On the plane to Amsterdam there was a magazine with all the different things you could do and see in Amsterdam and Mum found a bag museum that she really wanted to visit, which showed the history of bag from the 16th century right up til the 21st. Finally, in our last week here we made it back to Amsterdam to visit it.

First thing Tuesday morning Wim dropped Els, Lisa, Mum and I in Hoorn so we could visit the shop Els's works at and have morning tea with her boss Ellen. We had breakfast for 1 euro at the Hema! An egg&bacon roll, a croissant and tea or coffee all for just 1 euro! I suppose this is similar to breakfast at IKEA but Hema is better.

After breakfast we went to Els's shop to visit Ellen

After breakfast and morning tea Wim picked us up and we zoomed over to Amsterdam. Silly me for thinking because Mum wanted to visit the musuem so badly she might have actually found out where in Amsterdam it was. Instead we had to walk for 40 minutes before we found it, already partly suffering hypothermia. I complained a lot but it gave us a chance to see some really beautiful parts of Amsterdam.

Inside the museum was amazing, on the first floor was a cafe that served high tea and above that were 2 floors of exhibitions.

The second floor of the museum was the origins of 'the bag' starting out with the earliest examples

we moved on through the centuries to more modern bags and purses

It was really interesting to the many stages of bags and purses and how they have developed. Ofcourse the gift shop was the best i have ever seen, but it was also a bit our of my price range. It didn't matter though because from the museum we went to the Kalverstraat, which is the main shopping strip.

We split up here and Lisa and I looked around on our own, i had to make the most of my time here because it may be a while before i am back in Amsterdam. We hit the shops serious style and only stopped when we got our third phone call from Els to say 'they were very cold and bored and would we be ready to go anytime soon??' The Kalverstraat runs across the city centre and half way through it is broken up by de dam, the square in which the royal palace stands. Becuase of the school holidays they had transformed it into a huge carnival with rides and side shows.

When we met up with Els, Wim and Mum they had befriended some local police officers, which scared the absolute bajeebies out of me becuase not 5 minutes before i had accidentally walked out of a store with a wallet and had to run back and return it, for a horrible second i thought they were there to arrest me and i would be locked up with about 27 red light girls.

Not the ideal way to wrap up my last day in Amsterdam, but it was ok because they didn't want to arrest me, although they were on their way to the red light district. One of them already had on her bulletproof vest but the other had to go back to the station and put it on because it was just to uncomfortable to wear all day. I bet.