I went to Amsterdam about 3 years ago to visit tali who was studying abroad in London, and then together we spent a weekend in Amsterdam. We stayed at this hostel called the flying pig downtown which was a pretty big party hostel with a bar, smoke room, and amazing location. I booked it again for when Liam and I arrived.
The only weird part of the hostel, in my opinion, which was I suppose less weird and potentially positive for this trip, was that you could book double bunk beds. In a room with 32 people you could sleep on a full sized bunk bed setup with another person. Weird big bunks.
Anyway, we got there, checked in, and had a little over a half hour to kill before we could go to our room. Breakfast was still running for another 5 minutes so we went downstairs to get some free brekkie which was mostly toast, chocolate spread, and some fruit. I also got a bit of granola. We hung out down there, sucking on the internet and creating a map for Amsterdam while we waited to go to our rooms. Once we got through, we showered, layed down for a minute, and then decided to venture out and hit up a coffee shop. I was super exhausted from being nutty the night before, stressing about people coming into our compartment, but gave in to the desire to wander and travelled to this coffee shop, abraxas, which was a little ways away, but very well reviewed. There were a ton of options to choose from, but it did feel kinda touristy, so I was not fully convinced. After receiving our pure skunk purchases, I retracted my concern. Super good. Too good. Comatose good, which maybe was bad. We handled ourselves for a little while there, chatting but also mostly being dead and useless. Once we could handle movign our legs in a useful manner we ventured out. On our way up there we passed through a town square type of place, and decided to stop back there and check out the magician who was performing there.
When we had first passed he was merely explaining what tricks there were to come, and sort of harrassing the audience in his attempt to build interest among the passersby and those committed to standing in the circle and watching. He was whipping this whip and being all awkward and weird, which is why we left the first time. We figured, if he's somehow still there by the time we got back, he may have finally started his tricks. When we got back he was kitted in a straight jacket, yarning about how he was about to get out of it, but first he had to explain his need for money. He had this whole rant about how it's the cheapest entertainment you could find in amsterdam anywhere and you got a full hour of his best performance, and yadda yadda yadda. I mean, yeah, sure he's totally right and I shouldn't have then walked off to avoid giving him a wee euro or whatever, but his speech made me so uncomfortable that I didn't even wait through it to see him escape from his straight jacket. Idk. rough life being a street performer I'd imagine.
We wandered into a H&M because Liam's been needing a belt. It was a really small store in terms of length and width, but a giant store in terms of height. It felt like we had literally been moving forever by the time we got from floor 0 to floor 4, where mens clothing had started. We were rapidly losing hope and thinking that this obviously was not a place in which men could buy belts, but tried al ittle harder and at the 5th and final floor, in the last place you'd be able to ever look, belts were found. they were pretty tiny I reckon because Liam bought the largest length of belt and he's really fit.
We ventured back to the hostel afterwards and rested for a little bit before heading to the eye, a film museum and theater that was a ferry ride away [pretty and fun, and free!]. It was a weird conglomeration of humans taking the ferry, with so many bikes squeezing on and motor bikes ready to race off the second the gate opened. There was an afternoon showing of Boyhood we were trying to make, and had a good bit of time to wander around and hang out in the grass near the theater before it started. We also took a walk around the museum gift shop which was really awesome. IT was filled with all the weird little toys and stories that modern art museums and film museums usually have on display. Then, when the doors opened, we went in to get seats in the theater. I haven't seen a movie in theaters in a long time so it was kind of a nice experience and it was a really good sit-down break after all the trekking we had been through over the past few days. The movie was actually really good. This is this one that was filmed over 12 years of someone's life, but pretty long. We both passed out for a little bit of it, unfortunately I think for the same part, so i'm left with at least a question or two.
We ferried back and arrived at the hostel, drank a bit of wine in our bed.
So here my memory is a little foggy again. I know we played pool at some time, but it actually may have been the next day. Let's pretend it was, okay? But I can talk about it now. Liam accidentally got one of mine in, and then on my next turn I literally aimed at one of his, and got it in. Not thinking about the fact that it was a solid, not a stripe. Such an idiot. He ended up winning our 1euro
I think then we went out and were on the hunt for food. Everything looked kinda pricey so it took us a little while to decide. In compariosn to berlin, and even moreso to prague, amsterdam was really expensive. Like, our hostel was certainly more expensive than the ones in those cities, and we were sharing a fucking bed. Anyway, we settled with some empty italian place. We got some beers there, and learned that a heinekin bottle comes in .25 l, not .3l like we suspected. cheapskates. We also got our fill with a burger, for me, and pizza for liam. It was highly mediocre, if not bad.
