Crazzzy weekend.

Oh I am le tired. And achey. Oh yea but a week or so ago, I went with Caroline to the Blijdorp zoo. Which was AWESOME, by the way. I had been wanting to go to the diergaarde since I arrived here (love zoos). I won't bore you, Dear Readers, with boring pictures of animals we've all already seen (though I took tons of just-animal pictures :D), unless you count the seldom-seen Carolinus mimickus

She is trying her hardest to be a flamingo.

And their playground was huge! I wish I had had access to castles when I  was eight.

Seriously-- I went in. It was insane.

But yea... so last Friday I went to that metal show. No big deal. No mosh pit. Kinda strange but whatever.  This past Friday I went back to the Melkweg to see Shapeshifter which was like a drum and bass band that used two keyboards, a bassist, a saxophonist, a drummer, and vocalist. It was super fun and then the people I were with thought it'd be fun to start a mosh pit. It was pretty weak, but kinda hilarious. Then the after show (which was free if you just stayed in there and lingered for a bit) was a DJ playing dubstep (which has its own time and place). And everyone was going NUTS. I had never been to an electro show of any sort where there was a mosh pit. And this was like the entire floor almost of people pushing and shoving and actin' a fool. SO much fun-- but SO DANGEROUS.

Granted, I bruise really easily, but STILL. Seriously?? From dubstep?

Stayed in Leiden that night at Alanson´s place and saw the bits of what will soon be my computer! Very very exciting. He started working on it but didn´t have it together in time but I should be getting it within the next couple of days. Yay!!

HAH. And then last night was supposed to be the Mexican dinner at Andrea's house. Ásta had spoken to Andrea and apparently where she lived was right near where Ásta lived back when she was little and living in Rotterdam. So Csilla and I blindly follow our fearless leader on what was my first (and probably longest-ever) Rotterdam metro ride. It takes quite a while to get to the stop. And I am famished from not eating anything that day but half a sandwich... dinner's supposed to start at 7:00 and I was gonna have to leave by 9:00 to make it to the Baroeg Open Air fest to see Korpiklaani. So we're walking around and not seeing where we're supposed to go. Ask a few people where this street is-- some shrug. Others are like, oh it's across the river. Apparently we took the entirely wrong line? We kept getting different answers from different people, though, and Andrea didn't seem to know exactly what station to get off at...???! So we make it back to the station and talk to a driver who said we could take the B line to get there... We finally figure out which stop we're supposed to be at (by this time it's after 8:00) and it's gonna take at least 30 minutes to get there. After switching trains we make it there. But it's 8:40 and they were gonna pick us up from the metro and take us there and then I would only have like a minute to hang out before having to head back which would be quite pointless so Csilla and I hop back on the train to just go back to Beurs to switch lines and grab some food and then head to the show.

Yet before we make it to Beurs we have to switch trains yet again, and then at the next stop the metro cops come and inspect the ov chipkaart things to make sure people are paying or whatever. The lady gets to me and just kinda looks at me (I was using what I thought was a one day pass) and asks how old I am. I tell her. She says that the card I have is only for children under 12 or senior citizens. ... Oh. She asks me to come off the train with her. Csilla follows, of course. Exit stage right.

Oh shit please don´t fine me. She and a couple of other officers ask me what I´m doing here, how long I´ve been here, blah blah blah. I tell them I´m new. I´ve been here a month and it´s my first metro ride and I thought that the card was good. They look a bit skeptical (and I thought for sure they weren´t gonna let me slide.. stupid American girl) but they were very sweet and just explained that usually there is a 38 euro fee and then another one for 75. But they weren´t gonna hit me with those. (Must be my winning smile). I told them I was sooo embarrassed (which I was) so they gave me a handwritten card saying it was good for an hour so I could get to where I was going... which was sooo nice of them. But by then we were running pretty late and so we had to skip getting food (which made me die a little inside) and instead just grabbed a Snickers from a vending machine and headed to Baroeg Open Air. Made it JUST in time to find Alanson with his friend Jaap before Korpiklaani came on. They were hilarious! And awesome!

The violinist was my favorite, of course.

They put on a great show and we didn´t stop dancing. But now I am le tired. And that´s why we have Sundays.

My life is complete now.

I just saw Animals as Leaders last night in Amsterdam. They opened for Between the Buried and Me. And they were just as rad as I was expecting.

Summary (and this post is probably gonna bore the pants off everyone but me):

Although I love the friends I've made here so far dearly, none of them are into metal. And I'm not completely opposed to going to shows alone but having someone to geek out with is way funner than geeking out alone (at least I think...). But I ended up meeting a new friend--Alanson-- at the station and we made our way to the Melkweg. I'm amazed it wasn't sold out. BTBAM brings in a huge crowd and AAL is gaining a lot of momentum. Oh well. Ran into Bas from Couchsurfing-- he was there for BTBAM but Animals definitely won him over--duh! Tosin Abasi is freaking insane. And the entire night I just lucked out with awesome spots... always had a clear view of Tosin and a clear view of Dan Briggs when BTBAM was playing.

