Amsterdam Tattoo Convention

Ok, the Amsterdam Tattoo Convention…
On Saturday May 31st Samantha and I attempted to wake up early, but only wound up hitting the train-station around noonish… Caught the next train to Amsterdam, but Murphy’s Law reigned again, and there was work being done on the tracks on our route, and the trip was supplemented at one point with a tour-bus shuttle, adding another hour to our journey. When we finally arrived at Amsterdam Centraal, we quickly hit up a specific camera shop so Samantha could grab her crazy Polaroid stuff, and we hit up Grey Area so I could get my crazy herb, then we set off on the underground to the outskirts of Amsterdam for the tattoo convention. About a twenty minute walk from the metro station, the convention was held in a large centre near three huge stadiums. A bit on the medium to large side, it very much a typical tat convention, with a decent array of artists…

“ We bought our entrance tickets, and began to wander around. Lots of vendor booths and tons of artists, it was like most tattoo conventions I’ve been to (And of course like many, no piercing…). There were lots of mediocre artists and few stellar ones. Hats off to the bamboo-method artists, and the cute Italian girl with pink dreads from Morganic Heart, Genova, who did awesome freckled dead girls. Finally I settled on some boys from Boston, Image Tattoo and Piecing. I liked that I could talk to them in English, and that Cam, the artist who did my tat was wearing a TOOL shirt, and that he had a bunch of his own decent flash on the table. So, I got myself a little skull and crossed cutlasses piece behind my right ear… A little bigger than when I was picturing it, but when I saw the stencil, it looked the perfect size. Besides, anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to tattoos I’m a ‘bigger is better’ kind of guy…”

Anyway, we wandered around the convention for a while, checking out all the booths, vendors, and sights, and when it started getting late we headed out into the rain for the walk back to the metro station. About halfway the rain let up a fair bit, and we started hearing the most fucked up noises from the ditches and fields. It was this unsettling warbling noise that we soon figured out to be frogs. Freaky fucked up Dutch frogs… I really should have gotten some footage, ‘cuz walking empty streets just after dark in the semi-boonies with that shit coming out of the darkness was just too fucked up… Anyhoo, we metro’d back into the city and hit up Excalibur, our favorite bar in the Red Light District. And, as it’s a total HA bar, it was full of people from the convention… Pretty much the convention after-party; we had some beers and some interesting conversations with some crazy and wasted Dutch brothers (I’m really going to miss smoking in bars!!)… After midnight we headed to the train station, caught a 1:30am train to Utrecht, where were supposed to transfer and get to Enschede. Except that it was now a Sunday morning, and the last train home had left long ago. So we proceeded to wait the next six hours out in Utrecht… We took a little walk around town (very pretty, like a mini Amsterdam), and tried to nap in the train station. At around 8am-ish, we finally caught the train home to Enschede. Needless to say, we crashed hard and hit the bed Sunday mid-morning…

Coming Soon:  My adventures in Italy... Featuring;

THE POPE! (no, seriously!)

Dresden to Prague,or, Prague is Fucking Amazing!!!

So, the trip to Prague… On Thursday May 22 Sam and I headed off to Prague, catching the train out of Enschede to Munster Germany, where we were to check out our route to the Czech Republic… Of course, it turns out that we left a little too late and there were no trains running into the Czech Republic by the time we made it to the other end of Germany, so we decided to head to Dresden, the closest big city to Czech-land and figure out what we were going to do there (already starting to get accustomed to sleeping in parks). So we trained most of the day to Dresden.



Dresden was sweet. We got there at around 10pm, and the next train to Prague was 6:30am, so we set off wandering about the city. With wicked architecture and sculpture-work over everything, most features of the city were lit up at night. As it started to get late, we grabbed some McDonalds, consulted a public city map, and headed to wards the most promising looking park.



