One Last Time

this will be the last post of my journey. for those that don't know i'll be coming home on this thursday, the 20th and i guess i should write up what i've been doing the last few weeks as a conclusion to this story.

so for the past few weeks i've been working, earning money but not having any fun cause i was getting quite homesick. since i had booked the flights i have just wanted to jump on the plane and go. so one of my colleagues saw that i was looking bummed and suggested i go on one last trip and go met some people and have some fun before i leave. best advice ever. i was saving my money to come home with and pay off some debts but i decided to blow it all over here. i booked a trip to Madrid as i had always wanted to go to spain and its another world capital i can tick off the list.
i flew out last monday and while i got to madrid safe and sound my luggage did not. it was still in amsterdam. so for the first day and most of the second i was stuck wearing the same clothes which was made worse for the fact that i was wearing pants coming from holland (as its still stupidly cold here) and i came to spain to wear some shorts and get some colour back in me as i am pasty white at the moment. so i soildered on, i had faith that it would show up eventually and i didn't come to another country to dwell and worrying about things. so on monday after checking into the hostel i walked down to the city centre, the puerta del sol, and walked around from there. Madrid is a really busy city with people everywhere and at the end of just about every street there is a fountain or statue of something. so with every street there was something new to discover. i saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a big open air square, the Palace and a good lot of the centre from walking everywhere.
tuesday i met some girls at breakfast and got to talking and they invited me to hang with them for the day. thats the best thing about travelling, you get to meet some fantastic people that even though you only know for a day you feel like they'll have an impact on you for the rest of your life with the stories you share and the times you have together. so with these girls we first went to check out an art museum, however that was booked out so we walked back to the plaza mayor (i did so much walking on this trip i was ready for bed around 10 each night) and decided to grab something to eat and one of the terraces. we found a place that served to dishes and included a drink and dessert for under 9 euros. the best part was that the food was actually really good and we sat there for a few hours eating and drinking some wine, which is also incredibly cheap there. after that we went on a guided tour of some of the old places in madrid and then headed back to the hostel for a seista as after all the walking and eating we'd done we were quite tried.
that night we went to Parque del buen Retiro, which was an old palace gardens with plently of monuments and nice areas to see if there was somewhere there we could grab a drink. unfortunately there was not so we walked back to the centre and found a place in one of the side streets to have a drink and a little something to eat. along the way i was approached by this kid, would have been no older than 16, and he started shouting "discotech, discotech" at me and tried to get me to dance with him or something. i tried to brush him off and he grabbed that arm and with his free hand he made a go for my wallet in my pocket. i caught on straight away and pushed him away and gave him a look that would have said in the strongest possible way "fuck off".
the place we went to was just a small place where i ordered some tapas and sangrina and spent the next 2 hours just chilling out. at this stage we where joined with 2 other people from the hostel as well, including a guy from switzerland that i hung out with on the next few days.
wednesday i went to the Museo del Prado, which is a huge art museum in madrid. however, try as i might i still can't spend more than an hour in those places without getting bored. what i did find interesting though was they had an exhibit for the guy that invented landscape painting. as if someone had to actually come up with the concept! again more walking around the city, eating, sleeping. that night i hung out with one of the girls from the night before and an american guy from the same room as me and we went and got some food (which i couldn't finish as it was too much and thats saying something!) and then went to a pub to watch the soccer that was on. i thought i was in the middle of a joke when i walked into an irish bar with an american, mexican, swiss, austrian and myself. again, thats the beauty of travelling.
the next day, thursday, i was meant to go to a town called Toledo with the mexican guy from the night before as a day trip but by the time we got to the train station the train had been sold out and the next one wasn't for 2 hours. since i had already paid for a Don Quixote tour later that night at 8 i needed to be back by then so it didn't give me any time in Toledo. instead, i went on a tour of the bull fighting arena, went to Retiro Park to have a look at day time and then got back to the hostel to met the swiss guy. we went and got some food then i went on my tour, which was really cool. you get a guide that tells you about the cultural history of madrid and takes you to important places and along the way you get actors put on a show for you about don quixote and its writer right there in the middle of the street. of course the plays were in spanish but for us monolingual people we had a translation sheet. that lasted 2 hours and after that it was some more walking and eventually bed time.
the flight back to a'dam was with out drama and i spent friday night with family in a city close by to catch up with them before i go.

