Take an overnight bus to Amsterdam from Paris for the day, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Well, yeah, it was fun. It was also a complete blur - and not entirely for the reasons I'm sure everyone here is now assuming. With just about 3 hours of sleep thanks to some of the least conscientious fellow bus-riders, we arrived in Amsterdam at the unholy time of 6AM on Sunday morning - so early, in fact, that there was no train to take us from the random Eurolines station to the city center for another 30 minutes. So it goes.

Upon arriving at the central station, we found ourselves on eerily quiet streets of the concentric canals. Having been in Amsterdam many times before, my biggest take away has always been how crowded the center is, so now being the only people on most streets was a pretty surreal experience. The deep haze seemed to exist solely to drive this point home.

The remainder of the day was spent in a sleepless stupor doing our best to make the most of the 6 hours we had before checking in to our hotel. Visited all the hot spots, naturally, and I may or may not have squealed when I discovered there was now a Primark in the city center. I also may or may not have had a bucket of water thrown on my from a high-up window - and no, I was nowhere near the Red Light district at the time.

Overall, our 31 hours in Amsterdam were well spent, if not only because of the three servings of cone frites I endulged in - and after the sweltering summer spent in Macedonia and Crete, the haze and cool air was more than welcomed.