Gisteren Amsterdam met de ras Amsterdammer Endorfien a.k.a. Eef a.k.a. Evelien en Herman a.k.a. Erwin, en dat was weer pretty cool. Om 7 uur afgesproken bij Endorfien om te eten, dus we waren er rond 9 uur, dankzij een routeplanning naar een plek aan de verkeerde kant van A’dam. Na het eten gingen we A’dam in, en ik kan me alleen nog maar herinneren dat we op een gegeven moment bij een soort kleine lvc waren genaamd Kosovo of iets dergelijks.

Vanaf dit punt weet ik alleen nog dat er veel bier vloeide, en dat ik daar het overgrote deel van opgezopen heb. Het leuke is dan natuurlijk altijd om de dagen erna van de andere deelnemers te horen wat je allemaal uitgevoerd hebt… Okay, die andere deelnemers waren ook niet nuchter, maar twee weten meer dan een.

Zo weet ik nu dat ik heb rondgelopen in een FOUT truitje, veels te klein in de kleuren roze en mint groen… Hiernaast had ik plenty van armbandjes geleend, wat ook een foute keuze was. Die meid in dat kleine discotheekje herinner ik me totaal niet meer… De hotdog waarvan het overgrote deel van de saus op de straat belandde is mij ook ontgaan, en het ergste is nog dat ik ook niets meer weet van die leuke meid bij de hotdog stand, die ook geregeld bezoeker van leiden was. Oh, en het zingen over straat is ook een vaag punt, maar dat wordt gelukkig niet door alle aanwezige bevestigd 🙂

De taxi naar huis weet ik dan nog een beetje… maar dat wordt waarschijnlijk veroorzaakt door de kleine schermpjes in de stoelen, en het ranzige materiaal dat daarop werd uitgezonden.

Al met al weer een erg geslaagd avondje!

In Delft there is a nice shop called Xotus. It is a big garden center with lots of exotic plants and flowers and also a big Asian supermarket. Here I like to buy boxes of Bapao’s in the flavor chicken or beef. I avoid the pig flavors because a pig is an impure animal.

In addition to Bapao’s I like to try new things, so usually I also buy some weird unknown product. Sometimes I make bad choices because the packaging normally does not contain any information in Dutch or English about the contents. I once bought a big carton with little river lobsters, just to find out that they are probably not meant for eating because they contain very little meat. Probably they were just for decoration. Once I got hold of a big bag of frozen duck tongues but luckily I realized it was something weird right there in the shop and could return the bad to its original place.

But usually the food I try is pretty good… pieces of crab leg that need to be fried, scrimp, strange egg-roles… they all contribute to the risk distribution I try to accomplice with the food I consume.

My last purchase was a bag of deep frozen product. The bag had Chinese text on it, so I just had the image to go on. The image contained a nice plate full of rice and vegetables. I thought it would be a bag of ready made rice, so I bought it. But no… the image on the package was again some optical illusion and it contained only frozen vegetables. The rice and the meat I had to arrange myself resulting in having to clean three pans instead of just one. Even worst, I need to return to the shop because I’m almost out of sate!

Yesterday evening I met the Spanish girl that rented my apartment for a month. All I can say is that I was impressed.. impressed my the cleanness of my home when I arrived; impressed by the bottle of whiskey and the crate of beers that was left for me. And now I’m even more impressed because I was just offered some dried Mexican mushrooms. Nice for a tasty soup.

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.

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.

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.

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. 🙂

Hurray! Today is my birthday :-p. The first few months in this new year of my life are looking very interesting.

I am busy packing and checking if I have everything. Still a couple of friends have decided to come by tonight. That means beer, soda, chips, nuts, cake, and you name it! And all that just while I was trying to empty my fridge and freezer by eating everything. 😉