Amsterdam

I am in desperate need of sleep but wanted to update before I forgot everything.

So last night Csilla informs me that she ended up purchasing more beer than she had intended and then asked if I would be interested in partying in Utrecht. Being as I've been in Rotterdam for the past few weeks (and that I did absolutely NOTHING last weekend) I was all for it. Yet her friend in Utrecht was way behind on schoolwork, apparently, and wouldn't be able to host us. But I (yes, me) had the brilliant idea of going to Amsterdam instead, and just hanging there all night since Csilla needed to pick up her little bro from the airport at 9 this morning. Winner of Good Ideas Award goes to me.

We roll into A-dam like champs around 11 and have no clear plans on where to go (natuurlijk) but we ended up finding our boat that we adopted from our previous trip.

See? We found it. It may not look much like a boat, but I assure you it is.

Then we ended up traversing to Leidseplein... took a lot longer than expected. Ran into a trio from South Africa who were very friendly and entertaining. Made friends with two Romanian fellows who also had no game plan and we ended up wandering around Amsterdam from like 3:30 to 5:00 looking for a bar, coffeeshop, or toilet that was open. Nothing. Apparently the entire city shuts down after 3:00. There were no WC's in the open McDonalds'and I was dying. I almost got denied at the Central Station because I didn't have a ticket but I ended up talking my way into using one anyway.

We continue a fruitless search for any warm place that was still open--nothing. So we climb atop a statue of a lion and go into what I remember being a halfway point between meditation and nap. It wasn't super cold or anything but there was definitely a chill to the stone. So we go back to Central (and by that time they're letting people in like normal). We find some couches that we're not supposed to occupy, really, because it wasn't a waiting room (but Csilla has such a way of endearing authority) and they agree to let us sit there--provided we didn't sleep--until the Centraal cops kicked us out. "Sure-- we just want to sit for a few minutes. Sure, no sleeping."

The no sleeping part was hard-- it was freaking 6:00 in the morning.

Around 7 Csilla and I left for Schiphol to wait on her brother to arrive. His plane didn't come until 9:15 and the couple of hours we were there were the longest. But we were in good company. Her brother made it safely and man... Hungarian is sooooo strange sounding. As is Icelandic. Oh speaking of Icelandic, and this is super sad, Ásta is having to go back to Iceland soon-- Nov 16 ish. :C Not nice. Something to do with custody battles and her host mom fleeing the country with her child. Shit's serious. But I'm superbummed about her leaving. But I'll end this on a positive note.

Adorable!

And Csilla's kinda amazing...

Cause that bag wasn't light... and her bro isn't either. :) Haha

I just need to post this before I forget

De Beer is Los. Yes.  A week ago I went to my friend Tommy's house and I wanted to play a board game. He provided me with : DE BEER IS LOS. For those that know me, you probably (or not) know of my love for bears. The name of the game roughly translates into "The Bear is Out".  Some Dutch expression that kinda means everything is going to chaos (am I making this up? Idk...) But yea it was grand. And I love the picture of it.

Let's see... not a lot going on right now. Everyone (including friends AND the fam jam) was out of town last weekend so it was verr, verr chill. Too chill. This coming weekend should make up for it-- Csilla's bro is coming into town Saturday and we will all prolly be attending Andrea's birthday fiesta. Then some more of Csilla's friends'll be arrive early next week or something. Ou  and lots of things (shows) going on November:

-Nov 14 mandaag  3 Melo Death bands from Finland (Insomnium, Before the Dawn, My Grain)
-Nov 18 vrijdaag brings in 2 blackmetal and 2 deathmetal bands (Gorgoroth, Vader, Valkyrja, Toxocara)
-Nov 19 sat is the Fleshgod Apocalypse show (with Decapitated, Cyanide Serenity, other bands I don't know)

That Saturday show is destined to be superfun. But I checked out the other bands for earlier in the week and they seem fun enough :) Why not? Will be a busy week.

Tra la laaaa. Went to the Boijman Museum today. Free admission on Wednesdays but I think I did it wrong... seemed way too small and way too many like... plates and ceramic vases and stuff. Hm... still cool from what I did see.

Today's Mission: Finish A Clash of Kings. Book 2 of the Song and Ice series... soooo gooooooood.

Europe is awesome.