Let's see-- AAL started with Point to Point... went into a new song... they played On Impulse, Thoroughly at Home, Tempting Time, the last song whatever that is. Um.... forgot what else but it was RADDDD. God it was so good. I thought BTBAM was pretty lacklustre in comparison. I still had an awesome time but I liked their set way better back in May. Last night they played the first two songs off their new EP (like last time), a few songs off Great Misdirect. Ouu... the majority of White Walls (loved it.) But they encore'd Selkies again. They were like "how bout an old song?" and I was reallly hoping for Mordecai. Disappointment. Meh whatever. Was still awesome.

Afterward, got a couple of drinks with Alanson. He works at a pc store so hopefully can help me assemble or find a cheap gaming pc. Mom said that it would cost like 415 dollars to ship mine here (geezzz). That's like the saddest news I've received since being here. The laptop I'm using is perfect for Internets but won't play any games... anddd Dad just started playing Portal 2 and I wanna co-op... (and perhaps start up an MMO? Mayhap Rift?) Just for nights that I don't feel like going out... Haha I'm starting to sound like I'm trying to convince myself that I'm  not a complete dork.

The ride home turned out being a bit of an adventure. Alanson got off at Leiden where he lives and warned me not to sleep through my stop. WHICH I TOTALLY DID. /facepalm. Ended up at Dordrecht (which isn't that far away at all but it did add another hour to my travel time.) And then this creepy guy started talking to me, drunk off his ass, at the Dordrecht station. 3: But I made it home... finally... at 5:30.

BUT IT GETS BETTER-- Cynic is totally playing in Rotterdam on December 7. It's a Wednesday. OMGOMGOMGOMGMGsoooexcited. Life is too good. <3 :))

BTW back home we don't have the luxury of leaving coats/purses with someone at the door at a show. They do that stuff here so I didn't have to carry around my purse... but also I didn't have my camera on me so that's why there aren't any pictures. :C

My Camera Works!

No really it does! Also-- I haven't been kidnapped and sold into the sex slavery here. Just been too busy to update.

Oh my gosh I love it here. The weather's been so wonderful (though I'm told that won't last very long) and the food is amazing and the people are all so friendly my family bought me a freaking

diabolo set! Uh YEA! So exciting. Except I'm so terrible and already the kids are showing me up. :( Haha. But I'm super excited-- because Csilla (an au pair from Hungary) and I have gone out to Vroesenpark near where I live with my hula hoop and her diabolos, juggling balls, and pois and having a blast in the sunshine that's manifested Rotterdam this past week.

Ermmm-- but yea let's see. My second week here Csilla, Marianna (Mexican au pair) and I made a trip to Amsterdam. It was our first time trying to figure out the trains and I think we purchased discount tickets when we shouldn't have but no one checked us on either the ride there or back so we'll never know. :) But we met up with a couple of other au pairs from Mexico and then they were meeting up with like 7 other friends from Mexico so it turned into a very large group that was speaking exclusively Spanish. Which was ok at first and then got a bit exasperating as I love contributing to conversation but was unable to. :( Boo hoo.

girls: Marianna, Maria, Andrea boys: no idea

Haha Amsterdam was a lot of fun. But it's hard to get anywhere very quickly with a large group because you walk like 50 feet then stop. Walk then stop. Sigh. I wanna go back with a much smaller group (3 max) and do a bit more exploring. And go back earlier in the day.

Umm... let's see. Went to a Dance Vibezzz (sp? idk) festival yesterday. That was fun. I was a bit hesitant to go at first... I had agreed to go a couple of weeks ago then kind of forgot about it until Maarten (my first Dutch friend I'd made) reminded me. But he, Ewoud (his bff), Csilla, and I went around 4:30 to it (it was a little over an hour away from R-dam) and had a blast. There were a bunch of DJ's playing (of course) house and the like on an unnecessarily large stage. And that's one thing I love about Holland-- you don't walk in a bar or club and hear country or Nickelback. Ever. Even if the electro is generic or cheesey you can at least dance to it. But yea the festival was super fun. Except that they expected you to pay €2.50 to go to the bathroom. And there were strict signs outside the festival that...

Me, Ewoud, Csilla

...I think were saying you shouldn't pee on the streets. O well. Had a blast regardless.

And I leave you, dear readers, with this:

'Ole Skippy wants to eat your children

An image of the vacuum with which I clean Ineke's office. I don't know what it is about this vacuum but I think if Stephen King ever saw it he'd definitely have inspiration for a new book. There is something inexplicably creepy about Skippy (yes for some reason the name kept popping in my head as I was vacuuming. This dustsucker is definitely named Skippy and it scares me.) If I turn up missing over the next few weeks, be sure to disembowel this smiling red death chamber, just to make sure.