Author: jason

In the future, when I think back to my time in Paris I’ll think “I wish I had had my nose amputated in Brussels”. Paris is beautiful but she stinks. Everywhere I go except in the most swanky areas there seems to be the constant smell of body odor and shit. Maybe when you’ve got this many people and this much heat that’s just the way it is, but none the less, it stinks.

I woke up this morning feeling a lot better, but still pretty bad all told. I was out of clean shirts and both of my pairs of jeans had seen a few days of walking around in the heat so it was time to go laundry hunting. The guy at the front desk told me there was one just 300 meters down the street so I put on one of my dress shirts (so I could wash all my t-shirts) and headed out. It may have been 300 meters, or it may have been 900. Meters are meaningless to me. Everyone uses them though. Stores are “just 50 meters from the station!” and hotels are “around the corner and 100 meters”. I just think of it as football fields.

Laundry was as exciting as you might expect it to be. I ended up trying to find other places to be because the laundry place itself smelled like shit and there was a guy in there who just absolutely reeked of body odor. I could smell it out the door. So instead of sitting there basking in it I went hunting for medicine.

I found a pharmacy and went in and asked if they had cold medicine. It’s not like in the US where you go into a Walgreens and there are 200 different cold medicines in different flavors and strengths and colors. She had one. I was hoping for something with Psuedephadrine in it so my damn nose would stop running but no luck. I asked and it turned out she had just regular Sudafed so I got that instead and popped one dry.

Note to meth manufacturers. Come to Paris. EU 1.60 for a box of 15 Sudafed.

I then found a bakery around the corner and snarfed down two pastries. I hadn’t eaten anything in almost 24 hours and I was dying. Then back to the laundry to get my nice, clean clothes and it was time to start the day.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do today but I did need to start thinking about tomorrow. I did some research on flights and trains and hostels and decided to go to Berlin next. It was my cheapest option aside from going straight to London and it was too early for that. So I waited in line at the station to buy a train ticket to Berlin. It was expensive, but it’s going to be fun. I’ll take the Thalys to Cologne and then the ICE to Berlin. Both high speed, luxury trains. It cost me EU 172. Getting into Paris was easy, and pretty cheap. The options for getting out weren’t very good.

All that out of the way I finally had time to do some sight seeing. I headed for Notre Dame and visited there for a while. I’m running out of superlatives so I’ll just say it was great. That does it no justice at all but how many times can I say beautiful or stunning or gorgeous. It was all of those and more. Every gargoyle and belfry is a work of art, and there are hundreds.

I had kind of wanted to take one of the red bus tours but they stopped taking passengers at 4 and it was already getting close to that so I decided to just make my own tour. I rode the subway out to La Defense which sounded cool but I had no idea what it was. It was indeed cool. A giant, giant arch made of what looked like a hotel and lots of nice shops. It’s on the western most part of Paris, over the outer loop of the Seine. I’m not really sure what it’s all about still. I need to read about it.

Then I was off to Trocadero which was another thing that sounded cool. Aside from the historical significance (of which I know nothing, and need to read) there is a beautiful view of The Eiffel Tower and a plaza area.

It was getting unbearably hot so I decided to head back to my room for a siesta and to do some more research for tomorrow. After a lot of reading and browsing I decided to stay in Berlin for two days and hopefully make one of the days a quick trip to Dresden by train and then I’m flying to London where I’ll finish the week, and the trip. That will have put me in 5 countries and 7 cities. Not bad for my first try. I booked the flight to London and a hostel right in the center of Berlin.

Now it’s about 8pm and I’m just waiting for the sun to set. Tonight I’ll see Paris by night. I’d like to go to the top of the Arch de Triumph and also see some of the night life.

I’m finding that I was completely unprepared for Paris. I don’t know the city’s history or enough about it. I know I missed 99% of it and I feel bad, but I’ve also really enjoyed my visit, so that’s okay. I saw a lot of the big attractions, and while my visit was pure tourist I don’t know what else I could have done without a guide.

