5 days left in Amsterdam

I've got a nice relaxing Sunday morning, just waiting for church music practice at 2 later. I haven't been knowing what I should really be feeling because I'm in such a wierd situation. The fnuny thing is that even though I have to say goodbye to my friends who are exchange students, at least in the past weeks I've been getting to know and hanging out with ultimate frisbee people more. And since most of these are Dutch, I won't really be saying a full goodbye since I'm coming in August and September.

My lease ends on Friday 26th of June. And right after that, I'll be playing in another frisbee tournament on the 27-28th of June at Delft. Delft is where Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer was born. Doesn't ring a bell? The movie Girl with the Pearl Earring was based on him.* After that, I'm going to slowly make my way to London through Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bruges and then to England. I've got people to stay with along the way. But haven't really figured out what happens when I cross the channel to England. I'm hoping to get to London around Monday 6th of July and spend a week there before going to Swansea, Wales, for my friends wedding. I'll be best man at Ben's wedding.

And after the wedding on the 18th, I haven't really figured out what I'm going to do. I'll stick around in the UK for a little longer but I'm also pretty set on visiting a friend in Granada, Spain. I hope to get back to Amsterdam in August and work.

I've decided to take the rest of the year off to travel. BDO Kendal said that I could start working with them next year in march or April so I'm just going to take the time to travel and see the world while I can. Truth be told, I am missing a bit of stability and familiarity. Its going to be good hanging out with old friends in London and Swansea. However, I'm sure when I start working in Sydney I'll be getting all the "stability" I need from my 9-5 job.

So after I get back to Amsterdam, I'm just going to work, do church stuff, and play frisbee while waiting for my friend to get back from the US. Hilco's a Dutch guy that was playing on the same frisbee team and he's keen on going to Iran and Nepal. And so in October we're going to head out for that trip. It should be some really amazing experiences.

I guess its going to be sometime again before I see some of you. These 1 year travel things are really quite a wierd thing. I wonder how other travellers feel about being away from familiar people for so long. And going back to "normal" life must be the worst thing. I can't imagine how its going to be next year when I get back to Sydney and start working. Think I'll ask Arienne from church about it later.





*Its actually pretty pathetic but half of what i know about Europe comes from popular culture. The only European towns and cities I know are the major football clubs: Eindhoven, Stuttgart, Munich, Valencia. The only reason I had heard of Bruges in Belgium was because of the movie "In Bruges", which I did not find that great. And I had only heard of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris because of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. Talk about immersing myself in history and culture...

Updates

Gosh its been too long since I last wrote anything here. Story of my life.
I've got about half an hour before I have to head out and catch a train to Berlin so I thought that I'd quickly update the blog with whats been going on. I've been telling myself to do it for ages. But i'm sure you guys know how things go......

So this is what has happened since I last blogged.

Weekend of April 17th-19th: Hitch-hiking competition to Southern Belgium
April 20th-28th: Went to Venice, Verona and Como in Italy
Thursday April 30th: QUEENS DAY!! Massive Party and Flea market all over Amsterdam
Weekend of May1st-3rd: Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Brugges (yes Colin Farrel was in a movie about it)
Tuesday May 5th: Liberation Day. Massive Party again in Wageningen.

I didn't do any work whatsover in those two weeks. And furthermore, I had two essays due around this time. So i've been working on getting those done for the past few weeks. I've realised that I really don't handle working on essays very well. I keep thinking that I need to get it done as soon as I can, and then enjoy myself afterwards. I tell myself not to answer emails, organise any fun stuff, or just relax. And try and use all the time to read and write the essays. In just doesn't work. I've got one last essay left. But I've got to learn to take it easy while I'm writing the essay instead of just telling myself to try and get it done ASAP. Because that just doesn't end up happening.

In any case, I might not have the luxury of doing that. I come back from Berlin on Wednesday night. I will have a presentation to give on Thursday morning and then in a bit over a weeks time, I will have to hand in my last paper. Haven't done anything for that yet. Although this paper could/should be quite interesting. I want to compare the way that Chinese Dutch people have integrated into Dutch society, with the way that Chinese-Australian people have integrated into Australian society (or not...:). I haven't met any Chinese Dutch yet so it should be interesting to interview them and see how things are different.

Looking forward to going to Berlin today. I've heard some good things about it. Unfortunately, I'll only have two free days to see Berlin. We''ll be playing in a Beach Frisbee Tournament from Saturday to Monday. Yeap, Beach Frisbee in Berlin, makes perfect sense. The team name is Santa's Reindeers. Why not? Beach Frisbee in Berlin barely makes any sense. Why not make it a Christmas team in summer?

Our colours are red and green. We've got santa hats and I'm bringing my Santa sack (i knew it would be of use someday). Alex asked me to get him a green shirt. I said I'd get him something "nice and tight". And he said "yea surprise me, you can buy a dress even." He's definitely going to be surprised.....

