Trip: Amsterdam

Hi guys,

sorry for the delay, was pretty tired from amsterdam. So yeah, pretty cool trip. First off, Swiss Air has wicked service. It was only

like an hour long flight and they gave so much food and drinks and chocolate and stuff. YUM!

Anyways, we left thursday night right after work and got to Amsterdam at around 11 or so. Afterwards we took the train the Enschede

(free room) for the night. The trainride was about 2 hours long and the trains are pretty ugly,but they get the job done. The next

day we pretty much just chilled in Enschede.




We walked around and they had this cool balloon thing sponsered by DE (european starbucks).



All we had to do was get a straw from an ice cap and bring it to them and we got a ride, so we went. It was also 2 for 1 drinks, so

it was damn cheap. While we were waiting our turn they kept serving us ice caps so it was like unlimited supply, very good. The

balloon was pretty neat, go up for a bit and check out the view, then get lowered down. Coming down is a little rocky (as seem in my

videos if you guys wanna see) but pretty cool. Keegs had the best ride cuz the wind started carrying him away and they needed a lot

of extra people to pull him in.

Here's me getting strapped in and a self shot of me from the top.






Afterwards, Leslie made a pretty good home cooked meal. Here's everyone at dinner.



That night we went out drinking. Everyone gets around here on bikes and the best way to carry another person is to side side-saddle

on the bag holder over the rear wheel. Not very comfortable, but it works. So how managed to get a pic of me in motion.




The next day we took the train to Amsterdam and did all the tame musseum stuff during the day. The first museum was the Allard

Pierson Museum. THere was a bunch of Egyptian, Greek and Roman stuff on display and learned how to write my name in hyroglyphics

(don't wanna look up the spelling).



Afterwards we checked out the Amsterdams Historisch Museum. Man, they have a lot of history for 1 city. The people are crazy, found

a large stretch of mudlands and instead of finding a better location, dug canals and stuff to drain the land. build their own islands

and more canals...ect. It's a pretty cool city though, as many canals as Venice.



The next place on the list as was the Dutch Resistance Museum. It was pretty cool. Was basically about how the Dutch resistanced

against the Nazi's in WWI.

After that, we went to the Van Gogh Museum. We only had like 20 minutes to see it all before it closed but we did what we could. I

took a pic ofa painting before i got yelled at for taking them, oops. O well, now i have a Van Gogh picture.



WE checked out the rest of the museum and took a few more pics before we got kicked out (they actually forced us out).

he next activity was a canal tour. It was pretty cool, but got really repeative after a while since all the canals and bridges look

the same.






We did all hte museums for fee cuz we got some visitor card, so we went to get some free drinks and stuff afterwards. Had some shot

at a bar, was pretty good. Triple Sec, Vodka and some caramel stuff.

By then it was getting late, so we checked out the night life. We got a free Croquette (friend potato with meat inside, pretty yummy)

and then went to the main square. Here's the town hall at night.




After that was all done, went to check out the Red Light District. It was kinda weird. First off it surrounds the Main, oldest church

in Amsterdam, so that didn't make too much sense. There's all these alleys with rooms all along the sides. Each room was pretty much

just a bed and a door with a big glass window and curtains. Very different, but seems very touristy (all the people after the girls

were British). There was also a Sex Museum around, again, very weird. Had like art works, sculptures, pics, movies, all about the

history of sex in our society.

The other thing Amsterdam is famous for is pot. You can legally get up to 5 grams at a coffeeshop, again, very weird. There's a lot

of these shops also and you can smell it everywhere. I didn't bother checking them out though.

We started getting pretty tired late at night and didn't have a place to sleep so we went to the airport to crash there for the

night. Didn't look very comfortable and I didn't bother sleeping since I had to watch over the bags (lots of theft in Amsterdam). We

took a flight home at 9:30 and pretty much went straight to bed so I'd be ready for the Du Parc Party, but more on that later. Ok,

time for work, cya all.

Map at the top

Just wanted to point out that I have a map of the places I've visited. Colored country and red dots. Eventually i'll map out the pic so the a mouse-hover over the dots will tell which city it is. If anyone knows how to do that, let me know :D.

Vic

Trip to Interlocken

Hey all, back from another weekend trip. This time we went to Interlocken in Switzerland. It's a pretty cool place that I will definately be going back to. Pretty much you can do all the adventure sports there, from sky diving to canyoning. I'm tempted to try skydiving, but it's much more expensive here then it is in Calgary, so maybe i'll just wait. But i'll definately do canyoning, rafting, zorbing (in a giant air bubble and roll down a hill, like jackie chan in that one movie), and parasailing. Anyways, it was a pretty cheap trip as all i had to pay for was 1 nights stay and beer (gotta love free travel after 7pm). Well, we go to our hostel; probably the crappiest one yet. Was pretty much a plastic tent with some bunk beds and a space heater. The roof was leaky, so whenever you touched to tent roof, water would seep in. O well, was only 25 francs, so I guess you get what you pay for. They had a game room and stuff so that was cool (more foosball, gonna try to play foosball in every country i visit). The next day, we decided to check out some other hostels for future visits. There was this one place called the funny farm. seems cool. We went to the pool there and there was a log that you can cross the pool. Keegs and Tim made it safely across but my balance was horrible and I took teh plunge :( Afterwards, keegs and tim dueled on the log, keegan lost that one. I'll post the video of keegan falling below. After that, keegan and his friends went whitewater rafting, but since me and tim were broke, we just did some hiking. the trails are pretty sweet and the views are amazing. After went to happy hour to eat and drink and stayed there till we had to leave. Not the most enjoyable time ,but next time, we'll be doing the adventure sports. Well, time for work tomorrow, later.

Some general pics of Interlocken



Us playing foos


I'm gonna do that next time i'm here.


Before


After


Keegan falling video
Click HERE to get the video.

Keeg's B-day

Well, this past tuesday was keegan's birthday, so I figured since we're all poor and can't get him anything, we'd just make him a cake (apparently when its your b-day here you have to make cake for everyone else, weird backwards country). So Cigden helped me out (which was a good thing since i can't cook) and it turned out pretty good. We almost kept keegan in the dark for the whole thing but he came in the kitchen to cook chicken and we had to take out the cake before it caught on fire, so that ruined the surprise a little. Eventually everyone gathered around and we had a big feast with various foods people made, cake, and beer. All in all, a pretty good evening, too bad we had work the next day tho.

PICTURES!!

Ok, finally stopped downloading anime long enough to get some pics up, so here they are.


Day1: on the way to Cinqua Terra

Here's me infront of the trainstation in Milan



Here's where we stayed




Here's me on the rocks with Riomaggorie in the background.




even in Italy, i can't escape it.



here's a nice sunset picture



and finally, here's all the Calgarians that went (excluding me behind the camera)


DAY2:


Here's the bay at Manarola



Manarola again


Vernazza


Beach at Montorosso


Rio at night


Now the Keegan dropping his camera pictures.
Here's keegs going after it after it fell down the hole.


here's keegs searching for it


and here's or celebratory beer for the camera being ok (taken with keegs camera)

and one with my camera.


and some nice pic during the hike




DAY3:
Foos


Levento's beach



random buildings in Levento


and random Montorosso beach pic


DAY4:

Statue in La Spezia


an old ship


Some random building in Genoa


and a Christopher Columbus statue


Well, that's it for now. I'll be going to Zurich tonight and somewhere in southern switzerland tomorrow, so maybe I find something interesting to take pics of. Later.