I think I’d like to come back to Paris as a specific vacation. I think this city is probably better seen on a real budget, instead of a shoe string one like I am keeping. In Amsterdam it seemed like cheap Amsterdam was young Amsterdam. In Paris it seems like cheap Paris is poor Paris. As with everything else on this trip, and in life, I think it would be more fun with someone.

Make sure you keep reading below. I finished yesterday’s entry that I couldn’t finish from being sick. And check out Flickr for new pictures from today.

Took a stroll down the strip; I’m not going to bother trying to spell French names any more 🙂 The night life was fairly tame but there were lots of clubs with large men standing in front blocking the door to keep filthy people like me out. I came back pretty early and am heading to bed as soon as it cools off enough to sleep. I’m ready to leave Paris. Like I said earlier, maybe another time with more money. And fucking air conditioning. In April, or October. The heat and stink is just unbearable. Here’s to hoping it’s cold in Germany!

I put up some night time pictures of Paris and from the top of the arch. I now know why it’s called the Arch de’ Triumph (or something spelled something like that). You feel triumphant when you reach the top of the 284 stair circular stair case. It’s funny, at the top is a mass of people panting and heaving and generally dying. Me too.
The view was incredible though, and it was very peaceful and quiet.

One final complaint and then I swear I’ll go back to being upbeat and fun.
What is it about sports that makes people such complete assholes? World Cup fans are running around just being lame and starting shit with people. And not friendly shit, just shit. Two particular assholes are on the subway and decide to light cigarettes. You can’t smoke on the subway. Some old French guy tells them, nicely, that you can’t smoke on the subway so they both light up while staring at the guy and then blow smoke in his face. I look over to see what’s going on and they start to get in my face. I’m staring them down thinking I’m going to end up in a fight in a foreign country and the train stops and they get off. Then they stand outside the door flipping me off until the train leaves.

Gooooaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllll…

Goodnight Paris, you stinky bitch.

Pictures are up from Paris today. I’ll put up a real post about it soon but for now I need to lay down. I woke up sick as a dog this morning but I didn’t want to waste the day in bed. So I went to The Louvre, The Arch de’ Triumph and The Eiffel Tower. Now I feel like I am going to die. Paris is beautiful, and huge. I had no idea how big it was.

Anyway, more later.

I’m sitting in the train station in Roosendaal, The Netherlands waiting for my Sneltrain (Fast train) to Brussels, Belgium. There are two types of trains. You’ve got your Sneltrain, which is my personal favorite which has very few stops between your origin and destination and your Stoptrain which stops everywhere. Kind of like a subway.

I’m starting to run into less and less English speakers, and no one speaks English to start with. In Amsterdam, and less in Breda I would be greeted in English now and then. Here I have to say something, or stand there with a stupid look on my face before we can get down to serious buying of food and tickets.

I’m learning a lot of words, but not enough to really help. I recognize words now, though, when people are speaking and on signs. It took some time before my mind associated the things I was reading with the things I was hearing.

I escaped work pretty early this morning so I’m getting an early start. It’s only 11:45am and Brussels isn’t far away. So, I’ll have the better part of the day and the night in Brussels, which I think will be enough. I will try to see if I can get a train ticket to Paris for late tonight and preferably sleep on the train instead of getting a room. Although two or three hours might not be enough sleep 🙂

My hope is that I might be able to do Paris in a day or two and still make it to Germany I really want to go to Germany. I know that one or two days in Paris isn’t nearly enough but it will be enough time to see the major sites and walk around the city for a while. I enjoyed how much I got to know Amsterdam but I really do want to see many places so I know where I’d like to come back to 🙂

Today my adventure really begins. Up until today most things were somewhat planned out. I had plane tickets, places to sleep. I had to fend for myself a bit on getting around but it wasn’t too bad. With the language barrier getting worse it’s exciting, and a little scary. So far everyone was at least willing to speak English to me. I don’t expect that as much in Brussels and I hear the French can be real assholes about it. In the worst case I can play my panic card and buy a plane ticket to London 🙂

The train should arrive in a moment so I’m off. Talk to you tonight, from Brussels, or perhaps France!

