my hand delights to trace unusual things

i know, i know, ive neglected you poor blog, but when youre fending off six bloodthirsty girls in europe it gets hard to keep you at the top of my to do list. the verdict is still out on whether the past tennish days have been a nightmare or pleasant dream. our traveling party was a complete mess and it was an amazing day when i didnt feel overwhelmingly angry or frustrated with someone(s) in our group.

amsterdam was well-invested time for the most part, but we were there for way way way way way way way way way too long. we spent five days there when all you really need is two or three. a couple days i sat in bed in the morning trying to figure out if there was anything i actually wanted to do. here are some fotes.

the best day far and away was Bike Day. We rented bicycles for twentyfour hours and rode out into the country and found a teeny town called Holy Sloot about 10km away from Amsterdam where we met a dutch man, swiss woman, and italian man who invited us to ride on the smallest ferry ever created. it was a vessel the size of a luxurious elevator, painted blue, and it cost 1 euro to ride. we agreed to it and spoke a little bit to our new ferry friends. after that we had to cross irrigation canals on small pieces of metal that formed a bridge a tiny bit large than a bicycle tire. After a while we were back on the path and riding past fat sheep and mountains of cow and the most humoungonus Rabbit id ever seen in all my years. its was about the size of a dog.

at night we biked around the canals and through the lively streets of the city taking in all the people and junk and that sort of thing i guess. we sat down and i had some coffee and my bike seat was too high so my pants-area hurt. but that was probably the best day in amsterdam.

Besides biking, we visited the rijks museum which had a lot of dreary paintings of rich dutch merchants and uninteresting things like that. there was a case or ornamental pistols, rifles, pikes, and halberds that the dutch militas used in Rembrandts time that was neat neat. We ate at this quote, end-quote dutch restaurant which was pricey (like they knew tourists would want to eat dutch food) and it was mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausage which, i must say, i have eaten at least two hundred times in my life before and it has never cost me twenty two dollars. but i suppose that is the point of trips abroad, spend money on things youve never spent money on before. and thats why i went to the red light district. kidding. seriously, there are frightening and minimally-clad women tapping on windows as you walk by, its not a good situation.

oh yeah, i went to this comic book shop right next to our hostel on Kerkstraat and found two issues of Optic Nerve, a comic ive been trying to find since i stumbled on one issue almost three years ago in chicago. The comic book store owner complimented me on the choice and said that the author was really good which was really true.

Long story short, i almost lost my mind in amsterdam waiting for the train to come. we arrived two hours early and i was spacey and i got on the train and seven hours later we arrived in Berlin, my beautiful, gorgeous, tatooed, free-train-ed, insomniac, cigarettes on the rivered, screaming drunk inhabited, New York with personality, favorite city ever. But we arent going to talk about that right now.