When we arrived, with a slight drizzle in the air, we found that there were no benches in said park, so we shored up under a tree on some grass. As well, we had left our bags in a train-station locker, and thus had no extra warm clothes, so I went to sleep curled up on the grass in shorts a t-shirt and a light sweater; serious bohemian style (ironically, Prague, where we were heading, is in the heart of the region Bohemia). And as always, as Murphy’s Law is ever evident, not two and a half hours later, someone fired up a generator and began to set up for a market. So at around 4:30am, Samantha and I headed back to the train station to get coffee and wait for our train to Prague. About four hours later, at 8:30am on Friday the 23rd, we found ourselves in Prague.

First off, the Czech countryside is incredibly ghetto, yet still very pretty… Lots of fields and greenery, with a lot of really run down buildings… When we got off at the train-station on the outskirts of town, we changed our euro’s into krouns (100kc = 4euro = 6.50can), and caught the underground metro into the heart of the city. We got off at the Museum stop and wandered down Wincelas Square heading to our hostel. Prague is amazing! Tall buildings, curvy streets, wicked architecture, and art noveau (which I’m a big fan of… as well as Alphonse Mucha, who is from Prague, so his art is everywhere) everywhere you look. We made it to our hostel, although it was much too early to check in, so we left our bags and took off to explore the city. Wandering aimlessly without a map we found out way to the Florence market, where I happened to buy a pair of brass knuckles and a couple butterfly knives (getting those knuckles home is going to be tough, ugh…).



We continued to wander around that area, checking out all the crazy antique shops, when we decided to try and find Charles Bridge (the Karlov Most). Now, it turns out that we had gotten a little disoriented, and were wandering up and down the totally wrong stretch of river looking for Old Town and the Karlov Most. After some time we came across a city map beside an underground metro entrance, near where a movie was being shot. Upon closer inspection, we found that the metro station entrance was fake, and the map and metro sign were for Paris. Ah, set props. Damn. Eventually we found a real map, realized that we were technically outside of the Prague city proper, and jetted our asses over to Old Town. We wandered through Old Town with it’s narrow bendy streets and awesome squares.



Saw the cathedral with the two-story outdoor astronomical clock, and headed to the Karlov Most, which provided an amazing view of the city from the water. You could look up at the lush green hills, the Hradcranny (Prague Castle) on the top of another hill, and the awesome buildings all about. We wandered over the river, through more of the town (which was full of tourists and marionette shops), bought some Absinth (oh God I was in heaven!), and eventually headed back to the hostel to check in, and get some shut-eye for the night.


Saturday morning came and we slept in a little, glad to be waking up in a bed instead of a park, then set out into the city. We stopped at a café and grabbed large sized Irish coffees and I ordered a Romeo y Juilletta Corona cigar from their cigar menu, and we had cigars and alcoholic coffee to start the day. From there we wandered around the city some more, stopping at an army surplus/antiquities store we had briefly checked out the evening prior. And I bought myself a little present to myself. Sometimes you just gotta splurge, so I bought an authentic WWII German SS Mauser Bayonet, and an authentic WWII Iron Cross medal. Oh so very cool…
From there we wandered back down through Old Town, across the Karlov Most, and up to the Prague Castle. Built in the most strategically perfect spot, on a hill near a river, it was huge, beautiful and majestic. We explored that area for a bit, before heading down the hill (with the best view of the city ever!) and to the Czech Sentate, with awesome sculpted rock walls and an aviary, all made to look like natural rock (you really oughtta see the video…), and peacocks that roamed around at will. We explored the city some more, grabbed food at the street vendor stands in Wincelas Square that had amazing deepfried foodstuffs and sausages for pretty cheap, then headed back to the hostel to ready ourselves for the coming concert.

Getting to the Nick Cave concert was a bit of a gong-show, as we wound up at the wrong venue, not pointing any fingers on that one (Samantha!). Luckily, I saved the day by getting us to the actual venue, and admitted just minutes before Nick Cave came onstage. We grabbed some beers and proceeded to groove out to a spectacular show. Nick Cave put on an awesome concert featuring mostly his new album “Dig Lazarus Dig” and finished with “Stagger Lee,” one of his best songs off the album “Murder Ballads”. After the concert we headed back to the hostel and got some shuteye.