saturday night.....saturday night was by far the most entertaining night i've had on my trip and this will not be a complete retelling of it as this is a family orientated blog. AJ, Casper, Kim and an american guy i've met here Tim all met up in Bergen op Zoom to make my last weekend in holland a memorable one. First we got some beers in the town centre then decided we wanted ribs for dinner so we went to a restaurant that had a beary unusual theme. and if you didn't get it there it was a restaurant that had a bear theme. we had decided that we were going to antwerp for the real drinking and after organising a taxi to pick us we we headed down by train.
so from here we hit a few pubs, had some beers and eventually went to the same karaoke bar i went to on marcel's bucks night cause i remember there being girls of our age there. oh before that, we were looking for a good pub and someone came up and gave us a free bottle of red and white wine so we sat somewhere and drunk them. anyway, i managed to convince a girl at the karaoke bar to get on stage with me at a song of my choice. unfortunately she left early cause she said her friend was feeling ill, a likely story. so i found another one to take her place and while i was struggling to find 50 cents to go to the toilet (i tried haggling to 10 cents but no dice) AJ came up and dragged me out of the toilet to tell me that my song was on. i then proceeded to blast out a rendition of My Sharona, really giving it to the Whoos. good times. we were also approached by a girl on her Hen's night and for a small donation you could get a lollypop from here that had a task to complete writting and stuck to it. mine was i had to write the worst thing about her. thanks to some quick thinking by kim i wrote the worst thing about her was that she was wearing pants.
after that we went to a club and again more beers, more talking to girls, some dancing, and of course tequilla. bloody shots were so big you just about to had to do it in 2 mouthfuls and if anyone knows me, tequilla and me are not a good mix but i managed to save face and keep it down. it was getting to 3 at this stage and we needed to get to our cab so we left but on the way back we took a detour through the red light district of antwerp to have a look at the girls. not as good as the ones in amsterdam but there were some alright ones there. on the way back from there i picked up a street sign and was convinced that i was taking it as a souviner however the stupid cops there had other ideas. we were already running late for the cab at this stage so i had to run back to the place "i got it from" ie nearest suitable location i had to run back to make sure we got the cab. in hindsight i should have just gotten arrested as that would have been the icing on the cake for my holiday. the guys were staying at tims place and i had to ride home and after narrowly avoid a few parked cars trying to fix my light mid-ride i got home at 530.
the next day i had to say goodbye to AJ and Casper, which totally sucked but i'm sure its not the last time i'll be seeing those boys. Kim and i watched the f1s and moto gps during the afternoon, which was the perfect way to recover from a big night and once they had finished it was also time to say goodbye to him but at least i'll be seeing him in december when he comes home from christmas.

today, monday, i'm packing and its becoming quickly apparent that i'm not going to have enough room in my bag and some stuff will have to be sacrificed. tonight there is a family dinner and tomorrow i'll be on my way home.

so there it is, my trip. i'm glad i kept this (somewhat) up to date as i'll always have it here to look back on for my own records.

i'll be seeing most of you all soon!

Until then

I'm coming home

So i've done it, i've booked my flight back home. not what i originally wanted but now that i made the choice i'm happy with it, somewhat.
I rang today to change my flight from the original date of the 13th of Nov to an earlier time because i hadn't intended to stay that long for a while now. however the only options given to me where that date or something much earlier because of the discounted ticket i'm on. they only let so many of us cheap skates on the plane you see. so after humming and arring and decided that i didn't want to stay till november and took the early flight. how early? i'm not telling. if you wish to know you know where to contact me and i'll decide then if you shall know the secret. who knows maybe i'll catch the J1 bus from the airport straight home and not tell anyone.
After i had made the tough call to go early i got a ring sometime later saying they've found a way to get me home at the time i wanted. however, by this time i weighed up why i was staying here against what i have to gain by going back home and i believe i made the right call for the right reasons. i've been gone for 6 months already and while i am still having fun here, i'm not doing anything that i can't do back home (asides from attending parties in amsterdam of course AJ, and we will party hard on sunday). i'm sure work won't be happy with this but these things happen i guess. of course i feel good about it now but when the time gets closer and i realise i'm not coming back here for quite possibly a long time i'll probably start to get a little sad as i will miss a lot of people here.
anyway, i look forward to seeing you all soon(ish). i'll still be posting as i'm sure there will be things to tell until then.