Well, you can see from the title I’ve made it to Paris! I am completely beat, so this might be a short entry. It’s about 11:30pm here.

I arrived in Brussels around noon and was completely out of my league. No one spoke English unless asked, and then often not very well. No signs were in English. They were all in French! I guess I never realized that people in Brussels spoke French. I thought they spoke Belgian 🙂 That explains why Stella Atois always looked French to me.

When I step off the train in a new city my first few thoughts are: Where do I pee? Where do I eat? How do I move around? Where will I sleep?

Peeing was a new experience. I’ve run into pay toilets already. They are almost everywhere. You need to carry a lot of change around with you in Europe; not just for the toilets, but for everything. No one likes large bills and all the machines take the coins. Don’t forget you’ve got coins in EU 2, 1, 0.50, 0.20, 0.05, 0.02 and 0.01. I empty my pocket at night and I’ve got like $30 in change in there. Weird.

Anyway, this was the first toilet that had a little old lady who you had to pay. I didn’t know if I had to pay her before, or after or what. I sitll don’t, but I tried it both ways and she didn’t seem to care.It took me quite a while to get my bearings and figure out the tram system. I finally figured out how to get into the city center and headed there. I really didn’t know anything about Brussels except that I wanted to see it, and drink some beer. I stopped at a tourism office and asked about lodging. She told me about a cheap hotel and also gave me a “Young Belgium” booklet that had information on hostels, bars, clubs and other youngish type stuff. One of the things right in the front was the Delerium Cafe which claimed to serve 2004 beers. I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence that Delerium is a Belgian beer and there was a cafe named Delerium so I planned to head there. I took a little tour of the city finding it, but I finally did. It was down a tiny little alley and was very dingey looking but it had an awful lot of beer signs so I went in.

The bar was down in the basement, and man, they had some beer. The bar was nothing special, except the tables were old beer barrels (see pictures) but the beer was awesome. I had a Delerium Tremens and headed out to find a place to sleep that night.

I started walking towards the hostel I was recomended. I should have learned more about the trams and rode. It was a long, long walk. And it was full when I arrived. That kind of cemented my plan to not stay in Brussels. I already wasn’t feeling like staying and that helped make the decision. I found the tram and headed back to the station to come up with a plan. I finally decided to drop my backpack in a locker, go explore Brussels till I was sick of it and then go to Paris.

Brussels turned out to be nice, but not really great. I’m sure there’s a ton of things to do but without better resources and more time I limited myself to seeing the Grote Markt, or Grand Place. It’s a large square surrounded by these incredible old buildings and cathedrals. And bars! I wandered around for a bit and then settled down to drink some Belgian beers! I first had to learn how to get served

Aparently in Brussels, and maybe in Paris you just walk up, grab a table and wait until the waiter comes. There’s all these outdoor restaurants and that seemed to be how they worked. Once I got it figured out I had a Kriek Mort Subite, which was awesome. Very tart, light cherry Lambic. Then I had a Kriek Something Else which was great, and a little more sweet. Then Chris the Austrailian tour guide sat down next to me and we got to chatting. He had all kinds of great travel information for me so when the waiter came I bought us a round. This time it was a nice Stella Artois for me and a Kriek for him. I finished up with a Framboise lambic and headed out this with my head swimming.

Tram back to the station, quick dash to make the next train to Paris and I was off! I took the Thalys high speed train to Paris and it was very cool. Super fast and comfortable. I thought it was going to be a three hour ride so about 40 minutes in I took a little nap. About 20 minutes. When I woke we were approaching a huge city and I thought “I didn’t think there was a big city between Brussels and Paris” and then I looked further north and saw the damn Eiffle Tower! I was in Paris already!

Unfortunately all the tourist info in Paris was closed. I couldn’t find a map, or get a hotel or hostel or anything. I was starting to get frusterated so I just left the station and started walking. I stopped at the first hotel I saw and took a room. The room is very small, and kinda crappy, but it feels like heaven to me. I really need some rest and a shower. The maitre d’ hotel (is that right?) was also very cool. He gave me a good map and said he’s put some good information together for me tomorrow. And I have free Internet access! Can’t ask for much more than that.