On Sunday we explored the city some more which included hitting up the market again so I could grab a few gifts and pick up some more illegal weapons to “not smuggle home” and heading down to the riverside to rent a paddle-boat to check out the city from the water. At Samantha’s behest we acquired the swan paddle-boat, and though it seemed much less efficient than the regular paddle-boats, we travelled in pure style. Enjoying some Corona’s we paddled around for an hour, then set off exploring again. We eventually wound up climbing the hill to the Petrin Tower through a beautiful hillside park that houses the “Funicular Railway”. Yes, the “Funicular Railway”. What is a funicular railway you ask? Well, it’s a really badly named trolly/tram that takes you up or down the hill. Fun fact eh?


Anyhoo, we stopped for cappuccinos at a café at the top, enjoying the wicked view of the city, all awesome buildings with red roofs and a fairytale atmosphere. We wandered further up, checked out the little churches at the top, then took the Funicular Railway back down. As it was getting late, I picked up a bunch of absinth to bring home, and we headed back to the hostel once more to get some sleep and prepare for our upcoming trip into the Czech countryside; to Kutna Hora and the church of bones.

On Monday we caught the ghetto Czech trains to Kutna Hora, a small town about an hour and a half train ride out of Prague. On the train Sam and I may or may not have consumed some LSD that I had ingeniously smuggled to Europe by dropping it in liquid form onto the pages of a book.


Getting off at the station there we noticed a peculiar smell in the air and later realized that it was unburned tobacco, when we found out that the Phillip Morris tobacco plant (which makes Marlboro cigarettes for the Czech Republic) was in town on our way to the Ossuary. We eventually got to the Sedlic Ossuary (the bone church), and feeling a little out of the normal, my mind was about to become completely broken.


The Ossuary was perhaps the single coolest place I’ve ever been in my life. A burial chapel completely decked out with human skulls and bones all decorated in baroque style. Four huge pyramids of bones stacked and fitted perfectly without any shoring, and topped with giant wooden crowns in each corner of the hall. Streamers of skulls and crossbones hung everywhere, there were sculptures made of bones (big bone-flowers near the altar, and a massive chandelier made from every type of bone in the human body). Words can do no justice at describing this place, so I suggest looking at my pictures and video. Utterly breathtaking… Like Tim Burton decided to decorate a church.


All I know is that if I ever get married, I want it to be there… Anyhoo, we explored and admired with a Lucy in the Sky reverence for more than an hour, and left only because it was closing.


From the Ossuary, we wandered around the pretty little cemetery that surrounds it, and off to it’s sister church down the road. Which was much less impressive, though amusingly a large section of the church was owned by Phillip Morris, and houses PM’s offices. Gotta love a church mostly owned by a tobacco company. I bet the Pope would shit a brick if he knew what was going on there…

Eventually, we headed out of Kutna Hora, caught the ghetto train, and at where we were supposed to transfer, got on a train heading in the wrong direction. Getting off at the next stop, we walked forty minutes back to the train station we had just come from, and boarded the proper train back to Prague, where we wandered for a little while, packed up, and slept our last night there.

On Tuesday morning we were originally going to head home to the Netherlands, but decided to go back to Kutna Hora, so Samantha could take pictures with her Kiev (neither of us thought you’d be able to take pictures as it’s a church, but lo and behold, you WERE allowed, so she just HAD to come back with her cameras).


So once again, we trained out to Kutna Hora, chilled in the amazing Ossuary, took more photos and footage, then headed back to Prague where we eventually caught a night train heading to Amsterdam. On said train we met an interesting and crazy e-tarded Russian DJ who goes by the name of DJ Festival who was sharing our train-car… Here’s a little bit from my travel Journal:

12 Facts about our Train Partner:
• His DJ name is DJ Festival
• Neither Sam nor I remember his real name
• He spins mostly hard trance
• He is from Siberia, Russia
• He was on his way to sell himself to music clubs in Amsterdam
• He does a lot of Ecstasy
• He isn’t interested in how Amsterdam looks, just its music and drug culture
• His grandfather was in the SS and he knows some amusing German phrases…
• He got a kick out of my SS Bayonet
• He used to be sort of a regulator working between the judges and police in Russia (corrupt country, no?)
• He played us trance of his that he thought reflected us respectively
• He was chasing absinth shots with a cucumber (you know how Russians chase vodka with pickles? Well, guess a cucumber is kinda close :P)

Any way, after a seventeen hour train ride that included attempts at fitful sleep and an overbooking of reservations that meant Sam and I had to be bumped to another car, we arrived back in Enschede, where a decent nap lay ahead… God damn I’m going to miss Prague...

