Dam on the river Amstel

Firstly, thanks to all who have been in touch with me. It's good to hear from you. I am in Amsterdam currently but let me do a quick recap of what's happened since my last post.

My second day in Copenhagen I went to a few more musuems but I quickly grew tired of looking at old plates. The weather was better so I took a walking tour of the city which was nice but tiring. The cities keep getting bigger as I get deeper into mainland Europe and this has contributed to my plan for the second half of the trip (more on that later). I saw the transformers movie (excellent) and retired early to rest up for more interailing.

The next day I stayed in Hamburg as a stopover between Copenhagen and Amsterdam. My intention was to rest and maybe do some laundry with no sightseeing. Upon my arrival I discovered that a Mardi Gra'esque festival was going on in the city and throngs of drunken germans had taken to the streets wearing neon clothes and giant wigs following party trucks blaring cheesy music. I'm still not sure whether it was a gay pride parade or a Hamburg pride parade (if there's a difference) and none of the germans I found who spoke english knew either. Regardless I got some rest and jumped back on the trains the next morning.

I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday prepared to hit the streets and see what all the fuss was about. At my hostel, a brand new but not finished affair missing half the things it boasts on the website i.e. laundry, internet, light fixtures... I met a brazilian kind named Artun (Artoon) who was also traveling alone. Together we managed to figure out how the tram system worked and decided to pool our collective ignorance and aloneness and walk around together. Unfortunately his English limited the depths of our conversations and he was uninterested in any of the usual higlights of amsterdam at night. So we had a few beers and discussed all we could given his vocabulary and then it began to rain. So I went back to the Hostel without a glimpse of a scantily clad window dancer or a whiff of "coffee". Luckily I am staying two nights :)

I just recently returned from the Amsterdam Arena, which is the home of Ajax, one of the most famous and prestigious clubs in the world. To my delight, when I arrived, the team was practicing on their field in front of the stadium and I was able to snap pictures of them doing a passing drill similar to ones I had done at Bard! They were of course much better at it and I was constantly amazed by their touch. The highlight was being 5 feet away from Edgar Davids (who I didn't know had moved to Ajax from Tottenham) as the players left the pitch (field). Davids is a world class player who is known for the protective goggles he wears and his dreadlocks. He has played for Juventus and was once considered one of the best midfielders in the world! It was cute to see young dutch kids shouting the names of their heroes as they walked from the field to the stadium hoping and often getting autographs. If it had been Arsenal I would have been right there with them :) Next I toured the stadium which was dissapointing because the pitch was covered with this elaborate artsy thing for some dance show they had the past weekend and the whole place was filthy. An interesting point was the 3 meter wall of bulletproof glass that seperated the home fans from the away fans. Stories of the soccer riots of old made the yankees red sox rivalry seems like something for pre-schoolers :)

So my plan for the rest of the trip is as follows: get to London and see Arsenal's stadium and some other English stuff. At this point I am getting tired of cities so I want to head to Switzerland via Paris and do some hiking in the Alps. I'll start in Bern and then head to smaller towns which will be a nice change I hope. If I have time I'd like to head to the Croatian coast and do some more outdoor/nature type activities but this may not be feasible depending on how long I stay in Switzerland. The point is all these cities are driving me nuts and I want green pastures and frollicking through fields of flowers and what not. I guess that means I've got the rest of the trip pretty much planned out although I still have to secure lodging and such.

I guess that's it for now. It's hard to believe the trip is almost half over and hard to believe I've got so much more to do :)