Day 17: LOX Fun Times in Utrecht, or Amsterdam Shmamsterdam

We took the train from Paris to Amsterdam. The most exciting thing to happen was that two American tourists fell foul of the rail system, and tried to get on using just their Eurail passes. Unfortunately for them, this particular train required reservations (or something) and they'd have to pay some large number (I can't remember the figure) of Euros. This didn't actually come to light until we were well under way and the ticket collectors came around, by which time it was too late to just get off the train. Their other option, and what they ended up doing, was to only pay 96 Euros each and get off at the first stop (Brussels).

We were met at the station in Amsterdam by Leela (who you may remember from Edinburgh) which was a pleasant surprise - we were planning to have to make our way to Utrecht ourselves and meet up with her there. After dumping our stuff at Leela's place, we went for a wander around downtown Utrecht, which was lovely. The largest building in the city (by law, apparently) is the Dom tower. It is across the road from a church. It used to be part of the church, but the folks that built the place concentrated on the tower and the church-y bit, but ran out of money when it came to the bits in between, so it was built poorly, so it collapsed. In the end they just put a road through it.

Good times.