Coming Next:  The Amsterdam Tattoo Convention!

More of Enschede, or, Kickin' it in the Netherlands

So, after the trip to Berlin, Samantha and I had a week or so to relax before we were off to Prague (just wait, that’ll be some good footage!). In that time, here’s a few things we managed to get up to:

On the 18th, the AKI exchange students (Sam and a lot of her friends here) had a gallery opening. The show was called “Transformations” and featured a bunch of the exchange student’s work. Sam put a few pieces in, but most notably she hung her Polaroid-a-day project, which looked awesome… Over a hundred daily self portrait polaroids all tracing their way along a wall. Another piece woth mentioning would be Lily’s ceramics of mutilated dogs. So very cute.
So here’s a little footage from hanging outside the Gallery, just after most of the students finished hanging their work…

(Oh, I feel I need to make a mention here. This next clip mentions something called “the gnome story.” The gnome story is perhaps the funniest anecdote I’ve ever heard, a true story regaled to me by my buddy Carey, aka, The Fatman. In fact, it’s so good I don’t think the re-telling would do it any justice at all in written form, it must have the cadence of expression and life behind it, so I’m not going to tell it in full here. However, I will let you in on the fact that it’s about campers tripping on ‘shrooms and finding what they thought was a garden gnome. Of course after chasing, beating and bagging it, the next day they discover it was a missing handicapped 4 year old in a bright orange blazer, and upon returning him to his town they are received as hero’s. You may cry bullshit, god knows I did, but believe me, I read the news article about them returning the kid, mentioning that “at first the campers said they thought he was a garden gnome.” No. Seriously. The funniest thing I’ve ever heard.)

The night the students hung their work, Samantha made sushi (as all the AKI exchange students were making food from their home countries for the opening, Sam opted for the native cusine of Vancouver… Sushi. Can’t figure that one out? Don’t strain yourself…

During that week I also made a little day-trip back to Amsterdam to grab Samantha Polaroid film while she worked on school stuff. And of course I made a little side trip to the best freakin’ coffee-shop in all of the Netherlands, Grey Area. It’s run by a young American guy, and it get’s all the High-Times Cannabis Cup winners. I must recommend the ’07 and ’06 winners, the 'Chocolope' ('Chocolate Thai' and 'Cantaloupe Haze' cross) and the 'Big Buddha Cheeze'. God damn they’re good…

Here’s just a little fragment of what you see while biking along the streets in downtown Enschede:

Oh, and of course I found out that butterfly knives are legal in Holland. However, upon purchasing such a good, however would I get it home? Well, I constructed a little video, purely for entertainment purposes, on how such a thing might conceivably be done. Keep in mind, this is a work of fiction :P

And on the 20th, it was Samantha’s birthday, so after a day of chillin’ in, and drinking very alcoholic coffee’s, we went out to the Bolwerk, also known as the AKI students bar. It’s in town, its quaint and Dutch, and it has Hoegarden on tap. Yummy. Anyhoo, here’s a quick clip of the Bolwerk from the inside, and the morning after…

Coming Soon: Adventures in the Czek Republic!

Enschede to Berlin, or, Meh, that wall doesn't look THAT hard to get over...

