Europe 1995 Part 5: What Day is it? in Amsterdam

10-11 Journal Excerpt: "Well, I've made it to Amsterdam. I spent all day on a train with a bunch of businessmen smoking cigars. I almost died. I walked out of the train station and felt this weird static energy - I instantly got so excited I almost burst. I don't know why, this city is just so beautiful!"

I had absolutely no intention of staying in Amsterdam for longer than a day or two, and somehow burned a week there. I think it was a combination of travel fatigue and finding a place that felt safe (I met and hung out with a lot of people I felt very comfortable with at the hostel), combined with constant, momentum-dissolving partying.

10-13 Journal Excerpt: "Amsterdam is turning out to be very cool. I ate so much yesterday my budget is shot. I had spacecake last night at this nice little bar. There were two cops sitting in there while we were smoking and it doesn't matter. Cops are not threatening here. It's so weird.
I ate at KFC and had pizza twice and have been drinking lots of beer - more than I should."

I stayed at Bob's Youth Hostel, right in the heart of the red light district. I'd never seen anything like it. I remember that there was a Heineken wall dispenser machine in the lobby of the hostel that sold cans of beer. In the mornings they made big vats of scrambled eggs and plain white bread. Somehow, each day it was exactly what I wanted for breakfast.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "I was going to leave Amsterdam yesterday. I checked out of Bob's and took my stuff to the train station. Then I sat here all day til it was obvious that I wasn't going anywhere. So I got a room at a crappy youth hotel and came back to Bob's this morning to try and get a bed. Last night a couple people in my room had some stuff stolen while we were sleeping so the cops came."

I hung out for a couple of days with a guy from New Zealand named Brendon. A year or so ago, he found me on Facebook and we exchanged pictures of each other in Amsterdam (look ahead 2 blog entries). I also went to the carnival with a guy named Kirk and went on a ride that was so fun we spent the whole next day trying to get even more messed up so we could go on it again. I've since heard that there are things of actual cultural relevance that one can do when visiting Amsterdam. The ride was called the Evolution.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "There's a cute boy with a stud through his tongue who gave me a great b*** hit. When I get hungry I have a beer. I learned how to play backgammon. Still need to go to the brewery. Tried once but got lost."

What I wrote on the back of this picture:

"My friend Kirk at Central Station in Amsterdam just before we left for Paris (at Paris we split up).Look at all the biked not locked up. We had fun at Hill Street Blues and on the Evolution. "I'm going nowhere later"

10-17 Journal Excerpt: "I had no idea what day it is so I asked everyone and no one knew. I found out from some guy - he just got here so he still knows. Tony and Ante left last night. They invited me to Biarritz France - I almost went but finally decided to stay." 

I have no idea who Tony and Ante are. On 10-19, I finally left Amsterdam and took the train to Paris. I spent an hour or two there, just long enough to buy some chocolate for lunch. I remember walking up the flight of stairs from the underground train station and look briefly at the street so that I would know what Paris looked like. I'm completely retarded. There I switched trains and headed toward the coast to a town called Cherbourg, where my guidebook said there was a boat to Ireland.

10-19 Journal Excerpt: "Just got to Cherbourg at 12:30am. I figured I'd hang out at the train station for a few hours, head to the ferry place and catch the 1st ferry. Well, it turns out this town isn't very big, and about 15 min. after our train stopped, a mna came around to lock up the station. So I have no money and am on my way to the ferry place. How could I have timed this out better?"

I wrote in my journal that this town had its sewer dump in the middle of town, but in retrospect, I wonder if it isn't more plausible that I was wandering the outskirts of town.

Long story short, I wandered the streets of Cherbourg in the dark for hours, finally hunkering down on a park bench where I froze my ass off for a couple hours. Finally, I decided to keep walking so that I wouldn't die, and at 4:00am I found a Quality Inn. The guy at the front desk was nice, but he looked at me like I was an alien from Outer Space. I'm sure he wondered where I'd come from at that time of night. I checked in, took a hot shower, and went to bed. 

I believe this is where the bad cold I got in Ireland began.