Too cheap to pay for more expensive beers there we wandered looking for a beer shop, but they all seemed to have shut. Mini marts as well. We settled with a different counter pizza shop and bought beers there to venture with for a little. Walked around, helped a couple get directions to where they were going, and generally were tired and feeling lazy so decided to go smoke hookah in some lounge. That was pretty fun and they were very willing to add our leftovers to the shisha mix, giving us an interesting buzz. The place we went to was called Lost in Amsterdam, and was filled with pillows all around, and we sipped on beers while hanging out and smoking the honey flavoured shisha.
When that was enough, we headed back to the hostel, exhausted and chilled in the hostel's smoke room for a little while, tampering with our leftovers, shoeless on the pillowed area. The place was absolutely packed and we soon were done there as well and retreated to our double bed bed bunk to lay down and read some wikipedia articles together, answering questions of some of the ponderings we had shared that day.
At around 1015 the next morning we woke up and decided to take advantage of the free brekkie once again. Same game, but today i tried my first hardboiled egg. I mean, I've had them broken up into salads and whatever before, but i've never dealt with it in its whole form, let alone it's whole shelled form. I was kind of stupid with figuring out how to do it, but it ended up being pretty good. Good job chickens.
I was really keen on renting bikes during this stay in amsterdam so we trekked out and tried to find a good, cheap enough place to rent from. We passed on that was 12euros but then realised that we wouldn't be able to return the bikes in a time that they were open. The next mini market we passed was suitable though, and super random, because they were open pretty late. only 10euros each we got our handbrake bikes and started to bike through one of the biggest biking cities on the planet.
The day before, as we were walking around, I found it pretty difficult and daunting to cross the road and traverse intersections. There were bikes coming form everywhere and i was often accidentally standing in the bike lane. [not as aggressively as we did in berlin though. I don't think i wrote about it, but as we were leaving the train station and getting on a bus towards our hostel, we both nearly got hit by a biker coming because we were fully standing in the bike lane. so dumb]. Also street lights are hard to see and weirdly placed. On a bike though, it was way less daunting and I felt way more in control.
We biked up to the I AMsterdam sign and parked briefly to take some photos. Liam climed to the top part of the d and i stayed on the inside. We wandered a bit but thought it would make sense to just bike further and park our bikes by the art museums we were thinking about going to.
The only weird part of the hostel, in my opinion, which was I suppose less weird and potentially positive for this trip, was that you could book double bunk beds. In a room with 32 people you could sleep on a full sized bunk bed setup with another person. Weird big bunks.
Anyway, we got there, checked in, and had a little over a half hour to kill before we could go to our room. Breakfast was still running for another 5 minutes so we went downstairs to get some free brekkie which was mostly toast, chocolate spread, and some fruit. I also got a bit of granola. We hung out down there, sucking on the internet and creating a map for Amsterdam while we waited to go to our rooms. Once we got through, we showered, layed down for a minute, and then decided to venture out and hit up a coffee shop. I was super exhausted from being nutty the night before, stressing about people coming into our compartment, but gave in to the desire to wander and travelled to this coffee shop, abraxas, which was a little ways away, but very well reviewed. There were a ton of options to choose from, but it did feel kinda touristy, so I was not fully convinced. After receiving our pure skunk purchases, I retracted my concern. Super good. Too good. Comatose good, which maybe was bad. We handled ourselves for a little while there, chatting but also mostly being dead and useless. Once we could handle movign our legs in a useful manner we ventured out. On our way up there we passed through a town square type of place, and decided to stop back there and check out the magician who was performing there.
When we had first passed he was merely explaining what tricks there were to come, and sort of harrassing the audience in his attempt to build interest among the passersby and those committed to standing in the circle and watching. He was whipping this whip and being all awkward and weird, which is why we left the first time. We figured, if he's somehow still there by the time we got back, he may have finally started his tricks. When we got back he was kitted in a straight jacket, yarning about how he was about to get out of it, but first he had to explain his need for money. He had this whole rant about how it's the cheapest entertainment you could find in amsterdam anywhere and you got a full hour of his best performance, and yadda yadda yadda. I mean, yeah, sure he's totally right and I shouldn't have then walked off to avoid giving him a wee euro or whatever, but his speech made me so uncomfortable that I didn't even wait through it to see him escape from his straight jacket. Idk. rough life being a street performer I'd imagine.