Until next time!

Weeding!!

So last weekend it was Marcel and Marsha's wedding. No that wasn't a typo in the title, its a simpsons reference.
It was an absolute blast and i was happy that i could be there to see it. The whole reason for this trip was to be here for that day. when marcel told me 2 years ago it was going to happen i promised i was going to be there, everything else (canada etc) was an add on to planning around this event.
So what happened how did it go down? well the day started with a trip to Marcel's parents place to get ready and do all the final preparations. marcel's suit was a gold and platinum theme and i must say i thought it was a really good choice.

Marcel with Pieter (his dad) and Erwin (his bro)

For the wedding car Marcel's parents neighbour had restored an old Renault from the 1930s. this thing was so damn fine it made frank sinartra look like a hobbo (anchorman quote for those not in the know).

So while marcel took that car to marsha's house we (family and friends) took our own cars to marsha's place to await the arrival of marcel to pick up marsha for the wedding. Dutch weddings work a bit differently than what we are used to so you'll notice a few things like that through out my story. i think i prefer the Dutch style actually, much more personal and unique.

so marcel came and met marsha at her house and after a quick stop to the cemetery to visit the grave of marsha's mum we all walked to the hall in the city where they were getting married. the wedding itself took place in an old fort (really no other way to describe it) and there was about 60 people in attendance. instead of being invited to the wedding, invitations went out to invite people to the reception with the choice to attend the wedding and only the close family and friends were directly invited to be there and the reception. during the ceremony marcel and marsha we're seated as marcel's uncle conducted the wedding. he is not a member of a church (at least i think now) but is a member of the city council and therefore has the power to marry people here. even though i didn't understand a word i knew that he was talking about marcel and marsha as a couple and what they have achieved so far and what the future holds. much more personal than some parish you don't know. he even made a joke at my expense saying that they are running a hotel now because i'm living there. i found this out afterwards of course.

after the commencement of the ceremony it was off to the restaurant for dinner. this was only attended by family so i felt very privileged to be there. people who go to the wedding do their own thing in the afternoon and come for the drinks later. so dinner went from 4 to 8 when people started to arrive. one of marcel's friends came up with the idea to make a large M & M cut out and have people take their pics in it and then sign a photo album next to where they'll put the pic as a way of a guestbook. it was M&Ms because Marcel and Marsha were getting married, get it? again, another personal touch to the weeding. once the majority of the guest had arrive the family could break line (they were standing in a line to greet everyone as they came in) and the night could begin.
through out the night friends and family did small presentations for the newlyweds. firstly, marcel's uncle proclaimed that he had made a mistake at the wedding and had to redo the vowels but before he did so he asked if there were any objections. then people came forth with que cards and told everyone why they should marry. this was essentially like telling embrassing stories at a 21st. keeping up with the "we do that at 21st theme" next was a slide show showing some baby and teenage pics.
after that some friends did a sketch where they presented some gifts to M & M.

first were some porcelain animals for marcel to smash because of his dislike of marsha's rabbit. next, a vase with their wedding invitation engraved on it. followed by a computer for marsha to smash for her hate of computer games and finally they were given a weekend hotel package.
the next presentation was a slide show about marcel and marsha's house and the things they already own together and then some pics of marsha's bachelorette night and some footage taken of marcel singing karaoke (a long version of what i posted last week).
after all the presentations it was time for dancing and this went on until about 130 when it was time to say thank you and goodbye.
i didn't get home till about 330 due to a mix up in taxi's (oh, i should mention at this point that the reception was technically in Belgium, how's that? they had their reception in another country!) and i like to think that i was the last one to bed that night, something to be pround of.
well i'm probably missing a lot of info but i'm going to throw some photos into this and hopefully that will cover some gaps. for how i've had enough typing today. (crap, most of my photos are in portrait and i can't turn them in this, or at least i can't find a button that will do it for me. if anyone what to see more you can ask!.)

