amsterdam: red lights until we got the green light

so after a lovely but hectic christmas time jamie and i headed towards gatwick, courtesy of a lift from vin and michelle (that's jamie's parents fyi), armed with spreadsheets, schedules, plans and itineraries for the next few months. on arrival at gatwick all seemed okay albeit a slight concern about the tight turnaround times on our connecting flights at amsterdam to kuala lumpur (50 minutes). we checked in, through security and into departures and after some time we noticed that our flight was due to be 10 minutes late. with some alarm we  rushed to inquire about the potential impact of this and was assured everything would probably be okay. however, it wasn't. as we arrived in amsterdam and dashed through to the transfer gate only to be informed that we (along with 5 other people) had missed our connection to KL and couldn't be rebooked until the same time the next evening (8.50pm). also, we couldn't get our luggage as it was in transfer. they booked us into a hotel and told us where to get a shuttle bus to the hotel from.

our schedules hadn't planned for this! but we decided to make the best of it and the next day we decided to head into amsterdam as neither of us had been there before. we got a very efficient train from amsterdam airport into the city centre where we were greeted by a very chilly, bright and bustling day! 

we immediately wandered off the main street as it was so busy and found ourselves in the red light district. jam didn't seem to mind. 

once we had found our way out of the red light district we made our way along the canals towards anne frank's house. unfortunately we couldn't go in as the queue was so very long. instead we made our way around the city and enjoyed the views. 

after that we headed back to the airport where we were still crazy early for the flight but i had started worrying about the luggage and wanted to check everything was okay. after our 12 hour flight we arrived into the hot steamy KL afternoon where we were reunited with our luggage and our lovely hotel! it was very nice indeed to shower and change clothes after 48 hours. so now, here we are in KL with 3 days instead of 4 but we are the determined to have a good time and get better (we are both full of cold) before going to Melbourne.