Radisson Sas Amsterdam Airport

... but then he is right to be jealous. In mere hours I`ll be over that amazingly huge body of salty water called The Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, five days of waiting for Aino to arrive, a two or maybe three month trip to the other side of the world paid for in cash by a love starved Finnish female we met last year in mexico...

- Yeah, you have a right to be jealous mate, checkmate by the way!!!

Amsterdam pretty interesting - usual big city with crowds and tourists with an extra sprinkling of stoners who have spent all day at the "coffee" shop. It's compact and easy to get around, although there are over 180 canals so easy to loose bearings from time to time.

Apparently over 12,000 bikes are pulled out canals in Amsterdam every year. Can see why from the pics, we couldn't believe the amount of bikes at the train station.

Looks like we wil ...

My second weekend away was to Amsterdam. I went with Allison (from my grad school program), Aaron, and Ashley. Luckily, Aaron knows some people who know some people and we were able to stay at the very nice Marriot close to the main part of town.

We spent a good amount of time there just walking around. A'dam is made up of a bunch of curves blocks that fan out from the canals. It's actually quite disorienting because the blocks look like ...

... s Diary). It was pretty chilling to see that it's real. Most of the trip I've been saying how real everthing is. It's very hard to picture things from a book, from movies and I tend to think it's not in reality. However, to really see it puts things into perspective. -Really like their pancakes. Forgot what they call them... Yesterday: -Went to a concentration camp. What an eye opener. I was very ...

... hotel around 8 and emailed home for free (rare occurance) then relaxed for the rest of the night until the roommates got back from the Red Light District with their Ben & Jerrys, chips, and watched Bob Ross painting and other random TV with them for a few hours and called it a night.

May 11th, 2008

The next morning I woke up at about 6:30 to catch a 7:15 breakfast (same as the day before) and a 8am departure to Berlin. We made a 45 minute rest stop in Germany ...

... for us. Ah, yes, seeing another asian person who spoke to us was a real treat. We arrived after a 4 hour train ride, from Berlin. Accommodations on the train were nice, although trying to figure out which wagon and which seat, was a whole new idea of fun. Well, here's the process, look at your ticket, and figure out which wagon. Then, go to the place on the platform where that wagon intends to stop (that involves finding the right sign and figuring out which ...

... all of different ages and colours. You just walked past and if you were interested said your amount then they opened the glass and you went in. Amsterdam is renowened as a favourite for men in the UK to go for their stag weekends, yes they have whole weekends not stag nights as we have in New Zealand. I have never seen so many males together in one place, apart from the football or rugby!! And i was also amazed at the different ages and nationalities of people that ...

... the ubiquitous sex-shops and sex-shows). Now I am in no way against prostitution and, if someone wishes to make a career of it then I wish them the best of luck. However, I couldn't help feel sorry for most of those girls and their little rooms. It seemed kind of sad to reduce a human to a supermarket-ready product. However, Louise and I couldn't ponder this for long before we were dragged in to see a ''live-show'' by a man with a very-greasy head of hair who promised us it was the ...

Flying from Glasgow over to Amsterdam we passed over the tulip fields!!!