I just got back from Amsterdam and was there on a Friday. Sunny but a bit chilly with the wind. The city is dead with the lockdown. The RLD was a ghost town. Very sad. All windows closed and shuttered. No one around the area. Most photos you do not see another person in sight. A sort of Zombie Apocalypse feeling to it.

Only places that were open were doing take away. Albert Heijn supermarkets also open but only until 2000 not 2200. Curfew is in force at 2100. No alcohol after 2000 if you can find a place like a hotel that might serve it.

I hope this pandemic issue clears up soon. The world economy has been severely damaged as a result of it.

I hope the summer is going to be booming as soon as the vaccine(s) have rendered international travel affordable again. People will have been locked up for going on 18 months in some cases. They'll have money in their pockets and be in the mood to live again. Of course the service sector's not going to be like it was. But I reckon we're looking at a decade of re-building ahead of us in the developed world, and loads of instability in the third world countries. Myself I'm aiming to get out to Amsterdam this summer/autumn, unless quarantine/testing bullshit is still in place. We'll see.

It seems, on insta, that the nice cafe Koffieschenkerij is open. (Located in the annex of Oude Kerk)

Yeah I'm confident that a trip will take place this June July or August and by fuck will I make the most of it! I recommend people book a hotel now with free cancellation because its going to be busy once things open up.

Well, in December I was forced to moved my Christmas trip to the first week of June.
Amsterdam & the Hague.
I thought that was a conservative (it will be clear by then) date, maybe I’ll get a spring weekend trip in too.
Now, I’m not so sure.
UK numbers are going in the right direction, I expect we will come off the travel ban before summer.
I guess that’s linked to how prevalent these new strains are at the time.
The situation in the Netherlands doesn’t look as positive, I hope that changes soon.

Yeah, my plan (in part due to financial constraints as I'm trying to save) is to wait until September to see how things stand. I'm planning a solo trip in the last quarter of 2021 which I intend to be quite open about with friends and family, on the pretext of sampling the delights of the cannabis clubs and the magic truffles legally, without fear of arrest. Which I do actually mean, but on the DL I might squeeze in a few trips to the RLD and the Banana Club (the latter for old times' sake); but I'm not making the mistake I made last year when the summer came and things re-opened after the first lockdown of assuming we were out of the woods. For me any bookings are on hold until I get an idea of whether or not we're looking at a second winter (or third if you're in Asia) of virus-induced bullshit.