Slowmotion 4 Me

In America on the side of New York there was one song being played on the radio every day, and sometimes even more then once.. Juvenile. But the bad thing was it was a special edited version with a lot of ‘holes’ in the lyrics. I was curious about these holes so I searched for the song on KaZaA and this resulted in a surprise. The holes in the edited version were not so bad at all.

Other nice songs I remember from America:
Gap Band – Ride the White Pony
B52’s – Love Shack
Goo Goo Dolls – Iris

Mosquitoes

Mug!Those damn mosquitoes!!! This morning I woke up with mosquito bites all over my neck, my arms and on the backside of my knees.. and those bites itch a lot! But what can I do. Killing a mosquito is only possible if you are clear and focused, and this is not my usual state.

I used to have a mosquito net covering my bed, but I threw it out because it made sleeping an uncomfortable thing. I have seen special smell and sound gimmicks that you plug in the wall socket, but because of my paranoia I refuse to buy these because I think they must have some bad effect on humans as well.

But there is always hope. I heard there are certain plants that the mosquitoes don’t like. This afternoon I’ll try and find such a plant.

Leiden bicycle city

Bicycle!Today I went into the city and I made some pictures of the typical spots in Leiden. I thought this would be nice to send to some of the people I met in America. Funny thing is that it was impossible to make a picture that did not have a bike standing in it somewhere.

I made photos of the market with huge amounts of bicycles, photos of bars and terraces with lots of bikes, photos of canals with bikes, windmills with bikes, lots of bikes everywhere. As soon as I manage to get some of the pictures on my PC I will post them on this blog.

Chilling

Home again, and I plan to take it easy for some time. The first few days at home I seemed to notice the jet-lag, but in a good way. It felt like my blood was pumping with endorfines, adrenaline and other -ines (like caffeine and vitamin). It must be because I’m feeling at home again because I feel seriously happy.

Statistics

Number of miles driven: from 10500 to 19200 means nearly 9000 mile!
Weight: from 74 to 68 means a decrease of 6 kilos!
Countries: Mexico, USA and Canada
Number of Bud and Miller beers: a lot
Other beers: Heineken, Gulden Draak, Duvel
Other cocktails: Long Island Iced Tea, Margarita, White Russian, Sex on the Beach, Strange pink drink, …
Free drinks: A lot!
Number of times drunk, impressing even an Australian guy: 1
Number of times I could not remember the night before: 5
Number of times embarrassed by not remembering the night before: 2
Number of times my site was down: +/- 10
Number of times my site was hacked: 1
Reaching the cars maximum speed: 1 (in the desert so it was safe)
Money won in Vegas: $40
Money lost in Vegas: $80
Money won elsewhere: $10 (bet: $2)
Photo’s made: 5 rolls (disposable) and 1170 digital
McDonalds visits: +/- 6
Burgerking visits: +/- 1 (tried the new angus) (pretty nice!)
Subway visits: A lot
Duitse au-pairs: 4
Days that I spoke German: 3
Postcards send to Holland: 12
Postcards with objectionable content: 1
Postcards and packages that were lost: 4
Still to arrive (I hope) because being send by boat: 1 (posters)
Sites where you could speak German: San Francisco
Sites where you could speak Dutch: Brice Canyon
Weirdest monologue: Fat black guy in Detroit
Accidents with planes: 33%
Luggage lost: 1
Illegal substances brought to America: 0
Illegal substances offered to me in America: A lot!!! (hash brownies, mushrooms, XTC, heroine, marihuana)
Illegal substances used: 0
Manga books bought: 3
People interested in reading my manga books: A lot
People addressing my driving: 1 (park ranger)
Talking about ocmputers: 0 … yes, really zero!!!!

Home again!! :-D

I have arrived. Yesterday morning a little after 4 I started my trip home after a very short night with only an hour of sleep. First I traveled from San Fransisco to New York. The flight over was a smooth ride until just before getting of the plane. During the taxiing the pilot hit a little truck and a big piece of metal got stuck right inside the left engine… This resulted in a waiting time of about an hour.

Afterwards I took a flight from New York to Amsterdam. A flawless flight without any problems checking in. I arrived with only 45 minutes of delay and found out my luggage was lost. :-(
Well, I’m happy to be home again. Even happier that I expected. My home was perfectly clean when I arrived… Nice. :-)

Foeter

I think this will be my last post from the US of A. The PC that’s at my home in Holland seems to be slowly dying… but still it worked for quite some time (thanks to webmaster Frank!).

See you all in September!

Yawn

Yesterday I arranged to spend the remainder of my time here in the hostel I’m at. I also got a public transport card so I can use public transport for a week and make the city a little bit less safe.

Today I’ll just hang around town and maybe visit a submarine that’s docked at the harbor. For the rest of the week I don’t have any plans yet but I figure I’ll take it easy and get some rest. :-o (=yawn smiley)

Alcatraz

The visit to Alcatraz was nice. The entire island seems inhabited by seagulls and everywhere you look things are covered in a little layer of bird shit.

Today I also returned by car to the rental agency. I notices that during my trip I accumulated quite a large amount of souvenirs. :-(

Bike

Today I rented a bike and found out the hard way that San Fransisco really is not a good city to explore with a bike. Man, I was devastated by bicycling up and down the hills. After the biking adventure I got a nice burrito to eat and this burrito contained so much filling it seemed like two meals. At night I had dinner at a Macy’s and had an original homemade hamburger that contained about a kilo of meat. :-r…