Spontanious Departure to Den Haag

I woke up and put out some last minute couch requests on the computer... I had woken up in time to take the bike back so after posting out said requests, I biked down to the rental place and walked almost the whole way back... a lengthy enough time to hope for some responses!!

I actually had some fairly quickly!

I was lucky! I started packing up all my stuff into the backpack, and soon enough I was pretty much ready to leave. I researched how to get to this new place... and was pleased to see just how close to the beach it was!

I was going to Den Haag, or the Hague... but this place was literally five minutes walking from the beach so that was super cool! Just what I wanted!!

I left in the evening, and walked allllll the way to the train station! I didn't feel like paying for the tram, and figured I could use the exercise anyhow...

I arrived in the Hague and figured out how to get on the right tram. I didn't know how to pay, so luckily I was able to claim honestly dumb when people came on to check tickets! Someone else was getting hassled in front of me haha, but they spoke dutch so they were giving her a much harder time.

I arrived and Yumi found me and led me to the house! It was quite nice! Cassandra was also very nice, they fed me a homemade hamburger and a little wine.. it was a lovely dinner :)

We chatted for a bit, but then got tired. It was a weekday after all, and I had been traveling so I am always able to sleep earlier on these days. I had an entire attic floor to spread my stuff all over hehhehe. I fell asleep excited about hitting the beach the next day!!

Chillin on the Couch

I found the post office with Paul and mailed some postcards, plus mailed a little present to Vancouver... another excursion was the grocery store again, followed by the wine store. After a few hours of hanging out drinking wine and watching things... we decided to get out to the red light district so I could see the chaos at night (and a Sat night at that!) We were going to go to a different DJ show but it was sold out :( Ah well... this was still very cool...

I enjoyed the chaos and smut of it all :) It was fun to see all the people and lights and such. We went in for a pint of Guinness in a pub, but then I had a tiny puff and that made me lightheaded. I was not up for walking anymore. Time to sit or something... I was more freaked out about my fainting tendency because of the drink, so I was insistent on taking off pretty quick - which we did. I was fine with the wind and such, but still relieved when I was somewhere where I could just pass out if needed.

I slept for a while the next day. I was not feeling the best, but that was okay-ish by the afternoon. I think we went to a local art gallery show thing in a warehouse, which was really really good! It was local art, and interesting. I got more food in me and that helped a lot.

I caught up on LOST on this day... it was a mini marathon but I had wanted to catch up more since I watched a few in Belgium...

I felt like I had accomplished something haha. Strange how the brain works!

Skream! Benga! Fancy Photos!

Okay so I was going to go chill in the park for a little while due to nice weather and heavy party plans for the evening, when Saulo the Portuguese guy texted me while walking to my bike.... saying he was in Vondelpark! Perfect!

I headed down and hula hooped, lay around, and eventually went on an errand run...

I was to get tickets for Paul and I that night: for SKREAM AND BENGA!! WTF!!! In the same night! At the same time really! Wow! So happyyyyyyy!!!

There were tickets left so I snapped two up!! The venue looked pretty cool too. Saulo and I then went to a little walk type thing. After some hot dogs on a boardwalk thing by a canal, we decided to part ways for the time being.

Once again I went to get groceries for tonight's Thai meal. This time I got things properly... then went out again for some wine...



The dinner was super super yummy! The wine was also good... I am not used to drinking wine though, so I was feeling it pretty quick and soon enough I was dancing around the living room in preparation for whompy whompy debstepz :D

I covered myself in my new sparkly moisturizer and biked down. We got in and found the dubstep :D

I danced and danced and danced!

We ate some fries, then eventually it was time to get back. I don't know exactly what time it was, but the place wasn't closing till 5am and there wasn't tons of time left in the set.... I was super stoked on it though - very good night :D

The next day was a lot of sleeping, knitting, a bit of hula hooping perhaps, and small walks to places like the supermarket and such.




I wasn't too hung over amazingly, but the weather was not the best so it seemed like a good day to stay in.

