Whereismal?

15 October 2006

The Charlie weekender

No not the white powdery stuff but Charlie from Notts was here last weekend. And my blog update is so late because I am well and truly knackered from the weekend jollies. It went a little something like this...

Charlie landed Thurs and it would've been rude if we didn't have a few welcome drinks. So off we trotted on the tram to Leidseplein, the cheesy touristy area of Amsterdam. Kinda like Leicester Square of London. We found a bar selling beers at €€1 each but we wanted portions larger than the thimbles offered so we didn't hang around there long.

In our quest to find some bars of decent quality in that area we stumbled across the Amsterdam Ultimate Party. Sucked in by the name, we tagged along at the end of their group in the hope they would know some decent bars. No such luck so glad we didn't pay for it! However, we persevered until 3am. Work was a struggle for me on Friday, whilst Charlie took a few snaps of downtown.

Undetered by the lack of decent bars we also hit the town on Friday. Including a visit to the Red Light District - the first time for me since I moved here. But surprisingly, I could remember from Peach's stag do where the good lookers were and also where the mingers are. Of course we took a look at both for comedy value!

Charlie's memories of the Red Light District will be more of a nightmare than pleasure. We thought we'd checkout one of the peep shows and the particular booth that Charlie choose was, well.....hmmm....how do I say this without offending anyone?! Let's just say there was some evidence of a previously entertained guy left behind in the booth!

More beers to calm Charlie down, so much so that we kinda thought our drinks were spiked at one point. But perhaps it was just theconcoctionn that we had already had that caused those thoughts! Another night prancing about in Winstons was had with the disco twins, Sandra and Sophie, plus flat mate Mickael. Night two @ 3am

Saturday we went snowboarding to Snowworld which is bigger than the place I've already been to. Charlie had never been before and I also hooked up with a Kiwi friend Jonathan that I met through an internet forum I used when flat hunting. We all had a good blast, Charlie seemed to enjoy it even though he had never been before. He got on well, linked a few turns and even managed the button lift all the way to the top of the big slope. He hid his fear well whilst hurtling back down the slope much faster that I though he would but he later admitted to being completely out of control. That probably had something to do with the eventual face plants!

Jonathan was also keen and bought a new board. Hopefully, we'll sort out a few weekends on real mountains this winter. I've been looking at viamichelin and it's only 8.5hrs drive to St Anton in Austria - one of the places on my todo list. If we head East into the likes of Austria then there is more time spent on the German Autobahns so should be able to make 8.5hrs in under 7 ;-)

But back to the weekend just gone. Although knackered from snowboarding, we met up with Jonathan and a few others from the same forum in the pijp (pronounced pipe) area of Amsterdam. An area I had briefly spent some time in with the Mexicans and was impressed. It was a very varied night and went a little like -> posh bar, kebab house, salsa bar, dodgy bar, posh bar. The latest night yet with a return home at 4am!

The latest night was unfortunately followed by the earliest morning. We were up and out by 10am to go meet Michel and friends at a theme park called Wallibi World. A cool theme park owned by the Six Flag group. I'd say it was like a cross between Blackpool, with loadsa rollercoasters, and Alton Towers with the latest rides. So a good combo. Checkout the shaky cam video footage and pictures below:






After the theme we tortured our bodies one last time with a mcsatan and I dropped Charlie at the airport. I didn't have any trouble sleeping afterwards! Cheers Charlie for a top weekend and spread the word back home - The Dam(n) Mathie tourist service is now accepting new guests...

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