Okay, so the trip to Berlin… On Thursday May 8th, Samantha and I caught the train out of Enschede, into Germany. We stopped over in Munster, grabbed some Jagermeister, and Absinth for the train ride, and ventured onwards for the 6 or so hour journey ahead of us heading to Berlin for the fetish fair and annual massive fetish Ball… Hmm, let’s go to my travel journal…

…We stopped over in Munster and I took Sam to the military store near the train station and bought some absinth; a little bottle of ‘Satan Absinth’. Tasty. Besides, as it quickly became apparent from the younger crowds on the train, that you were allowed to drink on the train So we continued training… Our train car was kinda stuffy, and of course than cars aren’t exactly all that comfortable, but hey, I’ve got a train-pass, and it’s quickly becoming worth it’s cost…


Finally around 9ish, we got into Berlin. We took the U-Bhan (the Berlin subway/metro-rail) to the area our hostel/hotel was in, and lugged our shit to our hotel. The hotel itself was kind of nice, just a step up from backpacker hostel; the room was smallish, but it had a little couch, TV and a private bathroom/shower. It cost about 18euro a night each, but it was nice enough to be worth it. Worn out, we just sat in, watched some fucked up German TV, including a wildlife Jeopardy-style game-show complete with animals, and some German dubbed CSI, whereby I was entertaining Samantha by filling in with an English voice-over containing entirely inappropriate subject matter (surprisingly and hilariously, it worked [I mean, who doesn’t want to hear Grissholm talk about fisting?])…


On Friday we hit up the main sights in town. Kaiser Wilhelm’s Gedachtniskiche (The Kaisers Church), which was awesome, as most of it hadn’t been repaired after the war, and so it stood with big chunks missing from all over. I must say though, at first I wasn’t too impressed with Berlin… Most of it looked like a big Robson street. With a very “Big North American City” feel; very wide streets, tall square glass covered buildings, however, once we explored the old Russian side, things changed a bit..

We saw the Berlin Wall, well, one of the portions left standing… Cool, but it seemed kind of out of context on a really sunny day surrounded by tourists… Still though, it was neat, and Kind of smaller than I expected. We also saw the monument to Terror (fun!), and Checkpoint Charlie, which in itself was very touristy, but there was a lot of neat soviet memorabilia crap for sale on the streets around it… Next we U-Bhan’d over to the TV tower, and had a beer in the big central park nearby…


On Saturday, we discovered the cultural fair going on in one of the parks near where the fetish fair was taking place. It was amazing… Packed with people, there was awesome food and booze for sale everywhere, all kind of crazy crap for sale, and even a few hookah tents set up around… Oh, not to mention the Absintherie. Score! Anyhoo, we wandered around the fair for a while, got some bratwurst that was cooked on a huge hanging grill over a massive brazier (you gotta watch the video!), and some mixed absinth drinks… and beer… Afterwards, we checked out the fetish fair, which was pretty good, but alas, as I’m kinda broke, it was just like going somewhere where you want to spend money, but cant… oh well…

After that, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for the private couples only play party that ran in conjunction with the fetish ball on Sun night. The Play party was held in an SM residence (Residenz Avalon) converted from an old Polish Gun factory, on the bank of the river, way out in the industrial area of Rathaus Spandau, Berlin. As Sam and I walked along the dead-end road it was on we were approached by two guys who said “nein,” and we were like, “really?” (totally thinking we missed the entry time), and he continues, “nein. Shuttle.” And it dawns on Sam that she forgot to mention that there was a shuttle service. Anyhoo, we got in the shuttle van and it took us through a labyrinth of industrial buildings and alleys until we got to the subtle entrance for the residence. I can’t even begin to describe this place. Not only do words fail me, but I have a feeling my mother might be reading this, so I’ll keep it tame. But I cant help to mention that it had every kind of theme room you can imagine, from old schoolroom, to confessional, to dungeon, to fully equipped medical room. If you want to know more, just ask me ;) In any case, we got home around 4:30am, and hit the hay hard.


On Sunday we hit the fetish fair again for a little while, then headed back to the big cultural fair…


…We wandered through the fair some more, ate some of the awesome eats, and sat and smoked some sheesha in one of the hookah tents. Once evening hit, we went back to the Hotel and got ready for the fetish Ball. Sam put in her dread-falls, and did me up with some blue and brown dreadlocks off my hawk, and once again in my kilt and my spikey harness we U-Bhan’d out to Club Matrix for the Ball, which was also stellar.