I finished a piece of my project... here it is so far:



not bad eh?! It looks a lot better done, but I don't know if I actually remembered to take a picture! I don't think I did actually! :s Ah well. You will see it eventually :)

Random Encounters Exploring Amsterdam

alright, so I got out and decided to rent a bike again, partially due to encouragement from Paul that it was a good idea... I left the house after lazing around, and rented said bike.



A crazy thing happened at the bike rental place!

I was standing outside picking out the height of my bike, when I heard my name!

I turned and there was this couchsurfer from Buffalo I think it was... one of the people I'd met in ANTWERP during that one night I was there!!!! Crazy coincidence! Small world!!!! He was going to rent a bike but forgot his credit card (they do an imprint in case you never return the bike then rip it up in front of you after).

That was too bad since his host was not home and he didn't have a key... I was not comfortable with using mine since I only had met him for the one night and I was drunk too... so I felt bad but gave him my information and left him at the bike rental place.

I went on a little adventure exploring the library and surrounding area, which was quite nice. The view from the library was very nice!






after looking around here, I went to this other big building thing right on the water... I sat on the edge and relaxed a little...






okay, so after this I got minorly lost. I biked to this new area of town, and I had no idea where I was for a while. I bought some fries with mayo (yes the french people have converted my hate somehow... I also like wine too now) and found a little park thing...

I went by Westpark, and eventually found myself on my map, and started biking to a more central part of the city...



Now here I must digress.

The day before someone had started relaxing at the park when I was about to leave. I had noticed them as being potentially cool. Then today at the library I thought I may have seen the very same person looking at the same area of books...

Now I saw them outside the supermarket. I was thinking "okay I have seen this person at least twice in one day and possibly yesterday too... If I don't at least say hello I am going to bike to the house thinking about how I didn't". So I stood there considering this for a while in the middle of the sidewalk, and eventually turned the bike around and walk straight up to the bench where I found him sitting.

I said hi. Turned out to be Portuguese, also traveling, and leaving soon. We walked and talked for a little while, but then I realized the time! The supermarket was going to close soon, and I had a shopping list for the dinner Paul and I were going to make... I had to leave INSTANTLY!

So I was off! I booked it down the road, and made it in time. I got most of the stuff, but facebook chat fucked up and I didn't receive them all. So we had mediocre tacos haha. Oops! Oh well, I still enjoyed them :)

This night ended up similar to the last. Since it is "allowed" in Amsterdam (and arguably part of the cultural experience haha) I feel alright saying that I was having lazy nights from smoking the good stuff. Yummmmmm.

Vondelpark

This was a day with me and my pack!

I arrived at Shannon's in the morning-ish time to get my stuff, since I was switching house! Unfortunately Paul, my new host, was not going to be in until the afternoon, so I was going to have a full day with Mr. Backpack again!

This turned out fine, since Vondelpark was nearby, and I had some knitting and all my stuff with me. I walked by some pretty buildings:



and made it to the park. Here I threw down my bag, set it up as a leaning chair type device, and pulled out the knitting...

I remained here for quite some time!

Eventually hunger got my ass up off the grass. I went to a cafe in the park, then decided on a different spot because I now had enough fuel in my body to hula hoop!

I practiced some leg stuff while on my Ipod, but my earphone wires kept getting caught on it and pull the music out of my ears. After this happened enough times I became annoyed, but it was perfect timing because that's when Paul let me know he was home.

I found my way onto the tram, then eventually Paul was able to meet me near his house and guide me back. I dropped my stuff and lay on the couch!

I was happy to see that Paul had a projector! He made some amazing food, we watched a movie on the wall and relaxed :)

Hula Hoop Rescue in Amsterdam..

So my host Shannon went to work, and I was out and about before noon! I figured Nat and Pete were not going to be up yet, so I had a walk around... I was armed with a small map but of course I ended up completely lost...

I didn't mind though, because the city isn't massive, and I found canals, a park, and then this MASSIVE market on the street that went on for a kilometer or something!