get to see my parents this week and i'm so pumped for that. homesickness is starting to set in.

until next time!

update

hey all
sorry about the lack of updates, i think i'm suffering from whatever it is that makes travelers slowly stop communicating with back home. i think i've done well to make it this far with fairly regular posts.

ok, so what have i been up to? well just living a normal life really, going out on weekends, socialising, bumming around the house during the day doing nothing. normal stuff.

i got a job today, working with the GE plastics plant here, just doing admin type stuff. i got that through my uncle who is one of the big wigs there so i start that next week at 12 euros an hour! thats like 100 australian dollars! even though it means i can no longer stay at home surfing the net all day i think i can do it for a few weeks. hopefully there is enough work there to see me out for the rest of my trip.

2 weeks ago there was an event in BoZ called krabben foor, i have no idea what the translation is or if there even one, basically all the stores set up street fronts and have sales and there are rides and attractions. i found this happy camper painted on the side of one such ride:they also had a crazy street circus where people dressed up as weird insects :good times. and notice the lack of rain? really a great weekend for that reason

last weekend it was also great weather, which was good cause marcel's buck party was on saturday. ever since marcel told me he was getting married (2 years ago) i've been looking forward to this bucks night. and while some of the essential bucks night activities were missing it was still a top night and everyone had a lot of fun.
so first up we went to an adventure park where you have to climb across rope bridges, swinging logs and balance on planks to make it through. here's a pic of the course:
did i not mention that it was 8m above ground? my bad. basically they give you a harness and a helmet and you are supported by cables that run above you. now because i did that bungee in canada this didn't phase me at all so i flew through the course pretty quickly and without any stress, unlike some of the other guys. marcel has a thing about heights so this is why this activity was chosen. this shot is of peter, my uncle, getting across the gap obstacle with my waiting on the left to go through. they had people going in both directions, which was made possible because there were two support lines to travel on.me again.

so after completing the course it was time for a drink then to the next challenge, the leap of faith. at this challenge you have to climb a pole, again 8m, up and jump of trying to reach a bell that it hanging a metre or so out.
we did that twice each with the second being with the bell further out but everyone managed to hit the bell on both occassions. next up was a canoe drop, well it wasn't but i can't spell the other boat name, the one that starts with ki, but its the same thing anyway. it was just like that old solo commercial where the guy jumps down the waterfall after slamming a solo. so wish i had a solo do drink while do that. so you gear yourself up and they have a ramp they push you off into a little pond. the trick is to lean back so go in perpendicular and try to centre the boat so that when you bob up again you "land" the boat. this was really tricky and only Erwin, marcel's bro, managed to nail it. i had 3 goes at it but failed each time. i rolled it to the side on the first 2 times and then i leant back too much on the 3rd and i flipped back over again. mind you, i had the hardest one to do it in cause i was the only one small enough in the legs to squeeze into the small boat, which submerges completely, unlike the other one which one went in half way.

after that we went home to shower and then had a BBQ at marcel's parents place. it was here that we told him that his costume for the night was an ape one. marsha calls marcel her aap (ape) so it was very appropriate. here it is custom to dress the buck up so thats the reason for the costume. so after a few beers and some meat we went to BoZ to start the partying. as an added item, marcel was given a container of banana lollies to hand out to girls.
after having a few drinks at boz we took a taxi bus to antwerp to go to a karaoke bar. why? cause marcel is terrified of karaoke. we got him up there though! we belted out an outstanding rendition of bon jovi's its my life.

