Amsterdam!

It's Monday afternoon, just finished lunch (Ramen as per usual). This morning we had our British Literature class, discussing Mrs. Dalloway and watching The Hours. Last night we got home from Amsterdam around 10:30 ... Teresa and I have to agree that Amsterdam was quite better than Paris. I plan on keeping this the censored version of my trip to save anyone embarrasment or blackmailing, anyone who wants the details I can give them to you one-on-one.

Friday morning, the usual protocol - Catch the coach at Great Portland Street station, drive to Dover, catch the ferry, land in Calais. This time was better than Paris, because for one thing, our group was half the size of that last week, so everyone got there own seat. Makes for better naps on the drive to Dover. Our guide was Rob, whom I've met before and is really nice. Our driver was Paul, who was an eccentric British combination of Disco Stu and Chef from South Park. It was better this time around because it was a smaller group of us - Paw, Rebecca, Shannon, Jenn, Teresa and myself.

The drive from Calais to Amsterdam was fairly flawless. Right after arriving in central Amsterdam, we got on yet another boat tour. Jenn and I were going nuts on this boat (she was dying for a cigarette and I was just anxious for food). And this boat was so low and encased in glass, we couldn't really see anything. Finally, we got out and grabbed the luggage from the coach and walked to our hostel. Since it was a smaller tour group, Rob let us switch our roommates around - it ended up that Paw and Rebecca roomed on their own, and the other four of us shared another room. The 'lobby' of this hostel was the bar Belushi's, loud and hopping at night.

After settling in, we went out and walked around, admiring the view, so to speak. Out hostel was in the middle of the Red Light District, and anyone who knows anything about the Red Light District has some clue as to what I'm talking about it. I had really no inclination before I came here, but I really got no shock factor at all. Some of the time I kept on getting flashes of one of the first scenes in Pulp Fiction - yeah, you know the one.

Breakfast served the next morning left more to be desired, but we were on our coach again to a town on the outskirts of Amsterdam, where they have a tourist area that shows you how they make clogs and cheese. Thrilling, no? They had samples of said cheeses, and the pesto was my favorite. We were back in Amsterdam by around 1:00PM, and we were dropped off by the area of museums, which was about a mile away from the Heineken Brewery. We spent over an hour in that place, engaging in the activities they had to offer and got a couple of free glasses of beer. I had never had Heinken before, it wasn't too bad. Afterwords, we ended up walking in what we thought was the way to the hostel, but in fact it was the opposite way. A taxi saved us, luckily, and dropped us off right in front of the building. We all napped for a few hours to be able to stay up later, then we went out in search of food. We found a Chinese place where I ordered a huge steaming plate of chicken fried rice, yum! We went in and out of some cafes/bars, looked inside some shops and just peered in the windows of others before getting a drink in Belushi's and heading up to our room.


The next morning was the same with breakfast, except this morning they had mini-Baguettes which I feasted on. We packed up our stuff and headed to Brugge, a cute town in Belgium known as the "Venice of the North." We were given a couple of hours to eat lunch and do whatever. We were told by Rob of this pub that serves lunch and has a huge menu - 25 pages of beer, 3 pages for food (you can sense the priorities). I had tomato soup and a cherry-flavored beer, which was okay. Teresa had an extra-sweet peach beer which pretty much just tasted like sparkling cider, I call that cheating. We headed around looking Belgian waffles for dessert. Shannon and I had the sundae - Belgian waffle, two scoops of ice cream, maple syrup, whipped cream. It was more like a Heart Attack in a Haagen-Daaz Take-Away Dish dessert. We walked back to the coach to drive to Calais, on the way we stopped at a chocolate factory then a wine outlet for last minute purchases.

The ferry ride back to England was hell, we were caught in a storm and the ferry was rocking back and forth pretty badly. It was very rough, and poor Teresa and Shannon were getting seasick very badly. Even myself, I never get motion/air/seasick, but towards the end I was feeling nauseous. Not to mention a huge group of German kids were being extremely loud and obnoxious and were making fun of those who were getting sick. I seriously wanted to punch the lot of them, but in the meantime Rebecca and I cursed them with impotence and a lifetime of sexual frustation. That'll teach them. Midway through the ferry ride, I heard not one, but two Tears for Fears songs on the intercom (Shout and Mad World), and for a split second had a panic attack that someone hacked into my iTunes account.


I uploaded my pictures onto my pictures page, anyone who wishes to see any *other* photos that I may or may not have, let me know. ;)