While walking around said market, I heard from Nat and Pete. They wanted to rent bikes for the day, which sounded good to me, so I looked at many tram maps and found my way into the center and met them!

We found the bikes, then we were off!!!



This is the house of Anne Frank. It was crazy busy and expensive to go into the museum, so here is a boring picture of the outside...


We took a ferry over the other side of the big canal/river thing and had some yummy apple pie right on the water :) This is a bike park near the central station - so many bikes here it's insane!!



We utilized our bicycles and went all over the place! It's not as easy to take photos when you are on a bike paying attention to traffic though, so I will just have to remember!




We were trying to get to Vondelpark but we ended up in Oosterpark. We lay on the grass,



then I tried to hula hoop....



... and the adventure of the day began... I am using Natalie's pictures for this story because she was so good at documenting this!

I was hooping around my hand when the thing went flying as it often does. It flew, and rolled right into the pond/lake thing...



you can see that we tied my nylon that held them together to a spare piece of hoop and it too went flying into the lake! Some old guy started ripping at this tree and we all scrambled for branches to try and fish it out... but the thing just kept getting too far!! It was looking grim... you can't see my face here but I am worried!




Pete saw a dog and ran to fetch said dog!

Meet Pie the dog. And one of his British owners!


We were throwing the ball in the water and then he would nudge the hoop... it was very exciting! He had been taught not to chew her hoops at home though, so she would try and go through it!



This went on for a while... poor dog! It seemed to have limitless energy though!





Everyone started watching... people were sitting on benches just to see the show lol





... but then....


he's in the hoop!!!


I was so excited!!


The owners were also very proud and happy!



Highlight of my day:


I was so happpppyyyyyyyy

everyone was soooo happpyyyyyy



now that is an adventure!!

After this epic day, we had to return the bikes, so we hopped on, dropped off, and went to the supermarket. Natalie had been mentioning Australian burgers and I was intrigued.

The houses here are built on wooden foundations sunk into the ground, and they rot and sink so there are lots of tilted houses... like this one!!


We went to her host's house and we made said burgers. Tom arrived as well. We sat on the roof top and once again watched the sun go down.

This time it was even later on! Whoops! I hopped on the tram with Tom and knocked on the door. No answer. I didn't think she would be asleep, but no answer means I don't get in the house. She also did not have a phone. Crap.

I called Tom and he let me sleep on his floor. It was honest mis-communication with her having no phone and me having no internet access at Stephs... ah well I still got to sleep somewhere safe!! What a day!

The Drive to Amsterdam

I was not exactly in the best shape when I awoke the next morning, but I was able to lay in the back of the car! Showering did wonders, and one banana and one croissant later I was almost normal. We got lost for an hour because we took the wrong road, so that was an extra hour of sleeping and by the time we arrived in Amsterdam I was back to normal!!!

We met Natalie's friends Steph and her boyfriend at their house. I left my pack hidden in the car and we all ended up going for a little tour walk around the city!



We went to a photo exhibition before this which was cool... met up with one of Natalie's Aussie friends that had moved to Amsterdam... After that we went into the city center and walked around getting some history and current controversy info from Steph. Eventually we stopped for a snack and beer outside in the sunshine :) So far a very pleasant day!

It was a welcome change being in a group of people experiencing the city together after being alone for so long. I am so used to navigating the city/doing my own thing by myself while my host is at work during the day, it was cool to have people around that also were not working and were able to go out to the cafe's and such :)

After more touring, we walked to the supermarket for dinner ingredients. We came back to their house and made dinner.... Steph and her boy had a rooftop terrace area with an amazing view (sad I didn't take a photo right away) so we ate up there as the sun began to set over the city. It made the time go by fast... the next thing I knew it was time to go!

My host was not going to be home until after 8, and it was 10 something or later when we finished dinner... so I skipped ice cream (wah), grabbed my pack, and took a tram to her house. I met Shannon, who was also Canadian originally, and we chatted over some tea before we both ended up getting really tired for some reason and she helped make up her non-present roomie's bed for me :) It was a very good start to Amsterdam!