i amsterdam

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hello lovely people, long time no communications!

im having a mad time, moving around lots and lots which is feeling very cool and right at the moment. at this moment, im sitting in a london airport, awaiting my flight to sicily which leaves in about 2 hours. why do i always get to the airport so early??? all it achieves is me eating way too much expensive airport food and being bored shitless. ahh well, at least this way ill never miss a flight.

so, last blog i was in france. i ended up being there about a weel and a half, eating cheese for every meal and soaking up the beautiful culures. yanni and sophie were so amazing to me, taught me lots of lovely french things, about language (yanni), and champagne, food and men (sophie). bloody good times. ill never forget those two. i feel so blessed to have been able to meet them and experience their life as if it was my own.

but i moved to amsterdam, after having contacted someone i vaguely knew from back home. he was going to be there for about 5 days, so i decided, totally on a whim, to go join in the fun. and ohhh man, it was crazy times. amsterdam is an amazingly free, liberal, relaxing city. every second shop is a 'coffee shop' where the word menu has a completely different meaning to anywhere else in the world. not surprisingly, i dont think they make a whole lot of their profit from the actual sale of coffee. haha. rolling up a big fat J in the middle of a crowded public room is nothing stress about, it would seem. but no, i didnt completely waste my time in holland getting trashed, although that was a pretty substantial part of it. i also did a huge city walking tour, which honestly explained the history of every building in the entire place. we strolled frequently down the renowned 'red light district', which i just totally couldn't get enough of. i found it so amazing that places like that actually exist in the world! for those of you who don't know, the red light district is basically a bit of amsterdam, about 3 or 4 blocks, that is all red lights and buildings with windows in the front of them. and in the windows are.... almost naked women. yes, this is legalised prostitution in it's prime. the girls are half naked, doing anything they can to catch the eye of a random gentleman with 50 euro to spare. there are so many of them, i don't know how they all get work in a night. but apparently business there booms. so basically i had a lot of fun walking up and down the streets, checking out the talent and just basically being totally amazed at how some people live their lives. it's a mad world out here my friends!!

but i havent been just doing all the europe tourist trash. i also visited the anne frank house, where jewish anne frank (the one with the diary) hid from the nazi's during their invasion of the netherlands. it was incredibly powerful to walk in the rooms they had lived in, hiding away from the world as they were forced to do. riley and i both walked out after the tour quite ashamed to be human beings, after learning more about some of the atrocious things we have done to each other as humans. it's one thing to learn about all these things, hear about nazi invasions and human rights abuses while sitting in a comfy chair in modern history at noosa high. but to actually be here, standing on the streets where jews were rounded up and toally violated is a completely different experience. it makes it so real. scarily real. but it was amazing thing to do, something i won't forget.

anyway, it was an amazing, and slightly blurred, five days. i would definitely recommend it to anyone keen to go there. my only advice is to bloody check out of your hotmail account when you go on and check your emails! there are some nastly people out there who will do some not very nice things if you make a little slip up like that. i won't go into details, but let's just say i didn't find out the nice way. and it really scared the shit out of me. some people in the world are just totally malicious for no reason. but it was done, and it is a mistake ill never make again. log out log out!!! woooh!!!

okey dokey, well im going to head off and hop on this flight, or at least wait at the gate for another half an hour till it's called. im flying to sicily, very excited. going to see some mates who i stayed with in london. here comes the sun, dah dah dah dahhhh. beautiful italian things, i can't wait. no more big fat black jackets and huge scarves.

big big big love to you all, i promise to write again soon, i hope life is absoulutely beautiful for you all and everything is smooth sailing. or high flying, maybe on a magic carpet.

ciao pretties xx

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