Hitch-hiking tomorrow

Wow, believe it or not this blogpost is going to be in advance rather than weeks and weeks delayed. Tomorrow morning ,Friday 17th, I'll be having to wake up early to take part in a hitch hiking contest. Where are we going? I don't know yet! We're going to find out tomorrow morning at 8am tomorrow when all of us gather together. I'm pretty excited cos I've never gone hitch hiking. It should be a good experience and who knows, if it goes well I might consider hitch hiking back to Singapore and Sydney? I've been spending a little bit of time to research the best ways to hitchhike and apparently two students from the UK completed the London to Singapore by only hitch hiking! How made is that! It took them 7 weeks to do it! Which really isin't that long if you think about it.

Persevering Against all Odds

So I bought this cheap PC a few weeks ago so that I would be able to get on to the Internet while I'm at home. Believe it or not, for the last 2 and a bit months, I've not had my own Internet connection. I've either been going to university or public libraries or every now and then when my housemate isin't at home (like now...:). I've gone through like this incredible amount of trouble so that I can save money and get myself a computer and connected to the Internet cheaply. The story so far has been incredibly stupid but I will persevere. After all, perseverence gives hope and hope doesn't dissapoint*...

First of all, I bought this PC second hand for about €25. When I called the guy, he said he could give me a monitor with it too. However, he said that I might not want it because it was pretty heavy. I thought to myself, yea sure monitors are heavy but they can't be that heavy. Turns out that the monitor he was offering was massive. And it was not massive because it was like 45 inches. Instead, it was because it was a monitor along with the PC casing all in one. I haven't got to weight it. But I would estimate that it was at least 30 kgs. Anyways, it was free so I took it. And this is what I mean when I say "took": what I really meant is that I had to haul it to the nearest bus-stop and wait for two buses to come cos the first bus driver didn't even stop to pick me up. Thankfully, I didn't have to change a bus. I left the monitor at the bus stop and walked back quickly to fetch my bike. And then placed the monitor on my bike and wheeled it home.

I got the computer set up and tried to connect it to the modem in my apartment. But because the PC has Windows 98 installed, it doesn't connect automatically. Now I would ordinarily be able to work this problem out, but the bloody windows 98 was installed in Dutch! Well I guess, even if i wasn't able to conect to the Internet, I'd be able to do some of my readings and assignments on it right? WRONG!! Remember how its Windows 98? Windows 98 doesn't automatically detect USB memory sticks either! And even if I could, the PC didn't have MS Office installed...

So I've got two problems: its not connected to the Internet, and it doesn't detect my USB drive. I got some Dutch friends to help me get it connected to the modem. And the reason why it doesn't automatically connect to the Internet is because you need the drivers for the modem. Guess where you can get the drivers from? The Internet...of course. Well, maybe I can download the drivers from some other computer and then transfer it to the PC using a ...USB...stick...right.

The only option I had now was to transfer the drivers through a 3.5 inch floopy disc. Yeap a floppy disc, 1.44 mb capacity yeah. I managed to get the drivers downloaded while I was at a friend house. Finally, I was going to be able to get connected! I transferred the drivers to the hard-drive and then went to the modem set-up to install the drivers. But lo and behold, the set-up didn't recognise the drivers. Why not? Because they were in a zip-format. Of course. Except, this computer didn't have winzip installed...

And so...I thought "no problems I can just go to the unversity library and download winzip there". I went to the university library and found a computer. And then I found out that they didn't have 3.5 floppy drives on them.

Yeap and so as it stands, I've had this bloody useless PC and this monster-sized monitor sitting on my desk for the past few weeks thats done jack all for me so far. However, I will persevere and I will get it connected!...one day...







*However, my spelling might definitely dissappoint. Is it two s'es and two p's? I really don't know.

A Day to end all days: INTERNATIONAL PILLOW FIGHT DAY

Last week I had a high school friend from Singapore over. It so happened that he was coming at a really good time because lots of good stuff was happening in Amsterdam. We watched the Netherlands play Macedonia at the Arena stadium. It was pretty awesome when we entered the stadium area from the stairs. It was amazing to see the whole stadium dressed in orange! The crowd was ecstatic, especially when Holland scored its first goal. By the first half it was 3-0. The second half was pretty boring, nothing much really happened. Macedonia isin't really known to be a soccer powerhouse and they really couldn't muster much against Holland. Final score: 4-0. And my wallet €18 lighter but nonetheless a worthwhile experience.

More importantly, Saturday, April 4 2009, was International Pillow Fight Day. The name pretty much tells you what its all about. On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered at Dam Square (the place to visit if your a tourist) to participate in a massive pillow fight! I seriously had no idea who organised this and why they were doing so. I didn't really care. There was no way that I was going to miss out on it. When I read the invite on Facebook, I knew that this was something I wasn't going to miss. The Pillow Fight was set to start at 5pm that day.