So, I’m off to bed. Check out Flickr for pictures of Brussels and Paris, so far. Tomorrow I’ll hit the tourism information, find a cheaper hotel or hostel and start my visit to Paris.

When I first arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday morning I immediately bought a train ticket to the Amsterdam Central Station, which is where all the fun starts. It was the first thing I purchased in Europe. I put my card in the machine as it requested and then removed it, because it seemed to be that kind of machine. I put in my pin code and after a few seconds… was denied. I tried again, and tried again. Denied, denied. “Oh!” I thought to myself. “I’m in Europe with 80 euros in my pocket and I can’t get any more money or buy anything. Perhaps I’ll cut my wrists!”

Panicking, I ran down to the nearest ATM and easily pulled out a fat pile of euros. So I went meekly back to the train machine and tried again. This time I noticed it wasn’t really indicating I should pull my card out, so I left it in, bought my ticket and was on my way.

That’s one example of a dumb tourist thing I’ve done.

Another, which is more applicable to this evening’s festivities is that the ticket I bought for that train was 1st class. I could have chosen 2nd class but I had no idea what that meant. Would I be riding with sheep? Cows? Would I have my kidneys stolen if I fell asleep? So I bought the 1st class ticket and hopped on the train when it arrived. I didn’t realize until after I had gotten on that the train cars were labeled 1 and 2 on the outside. I was in the 2 train. Turns out the only difference is that the seats are a bit more comfy, and the 2nd class seats are in the top of the train where the 1st class ones are in the bottom. Whatever.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I’ll get to that.

Today was another work day. Once I got ready I went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast. They had a pretty standard assortment. I’ve been having cereal for breakfast a lot, so I poured some into a bowl and hit the milk tap. No milk. Well, there was a pitcher of buttermilk sitting there so I said what the hell, buttermilk. I’ve never had buttermilk. Oh God, please let me never have buttermilk again. I’m pretty sure someone left their yeast infection in it.

Jeroen picked Anjali and I up and we headed to work. Then we worked. Yea.

Dinner was Indonesian with Heinreke and Kees. It was great. I’d never had Indonesian before so I let them order. We got this thing called a rice table where they put these candle powered heaters on the table and brought out about 20 small dishes of different types of food, and three types of rice. I had all kinds of good stuff. Beef, chicken and something curry. Maybe lamb. Fried bananas, some kind of sweet, fried weird little crunchy things that I probably wouldn’t have eaten if I knew what it was, lots of rice, crunchy bread with peanut sauce. Yum.

Something that surprised me was that Kees ordered a beer. That’s it, just a beer. Not Heineken, or Duvel, or Miller Light. He said “I’d like beer.” and they brought him the house beer, which was Jupiler. Aparently that’s common in Europe, so that’ll come in handy when I don’t know what to order.

After dinner they walked me back to my hotel and were off. I came upstairs and started trying to decide what to do tomorrow but got sick of trying to navigate the train sites so I took a walk to the train station. I’ve gotten to know the ticket machine pretty well. We’re tight. So I walked about 15 minutes to the train station and browsed tickets there. You remember all that talk about 1st and 2nd class. Here’s why! The ticket I decided on for tomorrow, which is to Brussels via Rosendaal is EU 12 for 2nd class or EU 27 for 1st class. That’s a $987 difference! (Have I worn that joke out yet?)
So, since the seat seemed to be fine and I arrived previously with my kidney’s, I’m going 2nd class baby.

And that’s basically it for Breda and The Netherlands. Tomorrow I work until noon and then try to find my way to Brussels, Belgium. There I hope to visit at least one brewery, but if not I’ll at least go to the beer museums and try some Belgian beers.

I posted a few pictures of downtown Breda to Flickr. It’s very much like Amsterdam but much more quiet. The park is beautiful and people really use it. There were groups of people just hanging out, chatting, making out and just generally being out on a nice day.

Goodnight, talk to you soon!

It’s time for a whole new numbering scheme!