5 huge rooms, each with own bar and type of music, and a descent sized patio, despite the fact you can smoke anywhere inside. So we drank, and smoked, and danced, and drank, and danced, and smoked until we could no longer… Once fully tuckered out, we headed out around 4:30ish, and got back to the hotel around 5:30am with it getting light out already, and accompanied by bird-song.


On Monday we went back to the cultural far, then decided to check out the more bohemian and alternative side of town, nearer to where the fetish fair was, and closer to the Frankfurter Allee area. That side of town, deep into the old Russian side, was waay more to my tastes than the newer areas, and was full of alternative shops like, ‘The Flaming Squeegee’ and such.




Tuesday was much the same, we checked out of our hotel, stowed out crap at the train station lockers, then kicked around the alternative area of town, before heading back to the central park, to see the Reichstaag (German Parliament), and the holocaust memorial. Oh, and I have to mention the pipe I saw at a shop in Frankfurter Alee… It’s a Lord of the Rings, German release replica pipe (well two actually, both Aragorn, and Gandalf’s). Perhaps the single most beautiful smoking implements I have ever seen. In fact, they were so awesome, I might even train back to Berlin to buy one. Yes, they cost a LOT, but I’ve never seen their equal.

Anyway, we wound up catching the 12:30am train out, which was delayed almost an hour. And I was kind of worried as it was a night train (reservation compulsory), and I had no reservation (luckily I found out I could buy one on the train). While waiting, we ran into a random guy from Toronto, the first random Canadian I’ve met here yet. Anyhoo, it was a long train ride back, but late Wednesday morning, we made it home to the Netherlands.



Stay tuned for more exciting stories on such chilling topics as “Hanging out in Enschede” and “Adventuring in the ghetto but beautiful Czek Republic”…

Gronau to Munster, or, Breaking and Entering to Cathedrals...

Hmmm… I wonder what he does in his spare time between crazy trips…

Here’s a little insight:

Most of the time I spend just chilling in Enschede, but every now and again I get up to something a little adventurous… Like when Samantha, Mhairi, and I broke into an abandoned factory in Gronau, a neighboring German town on may 6th.


It’s about a half hour or so bike ride, about 12km away, and there are a bunch of abandoned buildings and factories strewn about. In fact, a lot of Europe houses abandoned and ruined buildings. It’s neat.


Anyway, we rode out bikes there, and proceeded to climb through a hole in the fence, and explore said factory. The girls had been there before, and had chosen to return with their cameras in order to create some photographic art; including Samantha’s idea of gathering dead pigeons and immortalizing them forever on film. With the girls otherwise occupied, I brought along a couple cans of spray-paint (silver and gold) and my trusty digital camera. I would suggest watching the videos, as they are rather amusing…

I put up a decent signature piece, and slung about a bunch of random phrases and words in the very un-native-to-Germany English language. 


Samantha’s pigeon shots turned out excellently, and can be seen HERE





Once we had romped the whole thing, we biked back into Gronau, grabbed a pint and some pizza, and then biked back into the Netherlands.

The day after (May 6th), I took a solo trip deeper into Germany, to Munster, where I had been eight years previous on my first expedition to Europe. Lets go to my travel journal:


It’s been eight years since I’ve been here, and I remember it all being a lot bigger :P It’s funny, the things you remember and the things you don’t from eight years previous… I went to two big cathedrals in town, that I had also went to when I was younger.


The merchant’s cathedral and the Bishop’s cathedral (the one with the bitchin’ astronomical clock), and I remember things like the layout, the major features like the organs, and key architectural features (ie, in the merchants cathedral, the columns are spaced progressively closer inside as you look forward to give the illusion that it’s longer than it actually is), and the general feeling of being in a cathedral, but I had forgotten the size differences between the two, all the little sculptures that ornament them, all the shrines, and that amazing contemplative state of consciousness you slip into when you hold a place like that in any sort of reverence. (heh, I love run-on sentences) Oh, and I swiped a few postcards of the bishops cathedral on my way out (hey, I’m already going to Hell, what’s a few postcards at this point).



