A Windows Hotel, Queen's Day and More

Well, I thought I'd be able to post more easily, but the hotel is using Microsoft's Internet Server, so naturally my Mac can connect to the network, but it won't let me out on the Internet. But I'll figure something out...

Meanwhile, we're having a blast! Have walked though so many places, and today is Queen's Day, so it's just nuts. Imagine San Francisco Gay Pride, Castro Street Fair, Folsom Street Fair, The Jazz Festival, etc. all at once in a tiny little city. It's a sea of people, many of whom are very mellow. Ahem. Accept for the drunken packs of sixteen-year-old-boys being loud and obnoxious. I think I'm becoming an oldster.



The canals are gorgeous, filled with boats loaded with orange-clad revelers - a sight to see for sure.

It was nice to walk around early in the day. On Queen's Day, everyone is allowed to setup shop on the street, so it was a city-wide garage sale/flea market. The red light district is neat, very narrow and filled to the brim with little shops, coffee shops, cafes - most of which served food. Lots of Indonesian, Thai, "oriental", Italian, etc. Dutch food is rare and very hard to find. But it's there.

We covered SO much ground today, too, walking all over and around the U-shaped streets and canals, finally cracking the code on how to understand which street (straat") or canal (gracht) we were on. It's very, very easy to get turned around, and finally figuring out how to find north was a good thing. That and just asking for help. :)



Our big lesson yesterday was "Why do all the houses have a hook at the very top?" Answer: To hoist furniture and other large items in through the window! And the houses are built so that the front is leaning slightly forward, ensuring that what ever is being lifted doesn't hit the front of the house.

Neat! We're gonna take off now and head over to find more food and a beer or three.



Update - later that day. And we did. Met lots of fun folks but had to navigate street after street packed with drunken, stoned revelers. An amazing sight sure, but we don't go to street parties when we're at home!



We finally made our way to the "little lion" gay bar that we liked (the owner is pictured above, between the Chicago gay and the Los Angeles gay), but had to walk through a dance area that blocked the entire alley way. When we passed through the two towers of speakers (a DJ was spinning on a metal suspension bridge above us), the music was so loud I felt like my heart was being forced to beat differently. It was LOUD. I'm not kidding. LOUD.



After a very pleasant afternoon of beers and more beers (it got better once David showed the new bartender what a bottle of whisky looks like), we decided sagely that it would be better to walk around the revelers to get home. Mistake. Got turned around and ended up far south-west of our hotel. But again, we just had to ask (several times) and we landed a block from the hotel - just approached it wrong was all. Surrrrrreeee we did. We then had a great meal at a cafe (got there just in time, the kitchen was just closing!), soup, salad, bread, croquettes and of course, beer.

And I do believe we slept well. :)

Arriving in Amsterdam

After breakfast it was back to the house to finish packing, read a few comics, say goodbye to Pixel and wait for the Super Shuttle to whisk us off to the airport. I think David agrees that the driver was a bit surly -- not to mention the high-speed, almost-like-Mr.-Toad’s-Wild-Ride experience up and down Twin Peaks and through West Portal on our way to the airport.

The check in process was pretty darned easy - there were two queues to the our flight, and for some lemming-like reason, everyone seemed to gravitate towards the queue on the right. David and I had already checked in online and had our print-outs and passports ready, so we opted the line without 3 people in it. Naturally 1 of those three had some sort of issue that require three separate employees to figure out.



But eventually, and after a lot of heavy sighs from David B later, we checked our one large bag and headed for security, where it was off with the shoes, metal and any sort of attitude. I was a little nervous sending my beloved new Macintosh through the X-Ray machine, but all went well.

After David B washed off the mistake he made by putting his hand on the people mover railing (it was filthy), it was off to a Firewood restaurant we found in the airport for a nice Ketel One Greyhound (or two).


The plane is huge. Loading passengers went more smoothly than any flight I’ve been on; I’m now completely curious about flying business class instead of coach - seems nicer.

We’re now sailing through the air over the continental U.S., only a short way through our journey. Now it’s about wrestling with iPods, cables and my Mac -- oh my! But it’s sure nice to connect the iPod to the Mac and watch my movies on a 17 inch monitor - bliss. Meanwhile David B. is really enjoying his neck pillow.


Or he was. We never did get any sleep, it was too hard. The airline served lots of snacks, a meal, more snacks, etc., which was a nice touch. We also met a really nice woman on the plane who gave us lots of advice.


The Amsterdam airport and train stations were huge and amazing, full of noise and hustle and bustle in every language you can imaging. of course the public transit is really incredible and easy to use. And neat looking, too.

As I write this, I’m sitting in our hotel lounge waiting for our room to be made up. The walk here, even schlepping all of our luggage, was still really neat - it really is a beautiful city and there are SO MANY PEOPLE! So clearly keyword is neat. Neat, neat, neat.

Now it’s time for a trip to a coffee shop, then back to the hotel to check in. No sleep for us - go rally through until dark and hope that our bodies adjust.


Later that day...


And boy did we.

We walked all around the neighborhood that surround our hotel - three times I think! But we did eventually wear out enough to brave a short nap. I think it lasted about two hours. And then we rallied again and made our way towards the “Castro” of Amsterdam.


Finding our way wasn’t that easy, only because we took the longest route possible inadvertently. But we ended up finding it, and had the BEST time! We hit a couple of bars - one called April we hit twice.

We met these guys from Washington DC and LA who were hanging out with a third guy (a local). They were, of course, well on their way to being smashed. But they were hilarious.


We also met the nicest bar owner, Nils, who had just opened his bar called "Cafe 't Leeuwtje" or "the little lion" about five months ago. And he gave us an updated guide and was nice enough to notate his favorite few restaurants on it. Norbert, the local guy who was taking pictures of everyone, made us all drink shots of BOLS, which might explain why I don’t remember eating at McDonald’s last night on our way home.

After some much needed sleep and a cappucino later, we’re ready to start the day - which is the day before Queen’s Day, sort of like Pink Saturday before Gay Pride in San Francisco. What day is it? Time is weird right now, when you skip a day. Anyways, based on the crowds we've seen already, it’s gonna be big. And I'm sure, NEAT!

Breakfast in the Castro

davidmahr
After another round of City of Heroes this morning (Power.Lad rules!) and some last minute packing changes, we headed down to the Castro for a late breakfast at one of our favorite local experiences -- Welcome Home. Surley, forgetful service with a smile, and really good food. I had my favorite comfort food meal - chicken fried steak with grits instead of potatoes and toast instead of a biscuit. MMMMMMM.



David B. had his favorite, too - a fried egg and ham sandwich with fries instead of house potatoes. He was hoping for some grapefruit juice, too, but strangely, all they offered is tomato, apple or cranberry -- no citrus!



Then a mad dash to Walgreen's to get some kitty litter before our meter ran out, then back home to impatiently await the Super Shuttle. Can't wait!

Prelude

DAVID M.
So tomorrow we're leaving for Amsterdam. It's hard to believe it's already here! It's finally starting to feel exciting, now that I'm actually off work. I'm almost done packing for today and it looks like I'd better log in to City of Heroes to get my gaming fix out of the way. I'll miss flying around and smashing up super villains, but I guess it's time to focus on Real Life instead of my MMORPG. I am gonna miss Pixel, too.

DAVID B.
I just checked us in, WOO HOO! I love being able to check in online, especially because we were in the absolute last row of the plane, row 69, and I was able to move us all the way up to row 10. I don't know why it really matters, but...it does. :) Can't wait/believe that we're actually finally going. Totally looking forward to just soaking up the local culture/food/sights.