On the day itself, as I was making my way to Dam Square I begun to get a bit apprehensive. There really is such a fine line between what is incredibly fun and that which is just plain stupid. I got to the square about 20 minutes early and actually, there wasn't that many people there. I begun to get even more apprehensive about it. At most, people were going to hit each other for about 10 or 20 minutes. And then they'd get tired and stop and go "now what?" Anyways, by the time it got to 5.55pm, there were heaps of people gathered around the war monument. It was beginning to look up.

At 5.00pm, the organisers rang a buzzer and the pillow fight started. Chaotic is an understatement. You couldn't even run around flailing your pillow because there was just a throng of people gathered together. I managed to spot a few friends in the crowd and when they weren't looking, I made sure that I hit them well (which really isin't that bad cos its a pillow). The pillow fight didn't last 10 minutes. Instead, it went on for about FIF-TY minutes (not just fifty, FIF-TY). By the end of the battle, many pillows had indeed been sacrificed. It was clearly evident by the fact that the ground was covered in pillow feathers. Some people would chuck handfuls of the feathers into the air and it would look like it was snowing.

One incident while during the madness of the pillow fight was when this guy hit me pretty well with his pillow. This guy was huge, easily over 2 metres tall and he was also dressed in these white overalls that made him look like a chemical inspector. There really should have been a height restriction for people like this. He clearly had an advantage over me and so I shouted "Attack the tall guy!" Haha, everyone surrounding turns around to hit him with the pillow. In the midst of the chaos, the incident made me realise how maleable people are. All of us are sheep following something or someone in one way or another. I contemplated shouting out some politically-incorrect war crys but thankfully, my better judgement prevailed.

I just went to the website to find out more about it. Check it out if you want: http://www.pillowfightday.com/
It basically says something like public event blah blah blah non-commercial blah blah blah more public and social cities blah blah...no one needs a reason to hold a massive pillow fight. I can't help but imagine how this world would be different if International Pillow Fight Day was invented before the 20th Century. How many wars would have prevented by such an ingenious idea? Hitler, Stalin, Churchhill and Musolinni should have just gathered a hundred of their best men and had a massive pillow fight to the death (of their pillows).

The Dream is over...

Once again, its been quite some time since I've blogged. A month to be exact. In my defense, I've bought myself a cheap PC (cheap being €25) and have been trying to get it hooked up to the internet to make it easier for me to get online. The problem is cheap PCs come with Windows 98 which doesn't have a plug and play connection for the Internet. Well that isin't the real problem. The real problem is that because I'm living in the Hollands, the Windows 98 that is installed is in Dutch!! And so I can't configure anything because I can't understand whats going on. However, a friend from the frisbee team will be coming over tomorrow to see if he can help me out. Fingers are crossed.

Just to let you guys know whats been happening. University has been ticking along as usual. I had a mid-semester paper and a presentation two weeks ago. So that was a pretty hectic week. But other than, some others things:

a) visited Paris on weekend of March 20th
b) had the Dutch university ultimate championship the weekend after.
c) friend from Singapore (doing exchange in Birmingham) came over to check amsterdam out
d) watched Netherlands play Macedonia
e) celebrated International Pillow Fight day at Dam Square!!
e) outdoor competition (1 day Ultimate tournament)

After the weekend in Paris, I realised that I was starting to come out of the "honey-moon" stage. I didn't really think that I would get too upset/irritated at things over here, but I guess it did. On the weekend I was in Paris, the weather was amazing. Sunny and clear skies. It was a great weekend for me to be walking about. Coming back to Amsterdam, the weather following on was really terrible. It was possibly the windiest week that I'd had since getting in. I remember having to cycle back home, and the bloody wind was blowing against me for nearly the whole 20 minutes. Well, it didn't help that I didn't have my jacket and only had a hoodie on. I guess that I was partly to blame for that. Nonetheless, that week had some pretty shocker weather. I wasn't exactly missing Sydney (sorry guys), but was definitely getting quite irritated at the weather.

However, the following Sunday was the Dutch University Ultimate Championships. The weather was decent-ish. It was sunny at parts, rainy, and then cloudy at parts. Not the best weather. But at least it wasn't windy or cold. Overall, I had a great day because NUTS, the Amsterdam student club, had split into two even times for this tourney. By the end of the day, my team was ranked third, which was probably what we deserved. However, we had played some games where we everyone really stepped up and we played much better than we were.