…Anyhoo, I kicked it around town for a bit, found a sweet military store where I bought a little metal regiment insignia for the WWII German army scouts… Don’t know whether I’ll put it on anything or not before I get home… I don’t know how well that will go over in some of the countries around here…

Stay tuned, as next you will hear of the harrowing adventure to Berlin!

Amsterdam on Queensday, or, The Word Of The Day Is Amazing

Ok. First off, to those of you who actually check up on my blog, sorry for not updating anything recently… I’ve been busy. However, I’m sure I’ll post about everything soon… In the meantime, let us travel back in time to April 30th, 2008, and my travel journal…

So, today I made that holy pilgrimage that every stoner dreams of making. Today I caught the train to Amsterdam.


And, it also happened to be Queensday… That’s the day that all the trade tariffs are lifted, people sell stuff in the streets, serve booze everywhere, party like mad, and about a million outsiders (not joking, usually about 700,000 to a million extra people), descend upon the city. It was fucking madness!!! Every street and alley was crammed with people (mostly in orange, for the Dutch Queen Mother). Music was blaring everywhere, techno, ethnic, and Dutch, both DJ’d and live.

Vendor stalls were also everywhere; everything from brand-name blowouts to flea-market/garage-sale stuff. Not wearing any orange (I even had a Dutch girl point and comment), and not possessing anything orange, I bought Samantha an orange boa, and myself an orange tie, so that we might blend with the native peoples…

The food was phenomenal! Every corner and crammed street had the most amazing deep-fried or waffle-style or other amazing delectable’s… Ate like a king! Booze was sold openly on the streets, so Samantha and I spent most of the time wandering with cans of Heineken in our hands

The city itself is so amazing; I don’t even know how to describe it… Crazy jam-packed tall buildings, all super-crooked, with wicked little alleys everywhere, and canals all about. The red light district was cool, with all the hookers in the windows, and everywhere you look in the city there’s another coffee-shop! The tourist stores were full of the most amazing touristy stuff (sooo need to back and grab people presents from there!).

We wandered for hours and hours… Eating, drinking, shopping, smoking like crazy, and just taking in the sights of Amsterdam on its craziest day of the year. I’ve never really experienced anything like it, or ever been in a crowd so large… Like, the entire city! There was a carnival set up in one of the squares, so we rode the ferris-wheel, and had an awesome romantic moment, with a birds-eye view of the festivities.

Hit up a couple coffee-shops, bought myself a gram of the best white-widow I’ve ever smoked. Ate more delicious foods, like these little pancake-waffle thingies coated in butter and icing sugar…

Finally, when our feet could take no more, we headed back to the train station, and trained over to Uitgeest (20 min or so), and I’m now writing this at Sam’s friend Jessica’s house, where we’re crashing for the night…

Now for day 2:

So, the second day at Amsterdam was equally awesome! We chilled at Jessica’s for a bit in the morning, then trained to Amsterdam. Spent another day just wandering around the city… Bought a few small gifts, and found out that butterfly knives are legal. Now I just have to figure out how to mail/get it home… We ate, we wandered (Oh yeah, I’m in love with poffertjes, those little doughy waffle things I mentioned earlier… The ones covered in butter icing sugar, and at our behest this time, Grand Marnier), and Dutch fries.

It was fun, but we lost steam at around 10ish, and though we didn’t want to leave, with a two and a half hour train ride in front of us, we grudgingly caught the train out. Oh, special mentions of the day go to Excalibur, probably my favorite bar there. Total H.A. bar, it was full of weaponry, armour, and motorcycles… The only place so far I’ve seen with a neon budwiser sign. The other special mention goes to the super-fat, bloated, after-festival pigeons… The ugly little fowl were so fucking bloated they could barely walk, and it was all Samantha and I could do to not attempt stompin’ on ‘em… It was a great two days, the word of which was amazing.

So yeah.  If there's one city that I've ever been to that I would insist you see, it's Amsterdam.