B&B Le Maroxidien Amsterdam

... away with my last night at the Pig. We have a great time playing pool and drinking, the bartenders suggested Jilsner (like Bud) beer and chilled Jager shots.

After a while, we roam around the alleys looking for another hotspot. We're about to call it quits when we stumble upon a trendy bar/party in the residential area. It's a well-dressed party and it's poppin'. We end up closing the place down at 4am in the morn.

I ...

... to Central Station. Another walk to the port to board the ship. Even though we had checked and verified where the Uniworld cruise boat was located, a couple of days ago, it was not there. Another walk, not too bad, to get to the West port. We thought we had plenty of time, but as it turns out I think we were some of the last passengers to embark, and right after we boarded, they started preparing to depart.

Up the canal, lots of nice rural scenery— ...

... what I didn't want in life and if I would have stayed in the Navy after DC, I would of had to choose between being on a ship, or going to Afghanistan. Sadly, I would have chose Afghanistan because I can't stand the ship. It's pretty sad that I would prefer going into a war-zone vs a nice warm bed safe somewhere in the ocean. Though I certainly wouldn't have been kicking down doors in the desert. I had 4 years of pain and punishment and that is all that ...

... als ik het goed heb.

Ik heb Manolo, de huisbewaarder, gebeld en met zijn vrouw een gesprek in het Spaans gevoerd. Ik vermoed dat we elkaar begrijpen. Een boodschap was duidelijk: "Manolo wacht op ons bij het appartement, maar als hij er niet is moeten we hem even mobiel bellen". Oftewel: "Bel hem gewoon mobiel als je er bent, want No Way On Earth gaat hij daar een uur op jullie staan wacht, ok?" Maar dat dan op z'n Spaans...

Spanje... mijn tweede thuis: ik kan ...

... another day trip to a castle town – and I happened to leave the best for last. I took a bus to the Barka roundabout and took a shared taxi to Nakhal. In Nakhal I was the first visitor of the day at the castle and I had the castle entirely to myself for at least another hour and enjoyed it to the fullest extent before the tour groups moved in. Because it was rather hot and I was quite tired I decided to skip another castle on my itinerary and returned to Muscat and Mutrah.
Amsterdam, Netherlands mies

... stepped into a gay bar (Old Sailor, har har, arrr Billy and all that.). There are a few in the area. I wandered over to the door to look for the telltale rainbow flag or sticker that I might have missed on the way in but couldn't find any, although there were some multi-coloured light bulbs wrapping the sign. When I turned to go back in, I could swear the guys sitting and standing near the door were checking me out. Then it occurred to me ...

... work and we headed out to begin the party. The streets, clubs and bars were already completely packed with people at 10pm. Some how we managed to push through crowds, to do a little drinking and dancing. The next day was the real celebration day--the whole city center of Amsterdam was shut down including public transportation (besides beer and food stands). There were literally 750,000 people wandering the streets in search of a party. There were concerts and D's ...

... Amsterdam, he knew way more of what to expect than I did. Knowing that prostitution is legal here, I assumed that we might see a few prostitutes on street corners and a maybe a few seedy strip clubs. I also had in my mind that the streetlights would be red and thus the phrase, "Red Light District". But I was surprisingly mistaken. The first thing we discovered about the "Red Light District" was the fact that it was very difficult to ...

... comprenait rien... finalement nous avons jeté un coup d'oeil au tableau d'affichage qui indiquait fièrement B526 alors qu'il était inscrit B544 sur notre ticket ! A ce rythme, nous visiterons Amsterdam à travers le dépliant de la salle d'attente et devrons peut être monter dans le train de 21H30 pour Berlin sans billets ! Notre tour est enfin arrivé (je vais peut être commencer à croire en Dieu) et nous apprenons que le train de 21H30 ...

... Toronto visiting some family I think in India for a wedding and some travelling. I dozed a bit, went for a few walks, etc. 7+ hours later, we arrived in Amsterdam. The first thing I did was look for a little kiosk where I bought some chapstick- do NOT forget this while flying. While waiting for our connecting flight I spotted out another couple I had chatted with that would be sharing our ...