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Published: November 5th 2005
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Liz me and Roz
An attempt at a group picture in the Vondel Park. Hey All,
As I wrote about in my last update, I have gone to and returned from Amsterdam. It was a good time. Roz, Liz and I left Oxford on Wednesday at about 7:30am. We had a little problem earlier that morning with Roz having no money because her bank would not let her transfer money from her savings to her checking, and she had also over slept, but I all got worked out and we got on the 7:30 train. We had to take a 2 hour train to London, then a tube ride to another train station then another hour ride to Luton airport. So with about 4 hours of travelling to the airport we took a 38 minute flight to Amsterdam. I love air travel!
We get to Amsterdam and got to hour hostel. It is called the Flying Pig Palace. I know that name does not sound to appealing, but it was really nice for a hostel. I was clean and was fairly modern, and it also had a nice bar and lounge down in the basement. I met a lot of really interesting people down there. That is the best things about hostels,
Me driving the Paddle boat
Me attempting to navigate though the cannals of amsterdam without being run over by bigger boats getting to meet a lot of friendly interesting people. For the rest of the day we just walked around the city, but that night we were at a coffee shop and we met this couple from London who are in a band called ‘duty paid‘. Finding out that they were musicians, got us all talking about music. The guy even played bass so we started talking about all this bass stuff. It is always fun to talk to a fellow bass player. They even told us about a jazz band that was playing at this Amstel bar across the street., so we went over and listened to them for a while, but our long day of travel caught up to us and we went back to the hostel after a little while.
The next day we decided to rent a petal boat to cruse up and down the canals in the city. Luckily I had have some boating experience because we had some close calls with larger boats, but we survived without any damage to the boat or injury to ourselves, but we did get lost in the maze of the canals. But it was great way to see
Liz and I drawing
We were in a apple store waiting for roz's ipod to get fixed, so we dicied to draw at the kids table. the city. I highly recommend it if any of you go to Amsterdam.
That night was the animal collective concert. It was a small room at the Paradisio, and I prefer small venues because it feels more intimate. Animal Collective also puts on a really good show. But I am really surprised how little people move or react to the music at the concerts I have gone to since I have been here. I am usually one of the most energetic people there, except the drunk guys behind me. After the concert there was a DJ performance in the largest part of the Paradisio that our tickets were not for. But as we let the Animal collective concert the doors were open, so we went in to check the DJ thing out. He was a really good DJ. I was mostly 80’s music, which I do not generally care for, but the way me mixed it was really good, so we danced for a while until it started to get too crowded. So, we just went back to the hostel bar and hung out there.
The last day we were there was our museum day. The first museum
Canival
This is a canival that was happening in the main square, where I had a really good Belgian waffle. we went to was the Van Gogh museum. It was amazing. We saw hundreds of Van Gogh’s originals, including the Sunflowers, the famous painting of his room in the asylum, many self portraits including the one with his ear bandaged and many others. After that we went to the Heineken museum. It was a lot of fun. It was not a very serious museum, but they had all this interactive stuff that made it fun. Also, they gave us three free half pints of Heineken, it was the best Heineken I have ever tasted, and a free half pint Heineken glass. So we had out culture and fun.
But the best part of out trip was yet to come. It happened while we were on the jet way waiting to board the plane. They tell us that a flight attendant has gotten sick and they had no one to replace her with, so they needed 33 people to volunteer to get bumped to tomorrow morning. As incentive to volunteer they offered a hotel for the night, a refund on your ticket, and 200 Euros. So needless to say we volunteered. It was so much fun! They put us up in a 4 star hotel. We each got our own rooms with really nice double beds. It was the nicest bed I have slept on for a while. We had this wonderful complementary breakfast, and the money we get pretty much pays for the trip. So we had a free trip to Amsterdam payed for by EasyJet.
Ever since I have been back I have been working on essays and preparing for tutorials, but this extra work is definitely worth it. I didn’t do much for Halloween because I had too much work to do. I even missed the New College Halloween Bop. If any you guys did anything fun for Halloween, please let me know about in a message. I would love to hear about it! I hope you all are doing well! Take Care!
Ad Deo Gloriam,
Matt
Ps. As normal I did not take very many pictures, but I am supose to get more from the girls, so when I do I will ad them to it.
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Sam
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well well well matthew. its good to see you are doing well. you should email me back someday. i miss you buddy, i am praying for you all the time. be praying for me as well. be safe. bless and be blessed. love you brother. Samuel