But bringing technology to Europe is not so awesome. Things you might want to bear in mind if you plan on moving to the Netherlands for a year:

• Obviously, appliances from the States will not work in European sockets. But even if you have an adapter, it's a bitch trying to find a power converter (I gave up.) I ended up buying a new charger for my 3DS and my camera. Neither were that cheap.
• Computers. It is very expensive to ship them. Most people have laptops so this isn't really an issue but for people that love pc games, heh, have fun. Oh and wifi makes things all the more difficult with desktops.
• Don't even THINK about keeping a Netflix account if you plan on living in Europe. And forget Hulu, too. If you want shows, you're gonna have to either buy them (if you can find them) or torrent them. /shrug
• Nintendo 3DS's can access the internet here but if it's an American console, apparently you can't get into the Nintendo eShop. Which means no downloading the free games that you are entitled to for buying the 3DS before the price drop. Lame. Also, you have to get American 3DS games shipped to you because, for no good reason, Nintendo 3DS's are region locked. Yep.
• Wacom Tablet users-- hope you have a laptop. Because if you plan on using a computer that doesn't already have the software installed, there's no way to download the Autodesk Sketchbook and Photoshop software that comes bundled with your Intuos4.

Like, the first two are understandable and obvious. But seriously-- we live in freaking 2011. There is absolutely no reason that I should not be able to access the Nintendo eShop if I have access to internet. Period. That's just rude. And.... ughhh this whole not being able to download my wacom software.... it's not soooo terrible. I ended up finding a free program called MyPaint. Isn't as nifty as the commercial software but it is pressure sensitive to tablets and has layering and a decent variety of brushes. I'm just really glad to have it. :D

These probably wouldn't even be problems to like 90% of people being an au pair or something, but I guess I'm just more technologically dependent than most. I BLAME SOCIETY AND MY UPBRINGING. ;) Just kidding-- I don't apologize. I love how I am. Haha.

May I reiterate the region lock sucks? Because it does. It's dumb and mean and unfair to a lot of people (namely Europeans because America and Asian regions get more [and better usually] games). Luckily, Andy is supposed to be shipping Shin Megame Tensei to me soonish. By soonish I mean hopefully by Christmas and hopefully right after I finish Ocarina of Time. Which is awesome.

So I thought it'd be a good idea to play with the curling iron...

I was wrong. Turns out I fail at being a girl. While my hair looked pretty cute all night last night (and you know how important it is to look cute at death metal shows...) I reeked of burnt hair smell. Luckily the place was full of sweaty metal dudes who apparently don't believe in deodorant (did I say "luckily"?), so no one could really tell. Except today after I shower the smell STILL lingers and WHOA what's that? Oh yea... just my hair breaking and falling off. No big deal. It's hot. I will be getting all the boys and fashion awards. FML. :)

Caroline's birthday is coming up...

And she was celebrating with her friends yesterday. I didn't know if  the fam was celebrating yesterday too so I went out and got her something. Had to spruce up the blue wrapping paper, though.

One thing my mother taught me well: wrapping persents, and the importance of.

Also, sometime last week I stumbled upon this incredible drawing of a girl and a rainbow creature atop a wheel. With a gridded sky. Never have seem anything quite like it.

Untitled (as far as I know), Caroline Haas. 2011.

I asked her what it was and she was like, an elephant and a girl. This description wasn't nearly good enough for me. I asked her what the girl was holding (it looks like a remote control thingy) and why the sky was gridded and why the elephant was multicolored with jigzaw pieces covering it. She was annoyed by my interrogations (and honestly, who enjoys explaining their art?) and i got some half-ass shrug and a few impatient part Dutch/ part English answers. I may never know. But I asked her if I could have it and she said yes. So it's hanging on my mirror. And though it definitely did add some character to my bedchamber, the wall over my bed was a little lacking so I asked Ineke if I could dry out her roses when she was about to throw them away.

And now when I'm laying on my bed, I look up to this :)

Yay. Got another show tomorrow night. And next week a mini-staycation. No trip to Belgium, but there will be plenty of other occasions. Huzzah!

Oh what a weekend.

Friday was pretty nice. Went out for drinks and dancing, per usual. Nothing too crazy, though. Saturday was when the magick started. Csilla and I were more than ready for the witches and wizards party.

Not pictured: Csilla's long, warty witch's nose. It was awesome. Got a lot of "Hey Hex"'s on the bike ride there.

