper and they would be put up on the wall. WOW is all I can say, if you ever get to read some you will know what I mean! Ending up back on the street majority of my questions had been answered. I will list a few more below.

• Q: Are there any male prostitutes?
  • A: no there are only transgendered men transitioning into women
• Q: How many men visit prostitutes in Amsterdam everyday?
  • A: Over 2,000
• Q: What is the price to visit a prostitute in Amsterdam?
  • A: Starting price is €50 for 20 minutes and price increases depending on the clients requests
• Q: How many clients roughly do prostitutes see everyday?
  • A: Successful ones will see up to 16 clients over there 10 hour day. In the voice recordings of Inga she saw 120 in one day!

OK! I think we have had well and truely enough information in regards to this usually taboo topic. Lew and I left the Red Light District in the drizzle and begun knocking off some of the shops that I had saved into Google maps that I wanted to visit. At one place called 'Number Nine' I brought a cute cream top and Lew found himself a T-shirt. We were just holding off very hangry Lewis with haribo lollies as we continued towards the food hall we had been told to visit called 'Foodhallen' for lunch. Absolutely add this one to your list fellow travellers! It was an incredibly cool space that used to be a service station for Amsterdam trains with its high ceilings, brick interior and old tram tracks still placed in the ground. Lew was so starving that all he had eyes for waas a burger of course. He found a place called 'The Butcher' and there were fresh beed patties being cooked right in front of the queue of people. I wasn't feeling the burger this tme and went off to locate something a it more Asian. 'Viet View' was doing a lunch deal of a vietnamese beef noodle bowl for €11 (£9.70/$19) and I could see some coming out of the kitchen and they looked excellent! We found a table over the back away from the hustle and bustle and took turns going up to grab our food. We left soon after finishing since we we still had a little more shopping to fit in before heading to the airport. The Scotch & Soda flagship store was next on the list as Lew had been waiting for awhile now to visit the place where this brand originally comes from. He was lucky they even had a sale on! This was honestly the most effortless shopping I have ever done with him and I carried a huge pile in my arms up to the counter. He came away with a few hundred euro worth of clothing including a new pair of jeans, jean shorts, two sweaters, and a T-shirt. It really is excellent quality stuff and whilst it is a little more expensive Lew is slowly accepting he had to pay a bit more to get quality clothing. We still had a 30 minute walk back to out apartment where we were able to leave our stuff since out Airbnb host had to go to work after returning from her parents so we still had the keys. We rearranged all our bags only just getting all our shopping into them before calling an Uber. We had already walked about 14km today and a Uber wasn't overly expensive at €6.30 (£5.50/$10.80 nzd) so we decided to save our feet. It was a short drive and we were dropped at the train station where we went to the ticket machine. Just as we were about to purchase two tickets a man came up to us and begun waving a day pass in our faces. I thought he wanted us to buy it after all the hagglers we had experience in Indonesia but he was actually giving it to us for free! Lew translated what was written on it and turns out we now only needed to buy one tickets for €5.30 (£4.62 /$9 nzd) to get to the airport. The train was incredibly busy and we were squashed up against others also trying to get to the airport. It wasn't as though this was the first time we had random people in our personal space as this is something we have got quite used to in London. The airport was hands down one of the coolest we have been to so far with it being new and had a lot of nice shops and places to get food. We had a bag to check in at Vueling and I was expected to have a 'visa check' as usual with my NZ passport. There was a rather long queue but we weren't pushed for time and it was also going to be easier getting rid of my bag now. They had e-passport gates as their boarder control and NZ was listed as one of the countries being able to use it for once! The only thing to make a note of here is the machine is a little different to the ones we have used everywhere else. Normally you just push you passport onto it and remove when it says so. This one however pulls your passport into the machine squashing your fingers in the process and giving you a hell of a fright! Apart from almost having our fingers degloved (google this word non medical people its rather intense!) security was a breeze and everyone was nice and friendly although Lew got the most intense pat down he had ever had! So far Vueling was doing well and we boarded the plane on an actual airbridge for the first time in awhile. We were initially separated from checking in online and like Ryanair they make you pay to sit together but the nice girl at the check in desk moved us so we were sitting in an exit row together. Lew was extremely pleased with the leg room despite it being one of those flights where you literally take off, cruise for 10 minutes before making the descent into London Luton Airport. What took the longest was the taxi to the runway which was about 30 minutes and we all thought perhaps we were driving to London instead! The train back into London wasn't so bad as we both had laptops to keep us occupied. We arrived back home at around 9.30pm ready to unpack before heading to bed and into work tomorrow.