We wandered into a H&M because Liam's been needing a belt. It was a really small store in terms of length and width, but a giant store in terms of height. It felt like we had literally been moving forever by the time we got from floor 0 to floor 4, where mens clothing had started. We were rapidly losing hope and thinking that this obviously was not a place in which men could buy belts, but tried al ittle harder and at the 5th and final floor, in the last place you'd be able to ever look, belts were found. they were pretty tiny I reckon because Liam bought the largest length of belt and he's really fit.
We ventured back to the hostel afterwards and rested for a little bit before heading to the eye, a film museum and theater that was a ferry ride away [pretty and fun, and free!]. It was a weird conglomeration of humans taking the ferry, with so many bikes squeezing on and motor bikes ready to race off the second the gate opened. There was an afternoon showing of Boyhood we were trying to make, and had a good bit of time to wander around and hang out in the grass near the theater before it started. We also took a walk around the museum gift shop which was really awesome. IT was filled with all the weird little toys and stories that modern art museums and film museums usually have on display. Then, when the doors opened, we went in to get seats in the theater. I haven't seen a movie in theaters in a long time so it was kind of a nice experience and it was a really good sit-down break after all the trekking we had been through over the past few days. The movie was actually really good. This is this one that was filmed over 12 years of someone's life, but pretty long. We both passed out for a little bit of it, unfortunately I think for the same part, so i'm left with at least a question or two.
We ferried back and arrived at the hostel, drank a bit of wine in our bed.
So here my memory is a little foggy again. I know we played pool at some time, but it actually may have been the next day. Let's pretend it was, okay? But I can talk about it now. Liam accidentally got one of mine in, and then on my next turn I literally aimed at one of his, and got it in. Not thinking about the fact that it was a solid, not a stripe. Such an idiot. He ended up winning our 1euro
I think then we went out and were on the hunt for food. Everything looked kinda pricey so it took us a little while to decide. In compariosn to berlin, and even moreso to prague, amsterdam was really expensive. Like, our hostel was certainly more expensive than the ones in those cities, and we were sharing a fucking bed. Anyway, we settled with some empty italian place. We got some beers there, and learned that a heinekin bottle comes in .25 l, not .3l like we suspected. cheapskates. We also got our fill with a burger, for me, and pizza for liam. It was highly mediocre, if not bad.
Too cheap to pay for more expensive beers there we wandered looking for a beer shop, but they all seemed to have shut. Mini marts as well. We settled with a different counter pizza shop and bought beers there to venture with for a little. Walked around, helped a couple get directions to where they were going, and generally were tired and feeling lazy so decided to go smoke hookah in some lounge. That was pretty fun and they were very willing to add our leftovers to the shisha mix, giving us an interesting buzz. The place we went to was called Lost in Amsterdam, and was filled with pillows all around, and we sipped on beers while hanging out and smoking the honey flavoured shisha.
When that was enough, we headed back to the hostel, exhausted and chilled in the hostel's smoke room for a little while, tampering with our leftovers, shoeless on the pillowed area. The place was absolutely packed and we soon were done there as well and retreated to our double bed bed bunk to lay down and read some wikipedia articles together, answering questions of some of the ponderings we had shared that day.
At around 1015 the next morning we woke up and decided to take advantage of the free brekkie once again. Same game, but today i tried my first hardboiled egg. I mean, I've had them broken up into salads and whatever before, but i've never dealt with it in its whole form, let alone it's whole shelled form. I was kind of stupid with figuring out how to do it, but it ended up being pretty good. Good job chickens.
I was really keen on renting bikes during this stay in amsterdam so we trekked out and tried to find a good, cheap enough place to rent from. We passed on that was 12euros but then realised that we wouldn't be able to return the bikes in a time that they were open. The next mini market we passed was suitable though, and super random, because they were open pretty late. only 10euros each we got our handbrake bikes and started to bike through one of the biggest biking cities on the planet.