we stayed at this bar for a long time, putting back the beers and having a good laugh. once we left we went to another bar for a whiskey of all things and then got some much needed fries with mayo. it was around 430 so that was the end of the night for us and we got a taxi bus home again. i had planned ahead and put water and panadol next to my bed so i took that and passed right out as soon as i hit the pillow.
the weather the next day was awesome and i was trying to convince people to go to the beach but everyone was too hung over for any sort of activity. but from reports i've heard it wouldn't have been worth it cause every dutchman and his dog had the same idea (seriously, dutch like to take there dogs everywhere) so it would have been more frustrating than relaxing. to anyone thinking that the weather was starting to resemble a summer, forget it, its raining again today with no sign of slow down, which is crap cause i wanted to go to the thursday market and get some awesome stroopwafels. stroopwafels, for those that don't know, are the greatest food on earth. its two soft waffel pieces glued together by caramel. they are so awesome i think i might put up with the rain to go get some fresh hot ones. normally they only come in a small size and in packs of 10. i'm bringing a suitcase back full of them.

coming up for me is the wedding in a week and a bit and also work. i haven't had a full time job in 4 years so i'm going to die getting up early everyday of the week but for 12 euros an hour i think i can manage (seriously, when the guy ask me if that was alright and had to hold myself down so i didn't start yahoo-ing around the office and doing the floor circle dance, fans of the simpsons will get that and if you don't then you're not really a fan).

Until next time!

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Now playing: Jebediah - Lino
via FoxyTunes

Amsterdam

So this is a follow on from the last post, if you haven't done so read that first (or not). these events take place on the 6th to the 9th of july.

the flight over was easy, i scored an exit row seat and the flight was only an hour so no big deal. only problem with the exit seat is that it is in the middle of the plane so i was one of the last to get off which meant that i had to wait for ages at passport control. finally got out of there and then had to get someone to change a 50 euro i had for some change so i could pay for the bus back to the city centre. eventually i had to buy a twix for this guy to open the register and give me some change. all that running around took about 10 minutes which meant i missed the bus back and had to wait another 30mins before the next one. thank goodness for ipods, making intolerable times bearly tolerable.
so bus to the city and then a train to amsterdam to meet up with Arjan and Casper, 2 guys i made friends with last time i was here. after i bit of disorientation i eventually meet up with Arjan and it was basically "hey how's it going? nice to see you again, lets go drink" and drink we did. after initially been told off for getting on the bike side saddle, which is the gay thing to do apparently (now i know why all those people were looking and kim and i the other week, it wasn't cause we were talking english, its cause we were talking english and being gay at the same time.) we got on our way through amsterdam for the first watering hole. we stayed for a drink there then headed to the next one, which turned into the generally trend of the night. even now as i'm writing this places are coming back to me that i'd forgetting we'd visited. all the while i was carrying my bag of clothes and possessions like a hobo. so after about 5 or 6 pubs we went to a club for some dancing and more drinking. i was pleasently surprised with how easy it was just to dance with random girls there. they only game you need is to say hi, thankfully it wasn't more otherwise i would have been out of my leauge. that would never fly back home, girls are too closed off there. while at this club i witnessed a lot of girl on girl action as well, stupid attention whores but dammit it worked!
no idea when we got out of there but afterwards we went to another club for more of the same till that shut down at around 5am. so to create an overall picture, i woke in the morning on friday around 9 to meet sophie in hyde park and then by 5am saturday morning i was drunk off my arse in downtown amsterdam. if it wasn't for the weather i'd love europe (seriously, the weather in north europe anyway is appalling). after a late night snack of fries with mayo (dutch mayo is the best mayo in the world) it was time to hope on the back of the bike again and finally get to Arjan's place.

after getting a good 6hrs sleep it was time to get up and meet Casper at the train station. caught up with him, grabbed a coffee and then spent the next 4hrs or so walking around amsterdam just checking the city out. of course i forgot to bring my camera, ah well i'll be back there. i was meant to meet sophie at around 4 but because her phone didn't work in holland i didn't hear from her till around 7 and which time casper had gone home and it was time to charge up the battery again with some more booze.
first stop that night was a coffee shop for a local specialty, hash joints. from here we did another little pub crawl waiting for the sun to go down (it gets really dark around 1030 here) so we could check out the red light district. yes tonight was a typical tourist night in amsterdam as we joined the 100s of english bucks nights in smoking drugs and looking at girls in windows except were weren't making arses of ourselves. so the red light district is everything you thought it is and some. there are 100s of girls in small red light lit rooms (some of them quite hot mind you) and when the curtains drawn that means they're busy. there is even, as Arjan puts it, a sex trench where you go down some stairs into a little dead end allyway and check the girls out there. there's even a big black mama ally if that sort of thing floats your boat.
from here we went to another coffee shop and then another pub where sophie started to bog out and we called it a night around 1.

