I AmSTERDAM

"There's only two things I hate in this world.
People who are intolerant of other people's cultures...
and the Dutch."- Nigel Powers

AMSTERDAMNED- Part I

'Allo! FrogDaddy 'es returned from his much needed, long anticipated
four day stay in the Dutch Netherlands. Here's a rare, wordy post sans
KennaSketches- but chock fulla pictures which, I hope, capture the essence
of our travels. As I mentioned in my panicked prior blog, I have never left
the continent before, so the day of our flight was very much like the scene
in Swingers where Favreau & Vaughn are screaming, "VEGAS BABY!" at the
top of their lungs at the beginning of a five hour drive. We were hopped
up on goofballs and high-fiving all the way to the airport.
My comrades were Fran (my oldest friend who cooked this scheme up with me) and Jim, a late addition, but a genuine lad always up for a good time.
We left Newark Thursday at about 5:15 p.m. with the plan being to sleep on the plane and land in Amsterdam ready to hit the streets running at 8:00 a.m. Friday morning. We were about two hours over the Atlantic when the pilot announces that because
the outer hull of one of the plane's windows suffered a crack he would have to turn around the plane and we would replane at Newark. There was an old guy sitting behind us who, speaking for the entire cabin- I guess, let out an Episode III Vader-esque-"NOOOOOOoOOoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!" -
which woulda had me in stitches if I hadn't soiled myself from the pilot's news.
I'm a nervous flyer to begin with.
But we eventually got back and did the whole magilley over again and eventually
landed in Amsterdam at around mid afternoon- we had lost half a day!
But we checked into our hotel and undeterred, still managed to walk a quarter
of the city. A friend of mine I work with told me that when you're in another country,
even the air smells different, and as weird as that sounded to me, he was totally right!
The whole place smelled like beer and weed! (Ribbit! Just kidding!)
The air had a sweetness to it that's hard to describe.
This place with it's sordid reputation as a city of sin seemed innocent enough at first glance.
The canal lined streets were pristine with a few cigarette butts scattered about.
Everyone-EVERYONE- there rides a bike. The locals are all Ivory Girl beautiful and in fantastic shape,
and are generally cool towards tourists...though they all speak English exceptionally.
I eventually got fed up with trying to pronounce the guttural street names and started
affecting a fey "Sprockets Muzt Danze!" German accent and would drive my boys nuts with it.
The only street I could pronounce was Leidseplein ( a pub filled block party) and would
leave every venue and look at my mates and say, "LIED-SUH-PLINE, YA? YAAahh...."
Anyways...Here's some scrapbook-style pictures for now and I'll
send out AMSTERDAMNED Pt. II this weekend.
It's good to be back in one piece-
Ribbit, Ya? Yaaah.....
Frogdaddy