The day before, as we were walking around, I found it pretty difficult and daunting to cross the road and traverse intersections. There were bikes coming form everywhere and i was often accidentally standing in the bike lane. [not as aggressively as we did in berlin though. I don't think i wrote about it, but as we were leaving the train station and getting on a bus towards our hostel, we both nearly got hit by a biker coming because we were fully standing in the bike lane. so dumb]. Also street lights are hard to see and weirdly placed. On a bike though, it was way less daunting and I felt way more in control.
We biked up to the I AMsterdam sign and parked briefly to take some photos. Liam climed to the top part of the d and i stayed on the inside. We wandered a bit but thought it would make sense to just bike further and park our bikes by the art museums we were thinking about going to.
Before leaving the area our hostel was in we did a quick shop to get some art enhancing goods for our adventure, so after parking our bikes we were headed to indulge. We walked to a park pretty close by and hung out on a statue, trying out our buy, which was way weirder than the one from the day before. Much more light headed feeling, way quicker onset, and disappeared shortly after. Interesting.
As we were entering the park we noticed a little food truck like setup with elaborate chandeliers inside, and an assortment of pastries for sale. We went back towards it and liam got 3 pastries. i got two, but had some of his chocolate waffle. The chocoalte waffle was kind of interesting-- way more solid than I had expected. He also got some sorta cream puff like thing. I got an appley item and a nut filled, pecan pie-like, item. We hung out and munched a bit, saving some for later, and had a little more before heading back towards the museum.
trigger warning: if you're not me, you probably don't care about this part more than you haven't cared about anything else i've written in my almost purely for-personal-reasons blog. So we were walking away with a bag of our leftover desserts. Liam was caryring it and then asked me if i could hold it while he put on his jacket, or hat, or something... so i obliged, and then we continued walking. I never gave it back to him and fully forgot about it for a bit. Maybe a block or so later it crossed my mind, and I wondered why I was still holding it. I contemplated saying something and then didn't care. Theres not much bother in holding a lightweight object for a bit. I needn't whine nor force him to hold it. Almost immediately after he asked if i minded carrying it, and offered to take it back. i said i didnt' mind but gave it to him. I thought that was weird so after thinking about it for a few seconds i confessed that i had actually just been thinking about the bag, and he told me that he felt me tense up, and decided he should probably ask to take back the bag. We both thought that was so weird, and was one of the many times that day and through this trip that we felt like we were on the same wavelength. We weren't even looking at eachother, but silent communication through humans that know eachother really well never ceases to amaze and confuse me. Idk. sappy and silly maybe, but you had to be there. it was nuts.
Drinks [non-alcoholic for once!] seemed necessary so we ventured into a little grocery store that was right next to the entrance for the modern art museum, the Stedelijk museum. I got a water and an apple, liam got some sort of kiwi flavoured fizzy water, and while in the checkout line we also decided to get a white kitkat bar and some sort of bubble chocolate bar. At first we were in the wrong checkout line, which accepted some sort of weird point payment, but then we got through to cash and got out alright. I ate my apple, and then we started working on the kitkat bar. i was wondering if it was just because it was cold outside or if the white chocolate they used was just not what I expect from white chocolate, but i think the kit kat bar was just awful. Never try one if you've been considering and contemplating the idea of one as you first read that I had one. Dislike.
Finally we made it into the art museum and moved thoughout the exhibits, consistently fucking up the order in which we were supposed to traverse the rooms. For the first section we were very clearly taken through the years in chronological order, seeing the progression of art and homeware, but we didn't realise [similar to the way we didn't realise at the mika concert a year and a half ago that the dj opener was movign through the decades] until we were nearly at the last case. We went in descending order. oh well. This mostly just made us more aware of the fact that a path in museums often exists, and it could be worth following suit.
The next area we were trying pretty hard to go the right way, but in this retrospective, which seriously should've had a fucking order if there's any kind of display that hsould have an order, there seemed to be no order. We gave up and just went through. A lot of the work in this section was really creepy and very in your face. Human faces and forms were depicted with a warping of facial features and placements, and sickly, flat appearance.
We joked about what it would be like to have some of the weird dishware and flatware that we passed in the museum and watched a few strange videos before leaving. One I rather liked had a bunch of projectors set up in a room with the images horizontally next to eachother from about 7 screens. They all seemed quite unrelated, and for the most part exhibited only slight, consistent movement, but every once in a while one would become the main focus as the subject of that screen was manipulated and someone came in and cut a cake, for example. Pretty weird. The last video we watched was about the affect of heroin on a lot of places which was kind of heavy and not so 'arrrrrrt'. Then we left. Liam proclaimed that he hated all of it as we exited.