sunday was spent riding around the city however this time Arjan let me his spare bike so i didn't have to dink the whole day. we covered pretty much every corner of the city which wouldn't have been possible without Arjan (thanks bud!) and ended the tour at a cafe on top of a muesum in the shape of a sunken ship. it was 2.50 to get in but you get a free drink coupon, this can be exchanged for beer so in the end you save money. i have no idea how their business model works but i like it!
i would also like to point out at this time that the weather was great for the whole weekend, which is certainly atypical of the weather here.
after a free beer we met up with casper to go see die hard 4. ok, this has got to be the best movie i have seen in a cinema in a very long time. i had a blast watching this movie, it was just so outrageous. go see it!

monday and the weather finally came round and started to piss down. i meet up with sophie one last time in amsterdam for some lunch and then started the ordeal that was getting back to bergen op zoom. normally it takes 2hrs by train, i think it was 4hrs by the time i got home this time. first of all there was no train driver for the train so we were waiting on the platform for 20mins before leaving. then the shit weather had caused damage to the track inbetween the Hauge and Delft (about 40mins down the line from a'dam) so everyone had to get off the train and get a tram to delft. because the tram has 3 entry/exits i decided not to line up behind everyone coming off the train like a sheep and move up to the furtherest point of entry. these trams come every 30mins so when one finally came it was a stampede to get on. i had smart enough lined myself up with the door by looking at the previous trams so i managed to get on board.
what would normally take about 10mins by train took 40mins on the tram, the whole time being packed in like rush hour in the london underground. got to delft and got on a train going to rotterdam. once there i managed to decipher from the annoucement that the train was turning into a stop train to rossendaal, my next stop, which is not what i wanted cause that meant it would stop at every country outpost in between. so i got off and luckily the train i needed was on the other side of the platform. so i jumped on that and finally got to boz but my dramas had not finished yet. marcel was there waiting for me but when he tried to start the car we discovered that the battery had died. we tried to push start it but with no success. eventually marsha's dad came and gave us a boost and which point we finally made it back home.

so that was my party week. since then i have been doing all sorts of things, none of which make a good blog post so what i might do for my next one is write up a list of things that i think are quintessentially dutch, much the same i did early on in canada.

until then!

london

Sorry it has been so long between post. i've done so much in that last few weeks that i haven't had the motivation to write it all up. since i have been inundated with requests (well two actually but its good to know that people read this) i will write up my trip to london that occurred 2 weeks ago. i've also had a fair few drinks tonight so this will probably be very sloppy.

ok, so two weeks ago (the 3rd) i took a trip across the channel to london to meet up with rick, josh and sophie (all friends from australia) and also cousins from australia (hi Jo and James!). so no events in the traveling between countries except for the fact that i had to go buy some lunch bags from the local supermarket so that i could take toothpaste with me. that was just a pain in the arse. anyway, got to stansted which is about an hour out of london, got a bus to liverpool street and then a tube (that cost $AUS10 for a 20 minute trip!) to my cousins house. that was a tuesday night, wednesday i met sophie in Hyde Park (which was just down the road) and started the sightseeing. first stop was big ben and parliament house. few snaps there (forget about pics for now its too late to upload them) then to westminister abby, then to downing street, then trafalgar square. all these places are within easy walking distance from each other. the weather was confusing to say the least as it would turn hot and cold very quickly but at least it wasn't raining, yet...
so after trafalgar (apologies if i'm spelling that wrong, can't be arsed to spell check right now) it was to the london eye, the big ferris wheel located on the other side of the Thames from parliament. initially i wasn't going to to it as i had very little money but i reasoned to myself that i was just going to spend that 14 pounds (yes thats how much it cost, about 35 dollars) on beer anyway so i might as well to the "right" thing and do something useful with that money.