The bike ride to the party was an adventure, as it is most certain to be when you're adventuring to southern Rotterdam. But crossing the Erasmus bridge is freaking awesome at night. I mean, when you get to the top and take a moment to catch your breath, it's really beautiful.

Stole this picture, but yea Erasmus bridge is pretty cool.

So we get to there and it's a squat party. Which is fabulous. Takes forever for anyone to come and let us in because the "doorbell" is actually one of those honky horns that you generally associate with clown noises. And it was kinda hard to hear over the DJ's inside. But luckily for us, Csilla is an experienced whistler and her loud ass got the attention of a girl inside on the second story. Also, some random old guy kinda wandered in with us from off the street. I hope he didn't steal anything but he seemed harmless enough and had mad dancing skills so I think it's ok. There were lots of cool magic hats and a ton of Wizard Staves. Success.

Yesterday was Heidenfest in Tilburg and we rode there with Alanson and were pretty much hangover-free by the time we got there. Most of the bands were pretty terrible but Trollfest made me laugh a lot. They ordered the audience to "bark the alarm" for the next song in which there were a lot of "woof woof woof"s. Very silly. There was one band (can't remember the name) that had a violinist and it had so much potential but they didn't really do anything with it. Pretty boring. But naturally Wintersun blew everyone away. Was incredible. :) Heh heh heh. But what I thought was most hilarious was how the different the crowd was from what I'm used to. Back home, the crowd consists of people that look more or less like this:

Bahaha thank you Google image search for "metal fan."

But really, that pretty much sums it up. Dorky guy in black band shirt. Easy mode. Heidenfest brought on the stereotype hardcore. Lots of long hair, and studded belts for the girls (who wears that stuff, seriously?) And like... combat boots. Idk... silly business. Granted it was a folk metal festival. But still-- LOL I saw some guy wearing a Linkin Park shirt bahaha. AND oh! There was a guy just wearing a chain link vest as a shirt. That was kinda cool. But by the end of the night Csilla and I just couldn't keep our hands off this one guy's Mufasa-like mane standing in front of us and that turned into us touching everyone's hair that was past their shoulders as we made out way out of the venue, which I think was half amusing, half very embarrassing for Alanson and Maarten (his friend that met us there). But seriously-- why grow long hair unless your intention is to have it be petted? :)

So I started my Dutch classes last week...

And I pretty much know everything we have gone over and will go over. But that's OK-- cause at least it gives me a chance to speak it, and my new-found friend from New Zealand is kind of on the same page as far as vocabulary goes. And so then after class last night, this lady from Wales was chatting with us and and somehow World of Warcraft got brought up. I don't know how WoW ever should casually get brough up in conversations but happens more often than you'd think. So I blurt out "Oh my God, you play WOW?" Because this is a lady in her like... late thirties early forties. And she's like "yea, that's how I met my husband." And she was a femtaur! It was kind of hilarious.

Speakingggg of video games. I finally got my pc. Got it last Wednesday. Went to pick it up from Leiden, and the trek back to Leiden Centraal carrying a rather large (and after a while, disturbingly heavy) box was quite an ordeal. I had a 30 min resting period on the train back to R'dam but hot DAMN... carrying that thing from Central back to the house left my arms, neck, and back sore for 4 days. But it's so awesome.... at least I think. I still don't have internets for it yet... we're still waiting to hear back from Ineke's computer guy. I'm about ready to offer bribes. It's cruel having a new computer and not being able to use it :C Haha.

Anyway, the weather is back to overcast and drizzly after a 5 day spell of ideal, beautiful, cloudless skies. Csilla and I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at Museumpark with a guy we met from Couchsurfing. He's a juggler so we had all the toys-- hula, diabolos, pois, and ridiculous amount of juggling balls as well as some for contact juggling... which if you're not familiar with it... looks like David Bowie's tricks from the labyrinth.

I was looking for actual pictures of Bowie contact juggling and couldn't... now I just wanna watch the Labyrinth and/or listen to the soundtrack.

Anddd so this weekend should be fun. Got a Witches and Wizards themed party on Saturday (courtesy of Jay the New Zealander from my Dutch course) which should be fun. Everyone has to bring a six pack of canned bear and construct a wizard's staff from the empty cans as he/she drinks them. I'll look for some tallboys. Har har har. Wicked. And then Sunday is Heidenfest in Tilburg. Which should be amazing. Como se dice.... WINTERSUN? Oh right-- WINTERSUN.