As usual, the next move was to go back to that supermarket and stock up on some beers to bring back to the hostel. We spent a good period of time picking out a few good beers each, weighing cost, abv, and the creation of multiple styles. We didn't fuck up which line to go on this time, and went to the cash line, but then got stopped when they asked to see both of our IDs. Liam didnt have his wallet, and he had left his passport at the minimart earlier as collatoral when renting our bikes. bullocks. I was really not keen to go back in and try again, so i insisted we leave and just continue on.
We biked towards the redlight district, getting lost a shitton and constantly having to check the map when we realised we had gone too far, often for the sake of sightseeing and following people who were in front of us.
It was dusk at this point and moving through the redlight district was kind of weird. Not as explosive as I'm sure it owuld be becoming in the next few hours, but still filled with many women in windows, beckoning the passersby. Though our eyes were peeled the whole way looking for a supermarket or beer shop, we were pretty unsuccessful until we were through with the redlight district and beginning to head back. A little overpriced supermarket would do the job.
So we did as we tend to, and moved to the back of the store to figure out what would give us the most abv for our dollar. Not quite as cheap as the supermarket we were rejected from before, so it was really a bit annoying. We picked a bunch of interesting beers to taste- large variety of types, but all in the 8-11% range, and then grabbed three of these tall boys of grolsch that were 11.6%. Not too bad. As we approached the counter and placed our beers down for purchase, the store owner laughed and said "two of those? no. you [liam] can't drink two of those." he proceeded to explain, and tempted to warn, that these beers are really intense and would be more affecting than ones of similar strength, but different brand. He wasn't sure why it was the case, but seemed to have experience in drinking one too many grolsch tall boys. We saw it as a challenge and I added a bag of crisps to our order before we strapped the cans to the back of my bike and continued on our adventure.
We dropped off the bikes, [it was maybe 7 pm, and we were planning on intoxicating ourselves for the rest of the evening] and then went to the hostel to hang out in the lower breakfast area, to drink our beers and not cause a disturbance to the sales at the bar. There were a bunch of people watching american hustle so we watched a bit while sipping and snacking. When those humans cleared out, three new ones came that were super friendly and pretty fun. three american dudes, one [or two?] of which were studying abroad at the time. We chatted a wee while but then decided it was time to go out.
Though I was a big fan of abraxas the day before, we thought it wise to try out a new spot, and hit up this place called Baba which was meant to have great edibles. Prices were high and I was just not realy feeling the place, so we defaulted and went back to the place we trusted well, abraxas. This time in addition to a muffin and a brownie [for the next days, of course], we took some pure purple, their most expensive type. This one, a sativa, while the other was an indica, made a big difference. much preferred.
Man from the mini mart was pretty correct about the beers and we were well drunk at this time, and ready to wander back and tucker in for another night. On our way back we went to this place Walk to Wok, which we had pointed out earlier in our day as good looking, cheap, chinese food. exactly what we needed. It ended up being amazingly good, and though we were hoping to find the three americans in the downstairs lounge again to keep drinking and eat, the room was occupied with a whole new crowd we werent' prepared to handle. We resorted to this little cave-like booth, recessed into the wall. We sat, ate, and tried to finish the last of the grolsch's [struggle all around I'd say], as liam faced frustration with the hanging lightbulb illuminating our post. It was really bright, and hanging aggressively close to his face, so he twisted it off. Some chick that worked there came by after to see if it had broken, but we explained we just turned it off. Conversation devolved into joking death threats, and though I can't quite remember the start, I told liam that I would warn him when a kiss was the third to last one he'd get before being cut off. All jokes.
We went to our bunk and i tried to put on a movie, but liam [who somehow did drink two grolsch's] was pretty far gone, unwilling to turn around and face the screen, so I turned it off and we passed out for a while.
So I have really bad misophonia, and rely heavily on earplugs to get through the often snore filled hostel nights. Nothing though could've helped with the night to follow. The dude above us was making noises only comparable to that of a broken lawnmower. A guy a few beds over was choking on snore, and the best, at about 5 am, Liam had also woken up to join me in the listening of two people's early morning coitus. There were 32 people in that room, but absolutely no noise control on their humping. ick. I found another pair of earplugs to give to liam and we tried to go back to bed until 7am, when we woke up to get ready to get out.