i would have been happier with the beer.

london isn't really a city to see from up high like toronto is. there are no big buildings and no interesting roadways to look at due to the location so after going half way up i was done taking pics and just wondering whether the capsule had any fan system as it stunk like pakis (its racist i know but its true!). after the giant waste of money soph and i went to the london tower. now i don't want to spoil anything for people who haven't been but i was dissappointed when i saw that the tower isn't really a tower, but a fort. this also cost 14 pounds to visit but i feel it was better value for money (let's face it, nothing is value for money in the UK) as we spent a good 2 hours in the there checking things out. it did rain while we where there though which sucked but nothing you can do about it when you're in the middle of summer in england...
they have the crown jewels there but you are not allowed to take pictures which completely sucks. however, we did manage to take a few to stick it to the man. i would share these but i somehow deleted them off my comp, which sucks.

after a bit of confusion on what the london bridge was (honestly, when you think london bridge you think the big one with the fancy supports, not some dinky tiny bridge. apparently the good one is called tower bridge. go figure) i finally met up with rick. he took us to a few pubs and got some good old fashion indian curry for dinner. i chose the chicken vindaloo for the pure fact that lister from Red Dwarf is always going on about them. i should have taken the hint when the waiter said "you know its hot right?"
"no worries, i can take it"
i finished it, it was quite good but if i knew what was in store the next day i would have gone with something milder. i was fighting that bad boy all the way to lunch the next day, damn bombay belly.

wednesday soph and i checked out oxford st where she did some shopping, followed up with some maccas from lunch after looking around for any cheap alternatives. its really sad that it was the best option around and this was the second day running that we'd have it for lunch. so after oxford st we saw picadilly circus and leister square. then a quick tube ride to buckingham palace where i finally had some memories come back from my visit (of a day) in 2002. from there we saw the australian war memorial, which was impressive. it had all the places where we fought in bold made up of smaller names of where soliders are buried. from here we went back to jo and james' house to make some dinner (its way cheaper) after which we met rick and josh for some more drinks. nothing to special to report from here as the bar shut at 11 and we had to get a tube home anyway.
thursday was my last day in london and we decided to check out the Tate modern, an art gallery, as it was free. weird, weird, weird. thats how i'd describe it. its basically full of abstract art that makes no sense and i even saw a container that the "artist" had shit in and closed to make as a piece of art. i wish i hadn't deleted that photo too. so we kicked around there for an hour or so then headed across to st pauls cathedral for a quick look, quick cause its cost 8 pounds to get in. after that i headed to where my bus left for the airport and started the journey back to holland.
this was a journey in itself as there was traffic on the highway to stansted (luckily i had taken an earlier bus) then i thought i had done well when i got to the check in counter as only 8 people were in front of me. however all these people seemed to have problems with checking in and instead of getting another person to help them, the sole check in lady dealt with them meaning that by the time i was served the line behind me was probably about 100 deep. i was checked in within 2 minutes and i think the lady appriciated it and gave me a priority boarding pass so that i didn't have to line up with everyone else to get good seats on the plane. she did however manage to give me the wrong gate number on my boarding pass, luckily the real one was across the aisle as by the time i figured this out there was only 10mins to boarding. the flight back to holland went without hassle and i was ready to go to amsterdam and begin good times there.
to hear about those good times you'll have to tune in for the next installment as i'm going to bed. its 1am here and writing this has taken me an hour (ok, i was on msn too). the next part will be up soon, promise.

until then!

Enschede and Moto GP

What a top weekend! if this is going to be any indication on how holland is then is going to be one hell of a trip.
so during the week i didn't do much, just get my bearings around bergen op zoom again and get settled in. on friday i travelled all the way across the country to enschede where my mate from back home Kim was living. getting there was an adventure in itself. first i had to ride to the train station from the house on the bike, only the second time riding in and the first time by myself. i found the station easy enough but then had to find an ATM to get some money out as you can't pay for tickets with VISA (you can't pay much with VISA, something i'm going to have to get use to) i was running tight as it was and by the time i found the bank and then made it back to the train station and locked up the bike it was too late and the train had already left. didn't matter anyway as there was a big line in the kiosk to buy tickets so even if i had made it on time i would have been screwed. as it was one lady took the opportunity to discuss her life in detail to the cashier and was holding up the line with no regard to anyone else. good thing the train did leave otherwise i would have been very pissed off by this. so the next train came in 30mins but now instead of taking the planned 2 stops to enschede i had to make 4. fun...