Last night I had a nice, quiet night in my awesome hotel in Schipol. At Schipol? I don’t know if it’s a city or just the name of the airport. I was starving and originally outraged at the price of room service until I ate. I didn’t expect to eat the best burger and apple pie of my life in Holland. Mmmm…

Uneventful night. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere so my only option was to sit in and watch porn. I mean sleep. Sleeping is what I did. The reciept reflects that! I did have a nice long shower, wash my socks in the sink, steam and iron some shirts and just generally lounge around.

This morning I got up super early and took the shuttle back to the airport to meet Anjali (my boss) and head for Breda, where I’ll be working for the next few days. We had a driver take us to Breda, which is about 95km from the airport. The driver had this really badass GPS / road information thing that told him when he could pass people on the shoulder and all kinds of other shit. Very efficient. I also got to see a few “real” Dutch windmills and lots of sheep on the way. Very authentic.

When we arrived in Breda we went straight to work, had a meet and greet and got to work. I met lots of people who I had only talked to on the phone before which was cool. Then my coleague Kees (pronounced Case) and I got down to geeking.

Lunch was interesting. The office has a cafeteria and everyone seems to eat in it. I had orange juice, some fruit salad, a roast beef and cheese sandwich, a little cup of tuna salad and a Kroketten. A bite of Kroketten, really. A Kroketten is a fried thing with some kind of meat paste substance in it. It looks like a really thick mozzarella stick except instead of fatty goodness inside there is… something terrible. Not my thing at all. Also, my roast beef appeared to be raw. Good though.

After lunch we took a long walk around that part of town, which is aparently the normal thing to do after lunch. Can you imagine? Excersize? Weird. Jeroen kept looking back at me to make sure I wasn’t going to croak over with a massive coronary. Not too surprising, I guess, considering I am about as thick as three dutch guys, or 47 dutch girls. Let me tell you something. If you are fat, do not come to Holland. It’s not good for your pride.

Then it was work, work, work till Jeroen took us to check into our hotel. The room is very nice but it has tricks! I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the bathroom light. Jeroen took us out to dinner and walking around town and when we got back Anjali asked me if my room had soap in it. I said I didn’t know cause the light in my bathroom didn’t work. Just as this went down we were walking up to the counter and the gorgeous receptionist giggles. Anjali asked me if I stuck my key card in the slot. I hadn’t, and we all had a real nice laugh at that. Aparently there is a key card slot inside the door. You put it there to use the lights and it’s supposed to remind you to take it with you when you turn out the lights. Stupid fools! I’m American! I haven’t turned off a light since I moved out of my Mom’s house in 1996! Sometimes I turn on EXTRA lights, in the middle of day! Then I sit back and just breath in the dinosaur fumes.

Dinner and walking was very nice. We got to see the whole city center. It’s very much like Amsterdam except with no people, or hookers, or drugs. The roads are all cobblestone, the buildings are small and very old and it feels “European”. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant. I had pork medallions with a pepper cream sauce and some kind of little moist pastry stuff. I think there was corn and onion in it. With the presentation of the food and all I would have considered this a “gourmet” restaurant… until they brought out the giant bucket of french fries. I guess you eat your food and then use the fries to fill in the empty spaces. They were served with a little tray of a bunch of different sauces. I had some kind of sweet and spicy ginger sauce with my fries and it was great.

Now it’s 10:30 and I’m back at the hotel and bored. And there’s no free Internet access. I paid EU 5.95 for 60 minutes and I’ve probably used most of that typing this. So, I’m off! Talk to you tomorrow! If you’d like to see the room I’m staying in tonight check out Flickr. That’s the only pics I took today.

Oh, have you figured out the whole Dutch, Holland, Netherlands thing? The country is The Netherlands but everyone calls it Holland. The people are Dutch and that’s also the language they speak. No one actually calls it The Netherlands. I have no idea why.

I just left Amsterdam and headed for the Schipol airport to check into my hotel for the night. Tonight I get a whole room to myself. I work tomorrow so I have to be presentable for that. I’m staying at the Radisson near the airport which means a nice room and some amenities I’ve not had for a few days. It also means no wild nightlife, but I’ll get back to that in a few days.