Liam and I had been sharing this weird towel that I bought on amazon. It's one of those dry-lite towels that folds up really small and dries rapidly. It can hold an incredible amount of water, so makes drying easy, but is a strange suede like material that you pat on your body instead of rubbing. It's nto the same luxury experience as a plush towel, but it does the job pretty well. I heard liam moving towards it, to get in the shower, and stopped him, hoping he'd let me shower first. Success. I showered, he showered, we packed, we sat, we checked out, and we went for a really quick brekkie before heading to the train station. I put some fruit in my backpack and two hard boiled eggs in my pocket for train snacks to come.
Again, we rushed, and again, we were super early, waiting for the train to hit the platform. We split half of the brownie and seated ourselves. The first 40? minutes brought us to rotterdam where we finished the rest of the brownie and sat for an hour waiting. The next 2 hour train was bringing us to brussels.
The train ride was fine. Nothing so interesting. I got through the eggs and put the peelings in the garbage. I still think I'm pretty shit at peeling hard boiled eggs. It must be some sort of skill. Liam finished the book he had been reading, and we faced eachother at a little table for most of the ride. Brownie was okay, mostly just tiring though.
As we approached Brussels I wasn't entirely sure of where we were. This time at least I did save a map of brussels before getting there, but when it came to be time to get off the train at our stop, we were a little rushed and bit unsure. Something I found kind of weird about the trains in europe is that they often stop at stations for about 5 minutes. Not always, but quite frequently you'll be sitting there for a while before moving to the next stop. As a passanger, I hate this. It always makes me feel stressed out and rushed, wanting to move and not be stuck any longer. This is probably the result of growing up where I grew up. As a silly patron trying to get on or off the train, I love it. It gives us enough time to get our turtle shells on our backs and comfortably exit the train. I asked someone "is this brussels centraal?" Yes. We moved to the door, but the door wasn't open. I tried to press the little open button a few times, cause on a few trains and subways and busses you need to press that button to open the door [it's not always open, which makes sense for temperature control reasons I now understand]. It didnt open. A second later we started moving. Fuck. Missed our stop I guess. Second time we couldn't open the fucking door [first time being in berlin. I think I wrote about it... while we were on the subway this same garbage happened where we legit didn't know how to get out].
We got out at the next stop, feeling like idiots, trying to figure out which train would bring us back int he right direction, and found one, boarded, and got off where we were meant to get off [which, in all actuality, wasn't as close to the hostel as another stop we could've taken. you live and you learn, or you just read directions before you go. whatever].
We got off, walked the 15 minutes with our bags to our hostel, and brussels.
As we were entering the park we noticed a little food truck like setup with elaborate chandeliers inside, and an assortment of pastries for sale. We went back towards it and liam got 3 pastries. i got two, but had some of his chocolate waffle. The chocoalte waffle was kind of interesting-- way more solid than I had expected. He also got some sorta cream puff like thing. I got an appley item and a nut filled, pecan pie-like, item. We hung out and munched a bit, saving some for later, and had a little more before heading back towards the museum.
trigger warning: if you're not me, you probably don't care about this part more than you haven't cared about anything else i've written in my almost purely for-personal-reasons blog. So we were walking away with a bag of our leftover desserts. Liam was caryring it and then asked me if i could hold it while he put on his jacket, or hat, or something... so i obliged, and then we continued walking. I never gave it back to him and fully forgot about it for a bit. Maybe a block or so later it crossed my mind, and I wondered why I was still holding it. I contemplated saying something and then didn't care. Theres not much bother in holding a lightweight object for a bit. I needn't whine nor force him to hold it. Almost immediately after he asked if i minded carrying it, and offered to take it back. i said i didnt' mind but gave it to him. I thought that was weird so after thinking about it for a few seconds i confessed that i had actually just been thinking about the bag, and he told me that he felt me tense up, and decided he should probably ask to take back the bag. We both thought that was so weird, and was one of the many times that day and through this trip that we felt like we were on the same wavelength. We weren't even looking at eachother, but silent communication through humans that know eachother really well never ceases to amaze and confuse me. Idk. sappy and silly maybe, but you had to be there. it was nuts.
