Newlyweds Daithi &Rita

After four official days of madness, they all went home and thank God for that. I couldn’t do another round with them. Most of our Irish friends went home on Monday, and their Yankee counterparts flew over the Statue of Liberty this weekend.

In the words of that great Irish band An Emotional Fish, ‘this party’s over I’m going home.’

Everybody we spoke to before the big day said we would be wrecked from all the going; in fact I was wrecked from listening to people saying it to us.

Couples only a week married were saying it as if it was wisdom that could even save our marriage in time of crisis! I don’t like getting this type of advice; I’m the kind of guy who needs to find out for himself.

As much as getting the advice pained me, it pains me more to say they were right and 100% so. When all was said and done we fell into to bed and more or less stayed there for two days (mind out of the gutter please, my new and loving parents-in-law read this) almost a week later we had to go on honeymoon or in Irish ‘Mí na Meala’ which means the month of the honey! I can’t say I was jet lagged after an hour flight from Dublin to Amsterdam, but we were still absolutely wrecked.

Herself had been here before and for some reason, out of all of the strange and wonderful places I’d been, I never set foot on Dutch soil - damp soil. I was hoping for great weather. I had been checking the forecast all week long and it was promised that it would be good.

Alas, the day was like a damp and dreary West Kerry day when the mist and fog comes down and you can’t see your hand in front of you. The lady who checked us into the hotel gave us a map and pointed out the places of interest, drawing a big circle around the red light district as if it was the place to go.

The place I really wanted to see was Anne Frank’s house, one of the most famous stories to come out of Amsterdam during the Second World War. Amsterdam is a small enough city and easy to get around, but the day was so bad we didn’t venture out at all. We even ate in the hotel which is something we never do, we were also still very tired.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel called the Notting Hill. The rate was very good but I felt that they were going to get their pound of flesh. I went for breakfast on my own the following morning, a simple self-service type buffet. I passed the lady a few times as I gathered a plate together, I sat down and when I had half the plate eaten she landed over with a bill of €24.95 - around $30! I smiled and thanked her. I said to myself, if I’m giving you €24.95 for this, I’m going to get €24.94 worth of food off of you. To make a long story short she looked at me sideways the 4th time I went up. Five plates of food I had and six mugs of tea to wash down the food, Jesus I felt sick! I don’t think I ever ate as much meat in one sitting. The last time I felt this bad after food was when I was in a hot dog eating competition in Atlantic City for a TV show.

I went back up to the room and Rita asked me how come it took me so long and I wouldn’t explain for about half an hour. She couldn’t stop laughing and insisted we went for coffee and cakes before we got on the boat.

So that was Amsterdam, I didn’t do any of the traditional touristy things like go to the red light district or to one of those café’s that have the ‘furry cigarettes’, instead we stayed inside like an old married couple and unknowingly entered myself into an eating competition with a hotel that tried to rob me!

I left Amsterdam with wet hair and a belly like a poisoned pup!