This morning I got up super early. I got a lot of sleep yesterday so I woke up at something like 6am. Caught up on some Internetting while waiting for breakfast to open at 7am and had my free hostel breakfast. More of the same.

After breakfast I said goodbye to my good hostel, checked out and headed for town. I was in desperate need of doing some laundry. I rode my bike towards the Central Station looking for laundry and had no luck. So, I headed to the Red Light District, where anything is possible!

First street I turned down I found an automat and got that rolling. Not cheap! EU 3 for the washer, EU 1 for the soap and EU 3 for the dryer. That comes to $217. I did meet a really nice guy from Mexico who’s been travelling Europe as a student for a while and got the low down on some of the places I want to go. Sounds like I am going to want to reserve my rooms in advance, if I can. He got stuck in a really shitty place in Amsterdam cause he didn’t book ahead. He had a lot of other tips too, but I won’t bore you with the things important to an international traveller like myself. (Oh, haha!)

Laundry done I went and returned my bike, then dropped off my backpack in a locker in the station. That thing is heavy as hell. Then it was off to The Rijksmuseum.

I like art, don’t get me wrong, but that one didn’t do it for me. They had quite a few Rembrandts but nothing I actually recognized. I have to admit I just sorta skimmed through. I did notice signs everywhere for stuff I did recognize at the Van Gogh Museum, so I decided to go there too. I walked around the corner and met The Line. I know Amsterdam like the back of my hand though and I don’t do lines. Fuck lines. I hopped a tram down to the info center, got my Van Gogh ticket in 30 seconds, hoped back and walked right past that whole line.

The Van Gogh Museum was much better, for me. Many paintings I recognized and wanted to see. I saw Sunflowers, of course. They also had a Rambrandt vs. Caravaggio mix up thing and that’s where all the “good” Rembrandts were. I don’t know their names but I saw quite a few paintings I’ve seen prints or pictures of my whole life. That was cool. My favorite was “Saint Somebody or the other writing in a book being held open by a skull.”

Then I went to the Sex Museum. The information said I would be shocked and enraged. Yea. Maybe before the Internet. I see shit like that before breakfast. Trannys? Double penetration? ANAL?! Oh god! Shut my eyes! *Sigh*

On the recommdation of some dude I met during the Heineken tour I decided to take a canal tour. They have these squat little boats that take you through all the canals and that was a lot of fun. Got to see the harbor, and parts of the city away from the main area that I had missed. They love them some boats. It was kinda chilly today but that didn’t stop everyone in the city from sitting on their little boat and having a party. I learned that the little fences alone the canals on the sidewalks were put there in the 60s at the cost of 100 Gilders per meter to stop cars from rolling into the canals. They said they still average about 1 car per week taking a dunk.

Not ready to leave yet I decided to head back to my favorite place in the world, the red light district! Saturday and Sunday I thought I had found the red light district. I was wrong. TODAY I really found it. Man, crazy. I found these alleys that I could scrape both walls with just by sticking out my elbows and they were solid hooker windows left and right the whole way. I really wish I could have taken some pics. The quality was also a lot higher. I guess that’s where you have to know to go, or something. I learned, by overhearing, that a blowjob is EU 25 and everything else starts at EU 50.

I also went into a few smoke shops just to say I did. I couldn’t actually figure out how to buy something 🙂 I think you have to at least have a clue to get to that part. I guess it’s all behind the counter.

So, I’m done with Amsterdam. I had a lot of fun. It’s a cool place but I think I would have had a lot more fun if I were travelling with someone I know. I had a hard time meeting people. I am shy enough to begin with; I’ve never been good at just walking up to a group of people and trying to get involved but when they are all speaking a different language it’s even worse. Oh well, I’ll be a tourist this time and plan to come back with friends some day.

I could definitely live in Amsterdam.

Tomrorow I head to Breda for a few days to work then I find a new country to go to. I’ve been leaning towards Brussels and doing beer tours, but I think the Mexican kid convinced me to go to Germany instead. Travel is so plentiful and cheap it’s just awesome. You can just walk into the train station, pick a country and go. So that’s what I’ll do.

