The sounds of football fans

If you're flying from Gatwick North terminal, it's always a relief if they send you to gate 54 because you don't have very far to walk. My flight to Amsterdam was said to be fully booked but amazingly, I had an empty seat on either side of me, which made for a very spacious and pleasant flight.
However on arrival, I found the bus system was disrupted due to a huge celebration in the city centre for the Ajax football team. After several aborted attempts to find the right bus I finally got onto one which took me to Amsterdam south. Even then I made the mistake of not clicking my bus ticket as I got off the bus. We were told on the bus the entire city centre was closed! Along with a few other confused visitors and tourists, I found the Metro and asked for help to get as near as I could to the hotel. A girl in the ticket office was extremely helpful and taking my ticket went through the barrier herself with her own ticket in hand in order to click my ticket into the 'getting off' mode.
The centre of Amsterdam is so breathtakingly beautiful it's difficult not to just stand and stare. The streets were filled with chanting roaring drunken football fans whooping and calling like animals, and parading along in groups, throwing beer cans and generally having a great time. I was glad to find my hotel was away from the centre in a slightly quieter area.
My room is right at the top of the building three floors up and looking onto the back which is quiet – I can hear birds singing and I can see one tree. Having established myself in the room I went out to have a walk round. While I was sketching the street scene over a glass of indifferent wine, I had a great idea - that there might be a branch of the wonderful Danish shop Tiger somewhere nearby where I could look for more sketchbooks which I had failed to find in Canterbury yesterday. This turned out to be the case and gave me a great excuse for walking through into the centre again and exploring further. I was really pleased to find they had some of the little books so I bought eight and lugged them back. Around me the football fans chanted and shouted. Street cleaning machines could not clear all the litter. The police stood in groups, or rode past on huge horses.
Back to my quieter area!  Then I found a place for supper, had another glass of wine – much nicer than the first one – and ordered a vegetarian moussaka and salad which I ate looking over the Prinsengracht canal and feeling very content.
The whole of Amsterdam is very trendy, young, fashionable, funny, and stylish. Not unlike Covent Garden in London or the Ramblas in Barcelona. I really love it.