In particular, we played against Gronical Dizziness in the round robin. They were a better team then us, but we managed to get it to Universe point before taking the last point. The last point was a pretty ridiculous was to end the game. The frisbee was thrown deep along the sideline and it was just slightly out. A guy from my team was running deep to catch it for the point. But because it was out, he had to lay out while trying to keep his feet in. The funny thing was that there was a water logged area of the field right by that side of the endzone. Jack was soaked. But it was a great bid and we won the game. Gronical Dizziness later on stepped up their game and eventually won the finals game quite convincingly. Thats right, NUTS1 beat the team that won.

This past week, right after the championships, the weather was amazing! It was warm-ish (come on, obviously not as warm as Sydney). By warm, I mean not below 10 degrees. The sun was out on most days, and it was seriously clear skies. When Pengyang(friend from Singapore) was over we cycled down the Amstel river again. Beautiful day to be doing that. I've noticed that my eyes have gotten so used to the crappy grey skies and lack of sun, that I have to squint when the sun is out.

So yeah, the dream is over but reality isin't that bad anyways.

Weekend in Paris

Spent a weekend in Paris a few weeks ago, and have been wanting to blog about it ever since I got back.

Paris really wasn't very high on my list of cities to visit while I'm here*. However, a girl who lives on my floor (of my building) was driving back to Paris for the weekend and wanting people to go with her so I thought why not. I had already visited Paris 5 years ago when I was England for a month, and wasn't that impressed with it. The one thing I really can't stand is how much people make it out to be: "ooh Paris, thats so romantic" "oh wow, your going to Paris". I didn't think it was that worth its hype from the last time I was there. But with petrol being split 4 of us, and with a friend in Paris, I thought it wouldn't be too expensive to check out for a weekend.

As we entered the Greater Paris area, I was struck at how much of a population centre it was. Central Paris has 2 million while Greater Paris has about 10-12 million people. This was a huge difference in population coming in from Amsterdam. I've never been a big fan of huge population centres, like Manila, Hong Kong, and Paris wasn't any different at first. One of the girls had never been to Paris before and she was just ogling at Paris and going on about how pretty everything was. Exactly what i didn't want to hear.

The second day I was there, I walked around the main touristic sights of Paris. I was staying at Rue Montague, I nice walking thoroughfare where many (bourgeious) Parisians do their shopping. From there, I walked to Les Halle, Musee Du Lourve, Jardin Des Tuilleries, Grand Palais and Hotel Des Invalides before meeting up with Josh. I have to say I was quite impressed with the, not the sights in and of themselves, but with the amount of history, and significance, that lay behind these buildings. Some of them were incredibly grand and harked back to some era in French history. I can't imagine how these places must have looked back in their heyday. While in Jardin Des Tuilleries, I took a break to read on French history from my guidebook. The few pages did no justice to the glorious history that lay behind the country. And therein lay the problem about visiting France, you can't properly appreciate the sights unless you know the history behind them. And yet French history is much like Gorgonzola cheese, its simply overwhelming. At least for the ordinary person.

Furthermore, its not as if French history is the only bit. The Musee Du Lourve showcases arts and antiquities from the Ancient world. The Musee D'Orsay exhibits French art from the 19th century while Centre Pompidou houses modern art. I know jack-all about art! I'm guessing that the average person reading this know just as much art and history as my soccer boots. So what explains the throngs of people who line up to enter the Notre Dame Cathedral, or the scores of Japanese tourists who are literally crowded around the Mona Lisa to admire it. None of these people know anything. Why are they there?

This is what really annoys me about France. Its so over-rated. Not that it shouldn't be high on the tourist circuit. But its just that its a bit too high. I passed by some incredibly beautiful buildings while walking through Paris: La Beurs Du Commerce, the Grand Palais. None of these buildings had anyone admiring or taking photos of. They were just there in the background. More importantly, they were never made into tourist attractions, or marketed for their architectural/historical significance to tourists. I should stop going on about Paris.

By the time I was about to leave Paris, I was really beginning to appreciate the city for what it is. Much of central Paris was built in the 19th century. And as I reflected upon that, it kinda me of how of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. How? There, there were villages that were erected right next to colossus monuments that were 800-1,200 years old. It seemed like such a shame that the Cambodians were living in the backyard of a civilisation of some different era. Paris reminds of this. You have a mass of people living in the remnants of a 19th century civilisation. I don't know if it was just because it was a short holiday, but I wasn't that happy to be leaving Paris when we did.

Especially after getting back into Amsterdam, I started to appreciate the subtle differences between the two cities. Its amazing to think that there is no way that one can truly compare a city to another. Each develops in its own way: Paris very much through the riches of monarchy and Amsterdam through the prosperity of trade and investment. Each of these circumstances result in a city that is so unique to another. If possible(and if its cheap), I'd like to spend more time just getting a better feel for the city of Paris.

However, let there be no doubt: Paris is over-rated.



*Actually such a list doesn't really exist, as I wasn't planning on doing that much travelling while I was here.