Brooke and I on the 4th of July

Since Blogger has made it so easy to upload photos, I've gotten much lazier about things. I don't need to write, just post a shot!

This is from the BUNAC 4th of July cruise on the River Thames. It was alright, and really the only 4th thing going on. Here, the only reason that particular date gets any notice is people casually thinking, "Oh yeah. This is the day we got rid of them. Woot!"

Anyway. Went to Windsor Castle today with Michelle, my who took me to Live 8. She flies out tomorrow (Mon), so I was glad I got one more chance to hang with her. She's cool beans.

Windsor Castle was cool. Externally, it's the classic, stereotypical sweet-ass castle. Inside is the opulence one would expect, as well as a lot of cool swords, armor, artworks, etc. Queen Mary's Dollhouse was far-out. Keep in mind that the pictures on that link are from a dollhouse that is about 5 feet tall. The detail was incredible.

I'm going to wrap up Amsterdam here. I had a great post with lots of storytelling, embellishment, and my usual over the top style. Now, you get the condensed version. I know how disappointed everyone is, but I'm sure you'll survive.


We went to a cheese and clog factory at 8 in the morning. Apparently over a million people still wear wooden shoes every day. Most get made in a factory, but we saw one of 6 people left in the world who still make wooden shoes by hand. He looked around my age. And the cheese was excellent.

We also went to a little Dutch town, whose name I forget. It was a little fishing town on a lake, and it's primary income now is tourism. If you look up the word "quaint" in a dictionary, you get a picture of this place. Tiny "dollhouse" building, not more than 10 feet at the roofpeak. Wonderful and peaceful.

I absolutely love the Dutch. They're kind, happy, and seem to have an amazing quality of relaxed-ness about them. There was just something undefinable about the place, like they have it figured out pretty well and they're just waiting for the rest of us to catch up. Maybe it was because there are more bicycles than cars in Amsterdam by a far sight. I really, really want to live there for a while. I'd have to learn the language, though.

We got back and went to the Van Gogh museum. Amazing. Totally fantastic. His whole career laid out so you can follow it through his artwork. I left feeling uplifted and slightly more cultured.

The Heineken Experience sucked. Stupid and boring. And they only gave us 3 half-pints of beer the whole tour. Rubbish. We did make a little video that you can see here . There's no sound worth speaking of, but we're just ranting about how much the tour sucks.

We missed the canal tour with the girls, so we ended up going back to the hostel for a nap. There still hadn't been much sleep. We set an alarm for 9 pm so we could go out again, but the alarm never went off and we slept until 3 in the morning. I was raging pissed that I missed Saturday night, so two David and I went out anyway.

Amsterdam at 3 in the morning is much different. Less people, different atmosphere. Mostly just the long-haulers and people going home for night. We were able to cover more ground without the crowd, and ended up having a great time. I'm still disappointed I missed the choas and awesomeness of the Saturday night in full-swing, but I was pleased at the end result.

Back on the bus again at 8. Stopped at a town in Belgium on the way. More Gothic goodness, and a few more bottles of excellent beer for the shelf. I've acquired quite a collection of fantastic beer bottle labels, all of which will go to my Dad soon. We stopped in France at a dirt-cheap alcohol store, and I got a decent bottle of wine for about 4 pounds. I got to try it first, and the guy behind the taste-test booth was really cool. The beer got drank real quick, but I'm hanging onto the wine for the right time.

Definitely the best part of the trip home was that I was sitting next to Brooke. I was most upset about missing Saturday night because I was planning on spending with her. I don't know if she had similar intentions or not, but I was by this point plotting her downfall. Again, despite the disruption of my schemes, I am quite pleased with the outcome.

I think that brings things up to date. The weather is nice. I've been going out with my roommate Jeremy more and getting to know his friends. Good bunch of blokes, although a little hard to understand when they're drunk and slurring their accents. My own drunken hearing doesn't help, I'm sure. Most of the people I know here leave in August some time, so I need to diversify my social scene.

Bedtime again. I notice that I can be totally exhausted all day, and once the sun goes down I want to stay up for hours on end. Too much of a theatre schedule still in me. I haven't been to any more shows here, either. Must rectify that soon.

Namaste.