At Winkel cafe near a comic shop called Nou Moe Stripwinkel, which I believe, is somewhere behind where we're currently sitting. What's up with all the winkels?
Last night we saw our first red windows & its funny cuz I wanted to look and check them out (cuz that's what you do when you're looking through windows, right??) but at the same time I didn't want to ogle or be creepy. What the hell's the etiquette when looking at half naked women in red lit windows??
These same red windows also threw off my direction sense cuz we weren't in the area we thought they were all concentrated in. This was also after some Pure Haze at
Abraxas, which I liked a little better than Bebb's Old Church.(1)
(yes, Bebb, that is your picture)
There, we'd gotten a blueberry tobacco blend to try & the girl was like, "Are you sure? American accents don't usually like with tobacco." She was right, but I'd still wanted to try it. I told the guy at Abraxas that I wanted to try everything. He thought that was funny.
I pronounce everything here wrong.(2)
Stupid American.
The hair dryer in our room is the worst, so no cute hair while here. And now it makes sense why everyone's hair looks kinda the same.
There are 2 buttons for the toilet flush but we can't figure out why, other than one for poo & one for pee but the flushes look pretty much the same.
We ate some shitty burgers, out of desperation. It had been about 12 hrs between meals & we didn't even care. It filled us up. Might've been horsemeat.
Just realized we aren't actually at Winkel - we're eating at a place next door-HA!
Stupid American.
This place is
Noordwest.
Every outdoor seating area is separated by furniture style. We'd just grabbed open seats & ordered beer.
Grolsch in a glass has a Cap'n Crunch flavored aftertaste.
The weather is f'n perfect. Warmer today than yesterday.
There was a futbol game on last night & Italy won so there was lots of yelling and cheering in the square (close to our hotel/room). Was cool to hear.
American paranoia is interesting.
While walking the streets last night, we walked past some dudes that whistled a tune & Matt & I both had one of those "oh shit, they're in a gang" type thoughts just cuz we were walking down a street that wasn't heavy on foot traffic. It was in a dumb shopping area. There was a CROCs store for crying out loud. But we were ready. Good to be prepared, right? No matter how low the crime rate might be.
Saying "Thank You" sounds like "Owshbleeft". YAY I learned a word.(3)
Live music just started up close by - on a boat in the canal.
Jazz. Very strong here. More than any other type of music.(4)
I feel kinda dumb that I hadn't read the cityguide we bought before leaving. Its been really helpful as lame as that sounds. I was studying yesterday while Matt was napping.
We saw a bunch of bachelor parties yesterday too. They traveled in big groups and you could tell who the groom was by the dumb costume he was wearing.(5) We saw one dude in a country girl square dance outfit, another wearing an inflatable sumo wrestler suit, and another group was wearing all the same dirty McD's parody shirt except the groom's just said, "STAG" on the back of it. Guess those fellas didn't have much time to plan their trip or couldn't find a costume store.
We've seen lots of packs of women wearing white and silver. Silver sequins. And another big, probably English, group wearing feathers & smart shoes.
We were just discussing how you can pick out nationalities by looks. We've only seen a handful of Americans so far.
The muslim women are wearing beautiful fabrics and awesome shoes.
The dept store across the street is closing. It must be 6pm.
Black people also go to KFC here.
I think we've decided to set up shop in our room and sit at the balcony for when Dick* & Miss Pussy* arrive. Then we can yell and make it echo.
We found a great alley full of graffiti and took pictures.
The bells are ringing the hour in Dam Sq now.
The comic store we were going to check out earlier today was closed on Sundays.
Why do kids not go backpacking through America? Maybe cuz its so hard to get from city to city. Ground transport gets so expensive at home.
Yesterday our cab driver asked us about the BP oil spill.
There's a man that plays a metal xylophone outside our hotel.
He must be on a break or has shorter hours on Sunday cuz I don't hear him anymore.
Our bellman looks just like Rainn Wilson. He asked us if we were into hardcore cuz I was wearing black and Matt looks like satan.
Then he threw the horns at us and said that he was.Just before sunset, folks sit on the steps at the sq because the sun feels good.
Yesterday there was a sax player & bass player hangin' out & playing for everyone.
Just heard, Rhianna's "Rude Boy" out of someone's car.
And bike bells.
And the tram.
And a scooter.
We just ate some kick ass food at a place called Marrakesh.
Chicken couscous & some dough wrapped chicken & almond thing.
After eating we went walking through some streets we were in last night.
I stopped by an irish bar cuz it was playing a
She Wants Revenge song & Matt said, "Do you want to go in?" And I said, "If I like the next song, we go in." Then,
The Knife started up.
So now we're drinkin' Strongbow.
Unfortunately, Aerosmith's "Pink" came on after those 2 badass songs. But all was right when another
She Wants Revenge song came up.
Some slow song came on after that and the bartender said, "Fuck off..." and started flippin' through her music & we made her stop on "
Too Sexy" which was followed by an Amy Winehouse song.
This Brit is telling us about seeing Amy Winehouse live and said she was awesome and not completely shitfaced. He said he's also seen
Daft Punk.
I think we found the right place.
The bartender and I were just talking about Dead Weather so she threw that on.
I told her about the new record and pulled my ipod out and we're listening to that now and more people just came in.
I love music.
Blarney Stone Irish Pub is the BEST!!
Especially if you have your ipod on you.
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(1) Give me a break - this had been one of our first stops and at that point I was operating on 30some hours with no sleep. The Old Church is nice, but Abraxas is prettier.
(2) When we got off the train, we went walking a few blocks but I couldn't remember where the hotel was located or even what street it was on (cuz I'm a dumbass and left all that at home), so we caught a cab. He asked what hotel we were staying at and I was like, "Hotel Amsterdam." He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Yeah? Which one?" and I said, "De Roode Leeuw" like an American would. De Rude Lew. He perked up and said, "Oooooh!! De Roode Leeuw" the way you were supposed to say it. Which was more like De Roooowwwduh Louw. Later we found out that we were only 2 blocks away from the damn hotel when we picked up the cabbie.
(3) Except that every time I said it after that, people looked at me like I's retarded. The least they could've atleast given me a high 5. Damn. haha....dam. Get it??
(4) Except Michael Jackson.
(5) Later on, I read that stag/hen parties get special offers: the groom/bride get in free to
Casa Rosso if they show up in costume.
*Names changed to protect silly identities. (haha..."tities".)