More pics are up on Flickr. I also took a lot of videos today but haven’t decided where to put them yet.

It’s about 5pm on Sunday in Amsterdam. I did manage to sleep last night, and pretty well. I woke up when my bunk mate came in around 4amish.
Yea, I am totally sleeping in a bunk bed. Did I tell you that before? I was last in the room, so I’m on top. Isn’t that fun? I was like 5 last time I slept in a bunk bed.

Had the hostel’s free breakfast this morning when I finally crawled out of bed around 9:30am. Not bad, really. Toast, ham, cereal, apple juice and some kind of sweet bread.

After that I headed over the Rijksmuseum to try to get an early start on that. The Rijksmuseum is where many classic masterpieces are. Lots of Rembrandt. The line was pretty long so I decided to be sneaky and head to the tourism office where I knew I could get an advance ticket and skip the line. That kind of backfired. The line at the tourism office was longer 🙂

So instead I decided to rent a bike and try to get out of Amsterdam and see the countryside. Granny bike rented I picked a direction (West) and pedaled my ass off. I rode probably 10 miles or so before giving up and turning around. Never got away from civilization.

Once I got back to town I hit the Heineken brewery and did the Heineken Experience, which is their tour. My advice? If you want to get drunk for EU 10, take it. If you care about seeing their brewery, don’t bother. You don’t actually get to see any part of the working brewery. Just mockups. Still, you get 3 beers for EU 10, and for whatever reason I got 5 instead of 3. I met a couple from Austrailia and chatted with them for a while, and a guy from Canada who works for NATO at The Haage (The Hay-ge, not The Hog, I learned). He was able to answer some of the questions I’d come up with and it was a nice chat. He recommended hopping a train if I want to see some countryside.

While pedaling back to the inner city I saw a sign for The Vondelpark and decided to check it out. I’d seen it on my map over and over. It’s a *huge* park right in the middle of the city. I took a nice bike ride through there and discovered something awesome. Amsterdam DOES have fat people! They make them all run in The Vondelpark until they are thin enough to be seen in public. That’s okay though, cause The Vondelpark is also where everyone sunbathes. Nude. Pretty good incentive to lose weight.

I finally ended up at the touist information booth again with no line and picked up an advance ticket for The Rijksmuseum for tomorrow morning, so that’s bright and early. Not sure how I am gonna handle that. I gotta check out of my hostel by 10am so I’ll have my backpack with me. I’m supposed to return my bike at the station at 10:45 so I’m going to see if I can find a locker at the station to put my pack in while I spend my last day in Amsterdam.

Biking is definitely the way to go. I got to see a lot more of the city today in quite a bit less of the time. There are bike paths everywhere, although sometimes they are hard to see and the traffic patterns are hard to follow. On a bike sometimes you are a tram, and sometimes a car, and sometimes a pedestrian and usually a bike. You also have your own set of stoplights.

What else? Someone threw a water balloon at me from a balcony while I was riding past and some lady in the street yelled at them. Probably her kid. They missed me. I also spent like 30 minutes pissed off this morning cause I thought someone stole my toothpaste. Of all things. I have like $3000 (EU 7.50) worth of electronics in my backpack and they steal my toothpaste! Turns out it was stuck behind a panel of my bathroom back. Woops. Glad I didn’t start making accusations 🙂

That’s all for now. I have a “Got drunk at noon and didn’t keep drinking” headache so I’m gonna take a nap so I can be ready to get drunk again this evening. There’s a pub crawl/party thing going on and I might join that. The nice thing about my hostel is that it’s out of the way, so it’s clean and pretty quiet. The bad part is that it’s dead. From what I understand, if you are travelling alone, your hostel bar is a good palce to meet people to hang out with. My hostel bar last night was me and one group of guys playing darts.

There’s more pics on Flickr. Check em out.

Just uploaded some pics to Flickr of my hostel room. See how Kings sleep!
I also made a link to my Flickr page on the left side of this page to make it easier to find. I’m heading out for Sunday night partying! 🙂