first few transfers went ok but when i got to the third one in zutphen i jumped on the wrong train and started to head in the wrong direction. lucky for me the ticket inspector told me this 15mins into my trip and i had to go back again and this time catch the right train. after that it was smooth sailing to enschede where kim was waiting for me. since bike is the prefered mode of transport here i hopped onto the back of kim's bike and he gave me a dinky to his place. fortunate for us there was a girl's U/19 world softball championships on in town and australia was playing that night. so we went to check that out, as you do, and enjoy a few beers while watching girls play sport. i know, that really suss but it was just too random to pass up. the aussie crowd there had all the chants going, which i can get into back home but i found myself cringing when they did it here. so after that back to kim's place for some more beers and then a bike ride to town to see some of the nightlife. i never knew sitting on a bike was such had work. since i was sitting side saddle i had to work to keep my legs off the ground the whole time and to stay upright. it took me a long time on saturday to figure out why i was so sore but that probably cause i wasn't in the mood for thinking then.

so enschede has all their bars located in one area so its very convienent and i had actual been here before on my first trip to holland in 2000. strange how things had come full circle. so we went to this one place that was descent enough. can't really remember much about it now as the drinks were flowing easily as we put to the back of our minds that we had to get up at 6 the next day to get picked up to go to the GPs. so it came about that we started chatting to some girls and surprisingly i got one of their numbers. i must have said something right!
maybe around 230 we left and grabbed some late night yiros, the saviour of the drunken man whose had very little to eat all day and now incredibly drunk. after that kim "rode" home with me on the back. we were all over the place and in fact a parked car jumped out of no where and kim ran into it (quite slowly mind you) and we fell off and had a good laugh on the ground for a while. when we got back home i decided that i wasn't getting up to make sandwiches the next day so i made them then and finally crashed out around 330.

we slept through the alarm and the subsequent door bell rings of the person picking us up. not to matter though as he finally managed to call kim and said he'll pick up some other people first and come back to us. it was 7am when he picked us up. i spent the whole time in the car asleep and at one time falling asleep on kim's shoulder.
however, once at the track i felt a little better from my power snooze and the sound of motorbikes got me wide awake. we found our seats, which were located on a series of hairpins so that we had maximum viewing time of the bikes as they went around. there was also a big screen in view so you could keep up with the activities on other parts of the track. so the seats were great but the weather was not. it was cold and windy the whole day yet somehow we all got sunburnt on our faces. the first 2 races (the 125cc and 250cc) were good but i didn't pay that much attention to them as i wasn't going for any particular rider. the main race, the moto GP class, was fantastic! there were 3 australians riding including casey stoner, the greatest guy ever (i'm a huge stoner fan). in fact it was an australian 1-2 for the starting positions with chris vermeulen qualifying first and casey 2nd. by the first corner casey was in front and leading strong for half of the race (which kept me very excited) until valentino rossi caught up to him with about 10 laps to go of the 25 lap race. casey kept him at bay for a few laps but with 4 laps to go rossi got him and thats how it finished. it was a great race and i'm definitely going to try to get to the australian race next year.
it seemed that everyone who owed a motorbike in holland was there as the parking field was full of them and just about 3 out of 4 people were wearing their motorbike leathers.

we left the track around 4 and i can't remember much of the trip home as i was half asleep for it. when we eventually got home it was straight to sleep for 3 hours and then time to get ready again to go out and meet that girl i had gotten the number of the night before.
i only stayed out till 2 as i was still drained from the day and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow that night.
so drinking, dutch girls and motorbikes. it doesn't get much better than that.

this week i'm going to london for a few days and then amsterdam so more good times should be just around the corner!
i've put a few pics at the end of the post
until next time!

STONER!!!!!!!