Last Orders

15 September - Went out for last drinks with the housemates on Thursday night. Very enjoyable evening and everyone made an appearance - some made more of an appearance than others though. Finishing off with rounds of tequilas was probably not the best idea after the previous nights adventures but it did inspire me to compulsorily acquire a dozen forks for the household. Experiments with absinthe when we returned to the house led to some rejoicing and some lamenting - tis a wicked woman that green fairy.
The next day was started with ibuprofen and followed later by a purging at the Bikram Yoga studio again - I seem to be getting a little bit better but that just makes it harder because i'm doing the poses properly now. AMusing moment when the teacher was adjusting a woman's pose and asked if she was pregnant only to be told an icy NO.
That night went out with Kimberley, Yvonne and Steve and another friend of theirs whose name I cannot recall to see A Few Good Men, staring pretty-boy Rob Lowe. I've always wanted to see the play and the direction and sets were excellent. There was also some signiciant scenes that had been omitted from the film version which were very interesting (the Keifer Sutherland character was far more detailed and was an absolute religious nut) although for the most part it was a line by line simulacrum. The performances however were slightly disappointing. There was lots of spittle flying across the stage and the scenes where Caffee and Jessup were shouting at each other didn't seem to sync up just right. Rob Lowe also made the most unbelievably implausible theatre punch to another character but then again, all he needed to do was just show up on stage. The intermission was marked by the loud slopping noise of wet panties slucking away from the vinyl chairs as the female contingent of the audience reminesced about St Elmos Fire and Class but probably not that dodgy Gulf War film that he did post-rehab. Hate to say it but Tom Cruise he ain't.
After saying my fare thee wells to Kimberley who is also off on her own international holiday I called James to see if he was still working as I planned on crashing over there that night prior to the flight to Amsterdam. He told me to meet him at his old workplace, The Penthouse. I arrived earlier but was greeted by one of James' replacements and whisked up to the top with all the beautiful people where I was provided with whatever my heart desired. James eventually turned up and introduced me to the myriad of associates and friends that he has accumulated in this little bar before steadily getting roaring drunk (and taking me along with him) before stealing the bar's pineapple at a very, very late hour. I suppose it's a sign of his extreme competence that he can get away with such outrageousness.
Tried to organimise things once we returned to the flat with various degrees of success - woke up jamess' flatmate twice, the second time whilst we were locked in unarmed physical combat with each other. Eventually my travelling companion finished his packing (i would later learn it to be in woeful despair of long trousers but very generous in underwear and shorts {I didn't think my friend required changing on such a regular basis}) but sleep was something that had to be sacrified for the ordeal. Had very little trouble getting to the airport although the major lines were down and we had to change three times to eventuallyget there and we were still pretty early. Before boarding, however, we bore witness to the rather unpleasant sight of a youngish man being physically dragged aay from the plane screaming 'i want an immigration officer! I want an immigration officer!'. Had no idea what his background story was. We had to play a bit of musical chairs in order to sit next to each other on the plane but luckily we ended up when we did because james was, in his obvious tension because of his irrational and unrealised fear of flying, probing the nooks and crannies of his seat and he found a small bag of hash in the glove compartnent. I came to the most obvious conclusion, that it had been placed there by the airline as a free sample of the country's most recognisable herb, but relucantly had to concede that an English or Dutchman had simply forgotten about then found it on his person whilst flying over to london and did the sensible thing of disposing of it forthwith.
When we arrived in Amsterdam we realisd that we had not organised any accommodation nor investigated how we would get into town. Asked around and found our way into Amsterdam Central and eventually found an okay hostel filled with French speaking but randomly nationalised students studying in Belgium in town for the weekend. All very yong but pleasant enough when they spoke English. Me and James decided that first things first were to head straight out into the coffee shop world and sample what the country had to offer. The coffee was quite awful, very few of the places sell anything that's any good on the coffee front but the other was quite spectacular. We headed out to a few sights on an impromptu walking tour that resulted in many wrong turns and a complete inability to read the spider web of a map. We were helped out by a beggar who we weren't too bothered about paying for his rescue of us but in our state of mind we didn't stay found for very long. The city or at least the central city would have to be one opf the most unique Western cities i've ever been in. The utter dominance of bicycles as the rulers of the road takes quite a while to get used to and the tall crooked buildings that ar all on the verge of falling down and ar not only left standing but ar left occupied. Me and James kept on seeing things that completely baffled us and could have only acknowledge to each other that 'That's Weird!'. There were many things that just didn't eem right, warm food vending machines, the most incredibly busy walk way i've ever been in, windshields in front of baby seats on bicycles, incredible tolerance of soft drugs, and, of course, the strangely inoffensive window displays of semi-naked prostitutes plying their wares. It all adds up to my conviction that this city is just weird.
Did find the Van Gogh museum which was one of the most spectacular galleries i've seen on the trip. Not an enormous building but thousands of paintings all of either Van Gogh himselg for his contemporaries. Not all of them were in the same style but there were very good English briefs which mnade it much easier to appreciate. More map misadventures resulted in an extremely protracted return to the hostel but we evntually found it and met up with and headed out for dinner wih our temporarily Belgiam temporary roommates before me and James did the obligatory tour of the red light district and drinking different sized beers at several of AC's finest public houses. Embarrassed myself by knocking over an old woman's beer and had her leap on my ordering that I repay it (she happened to be just about the only person iv emet in this city who didn't speeak English). Before we ended our night we went for a coffee and tried some chocolat spacecake, which, I presumed would combine with my lack of sleep for the past night to suitably knock me out. However, it hasn't seemed to happen and it's 1 in the morning and i'm still typing as james snores overhead me. It was very nice cake though.