Drinks [non-alcoholic for once!] seemed necessary so we ventured into a little grocery store that was right next to the entrance for the modern art museum, the Stedelijk museum. I got a water and an apple, liam got some sort of kiwi flavoured fizzy water, and while in the checkout line we also decided to get a white kitkat bar and some sort of bubble chocolate bar. At first we were in the wrong checkout line, which accepted some sort of weird point payment, but then we got through to cash and got out alright. I ate my apple, and then we started working on the kitkat bar. i was wondering if it was just because it was cold outside or if the white chocolate they used was just not what I expect from white chocolate, but i think the kit kat bar was just awful. Never try one if you've been considering and contemplating the idea of one as you first read that I had one. Dislike.
Finally we made it into the art museum and moved thoughout the exhibits, consistently fucking up the order in which we were supposed to traverse the rooms. For the first section we were very clearly taken through the years in chronological order, seeing the progression of art and homeware, but we didn't realise [similar to the way we didn't realise at the mika concert a year and a half ago that the dj opener was movign through the decades] until we were nearly at the last case. We went in descending order. oh well. This mostly just made us more aware of the fact that a path in museums often exists, and it could be worth following suit.
The next area we were trying pretty hard to go the right way, but in this retrospective, which seriously should've had a fucking order if there's any kind of display that hsould have an order, there seemed to be no order. We gave up and just went through. A lot of the work in this section was really creepy and very in your face. Human faces and forms were depicted with a warping of facial features and placements, and sickly, flat appearance.
We joked about what it would be like to have some of the weird dishware and flatware that we passed in the museum and watched a few strange videos before leaving. One I rather liked had a bunch of projectors set up in a room with the images horizontally next to eachother from about 7 screens. They all seemed quite unrelated, and for the most part exhibited only slight, consistent movement, but every once in a while one would become the main focus as the subject of that screen was manipulated and someone came in and cut a cake, for example. Pretty weird. The last video we watched was about the affect of heroin on a lot of places which was kind of heavy and not so 'arrrrrrt'. Then we left. Liam proclaimed that he hated all of it as we exited.
As usual, the next move was to go back to that supermarket and stock up on some beers to bring back to the hostel. We spent a good period of time picking out a few good beers each, weighing cost, abv, and the creation of multiple styles. We didn't fuck up which line to go on this time, and went to the cash line, but then got stopped when they asked to see both of our IDs. Liam didnt have his wallet, and he had left his passport at the minimart earlier as collatoral when renting our bikes. bullocks. I was really not keen to go back in and try again, so i insisted we leave and just continue on.
We biked towards the redlight district, getting lost a shitton and constantly having to check the map when we realised we had gone too far, often for the sake of sightseeing and following people who were in front of us.
It was dusk at this point and moving through the redlight district was kind of weird. Not as explosive as I'm sure it owuld be becoming in the next few hours, but still filled with many women in windows, beckoning the passersby. Though our eyes were peeled the whole way looking for a supermarket or beer shop, we were pretty unsuccessful until we were through with the redlight district and beginning to head back. A little overpriced supermarket would do the job.
So we did as we tend to, and moved to the back of the store to figure out what would give us the most abv for our dollar. Not quite as cheap as the supermarket we were rejected from before, so it was really a bit annoying. We picked a bunch of interesting beers to taste- large variety of types, but all in the 8-11% range, and then grabbed three of these tall boys of grolsch that were 11.6%. Not too bad. As we approached the counter and placed our beers down for purchase, the store owner laughed and said "two of those? no. you [liam] can't drink two of those." he proceeded to explain, and tempted to warn, that these beers are really intense and would be more affecting than ones of similar strength, but different brand. He wasn't sure why it was the case, but seemed to have experience in drinking one too many grolsch tall boys. We saw it as a challenge and I added a bag of crisps to our order before we strapped the cans to the back of my bike and continued on our adventure.
We dropped off the bikes, [it was maybe 7 pm, and we were planning on intoxicating ourselves for the rest of the evening] and then went to the hostel to hang out in the lower breakfast area, to drink our beers and not cause a disturbance to the sales at the bar. There were a bunch of people watching american hustle so we watched a bit while sipping and snacking. When those humans cleared out, three new ones came that were super friendly and pretty fun. three american dudes, one [or two?] of which were studying abroad at the time. We chatted a wee while but then decided it was time to go out.
Though I was a big fan of abraxas the day before, we thought it wise to try out a new spot, and hit up this place called Baba which was meant to have great edibles. Prices were high and I was just not realy feeling the place, so we defaulted and went back to the place we trusted well, abraxas. This time in addition to a muffin and a brownie [for the next days, of course], we took some pure purple, their most expensive type. This one, a sativa, while the other was an indica, made a big difference. much preferred.
Man from the mini mart was pretty correct about the beers and we were well drunk at this time, and ready to wander back and tucker in for another night. On our way back we went to this place Walk to Wok, which we had pointed out earlier in our day as good looking, cheap, chinese food. exactly what we needed. It ended up being amazingly good, and though we were hoping to find the three americans in the downstairs lounge again to keep drinking and eat, the room was occupied with a whole new crowd we werent' prepared to handle. We resorted to this little cave-like booth, recessed into the wall. We sat, ate, and tried to finish the last of the grolsch's [struggle all around I'd say], as liam faced frustration with the hanging lightbulb illuminating our post. It was really bright, and hanging aggressively close to his face, so he twisted it off. Some chick that worked there came by after to see if it had broken, but we explained we just turned it off. Conversation devolved into joking death threats, and though I can't quite remember the start, I told liam that I would warn him when a kiss was the third to last one he'd get before being cut off. All jokes.
We went to our bunk and i tried to put on a movie, but liam [who somehow did drink two grolsch's] was pretty far gone, unwilling to turn around and face the screen, so I turned it off and we passed out for a while.
So I have really bad misophonia, and rely heavily on earplugs to get through the often snore filled hostel nights. Nothing though could've helped with the night to follow. The dude above us was making noises only comparable to that of a broken lawnmower. A guy a few beds over was choking on snore, and the best, at about 5 am, Liam had also woken up to join me in the listening of two people's early morning coitus. There were 32 people in that room, but absolutely no noise control on their humping. ick. I found another pair of earplugs to give to liam and we tried to go back to bed until 7am, when we woke up to get ready to get out.
Liam and I had been sharing this weird towel that I bought on amazon. It's one of those dry-lite towels that folds up really small and dries rapidly. It can hold an incredible amount of water, so makes drying easy, but is a strange suede like material that you pat on your body instead of rubbing. It's nto the same luxury experience as a plush towel, but it does the job pretty well. I heard liam moving towards it, to get in the shower, and stopped him, hoping he'd let me shower first. Success. I showered, he showered, we packed, we sat, we checked out, and we went for a really quick brekkie before heading to the train station. I put some fruit in my backpack and two hard boiled eggs in my pocket for train snacks to come.
Again, we rushed, and again, we were super early, waiting for the train to hit the platform. We split half of the brownie and seated ourselves. The first 40? minutes brought us to rotterdam where we finished the rest of the brownie and sat for an hour waiting. The next 2 hour train was bringing us to brussels.
The train ride was fine. Nothing so interesting. I got through the eggs and put the peelings in the garbage. I still think I'm pretty shit at peeling hard boiled eggs. It must be some sort of skill. Liam finished the book he had been reading, and we faced eachother at a little table for most of the ride. Brownie was okay, mostly just tiring though.
As we approached Brussels I wasn't entirely sure of where we were. This time at least I did save a map of brussels before getting there, but when it came to be time to get off the train at our stop, we were a little rushed and bit unsure. Something I found kind of weird about the trains in europe is that they often stop at stations for about 5 minutes. Not always, but quite frequently you'll be sitting there for a while before moving to the next stop. As a passanger, I hate this. It always makes me feel stressed out and rushed, wanting to move and not be stuck any longer. This is probably the result of growing up where I grew up. As a silly patron trying to get on or off the train, I love it. It gives us enough time to get our turtle shells on our backs and comfortably exit the train. I asked someone "is this brussels centraal?" Yes. We moved to the door, but the door wasn't open. I tried to press the little open button a few times, cause on a few trains and subways and busses you need to press that button to open the door [it's not always open, which makes sense for temperature control reasons I now understand]. It didnt open. A second later we started moving. Fuck. Missed our stop I guess. Second time we couldn't open the fucking door [first time being in berlin. I think I wrote about it... while we were on the subway this same garbage happened where we legit didn't know how to get out].
We got out at the next stop, feeling like idiots, trying to figure out which train would bring us back int he right direction, and found one, boarded, and got off where we were meant to get off [which, in all actuality, wasn't as close to the hostel as another stop we could've taken. you live and you learn, or you just read directions before you go. whatever].
We got off, walked the 15 minutes with our bags to our hostel, and brussels.
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