Whereismal?

28 November 2006

Biertaxi Amsterdam

Had a great night out in town but it's kicking out time at the nightclub? You and your buddies pulled some chicks but the supplies are low back home so you can't offer to continue the party there :-(

Have no fear the Amsterdam Beer Taxi is here! Beer, wine, fags, crisps and most importantly johnnies delivered straight to your door!

What a legendary idea! One of the delivery guys gave Adam and I a flyer when Adam was over here. Must've thought we looked like potential customers!

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The Combo weekend

Just a quick post tonight before bedtime. I'm out school night drinking round some student bars tomorrow and I have a works do on Thursday. Then Olaf is here and by the sounds of the emails floating around I'm not going to get much of a chance to add anything here about last weekend until I've recovered well into next week!

So last weekend I tried to make sure I saw a bit of sunlight and sporting activity unlike the previous weekend. I think I did a good job and it went a little something like this:

I never thought I'd ever say this but Friday night I was in the gym - OK so not quite true, I went to the gym in the evening and still found myself heading into town for a quiet couple of beers with Mickael and the Disco Twins. I even made it yet again to Winstons but was a good boy and only stayed for one before heading home at 2am.

Saturday, up at 9am to meet Jonathan for another session at SnowPlanet on the snowboards and what a cracking session it was. It still amazes me that I am always progressing and learning something new everything I go to one of the indoor slopes here. As those who have snowboarded with me before I have this bad habit of landing all my backside 180 jumps and immediately switching back to regular. I am not very good at riding them out switch but not any more. I concentrated on taking off into a backside 180 on the first lip at the slope, landing switch and holding that edge all the way to the bottom, making a few switch turns on the way. By the end of the session I was backside 180'ing off the top lip, riding switch for a few turns, frontside 180'ing off the second lip back to regular and then riding the rail at the bottom 50/50 - I was stoked the first time I nailed that - especially the rail as that scared me being a little longer and narrower than I am normally comfortable with.

But enough snowboard waffle, I came home and was on such a high that I went out and pulled a few wheelies on my bike to celebrate. I am such a kid! I went to find what I was told was a skate bowl but in the end it was only a halfpipe and a fairly leafy one at that so I just enjoyed a bit of people watching the mad shoppers of Amsterdam.

Saturday night Pia gathered a few friends and together with Shauny and Rafa, celebrated their birthdays in a cool bar in the city. A number of us not content with ending the night at 1am hit the town and painted it pink not red! Mum you best not tell Dad and don't worry I'm not going to be batting for the other side, but we ended up in a gay nightclub called Exit. Quite the entertaining eye opener, but show me anywhere happy to sell me another pint and I'll happily prop the bar up. To be honest Kerry joined us with her mate and those two got way more hassle from guys than any of us straight guys did - was a laugh! I left about 4 ish with Sophie after Mickael who left 20 mins before us. I was home before him as he was walking and I was on the bike. Some photos from the night are below:




Still determined to make the most of the daylight I was up and out by midday on what was a glorious sunny day. I went back to Scheveningen and met with Jorn and a couple of his friends to go kayak surfing. The surf was poor, a lot worse than what was predicted on magic seaweed but in great Dutch spirit we still had a good laugh paddling off our hangovers. There were a couple of sets that came in the were big enough to launch into a couple of blunts and back stabs. So since I had not been boating since the DWD opening weekend, I really enjoyed it. They also invited me to a pool session that they go to in Haarlem every Sunday evening but I declined in favour of some well earned sofa time :-) Fish and chips on the beach front afterwards was cracking tho.

So I think I made a good combo weekend of partying and having fun in the daylight this weekend. I very much doubt with Olaf I'll see much daylight this weekend but looking forward to it all the same.

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23 November 2006

Beery Brits

So not much happening on the Whereismal? front this week mainly due to the fact of once again being knackered. What was supposed to be a nice quiet weekend after two brilliant but busy weekends, ended up being another top weekend.

I met the youngexpats again on Friday night - I wasn't fully up for it when I got home from work but het I had a little Friday feeling in me that I could not ignore. We met in an Ozzie bar called Coco's - a cool bar, pints of Fosters flowed and the inevitable dance floor action commenced. I met some English guys that night including someone who also grew up in Basingstoke, same as me - small world eh? Once, Coco's was over, the other youngexpats trawled home - some of them with nightmare train rides home, whilst in true British style we staggered on round town to find a late bar. That late bar happened to be a Karaoki bar - which on any other night in any other place I would've objected to! But this place was kinda cool and aparantly I howled out "Californication" by the Chili's at some point - I can't remember!

The only bad thing about the night was that it took me ages to find my bike when I realised I'd had enough paying €17 for a jug of beer. It was pissing it down with rain and I got hopelessly lost. I had a map but was so steaming that I could not read it! I thank the kind homeless dude that pointed me in the right direction and I apologies for thinking that all he was after was my money. If he ever recognises me again, I owe him a beer...

Having met the mad Brits on Friday, one of them, Kerry, invited me to her flat warming on the Saturday night. Everyone I met from the Karaoke bar was there, so my lack of memory was filled in and a good second night effort was put in by all. Some magician dude brought along a beer bong - a funnel to you and me. Not quite the 5 to 6 stubby effort from the Alps like below but it was good to see the girls get up and suck a can or two back! Including a Kylie obsessive - I've had my yearly dose of Kylie now thanks.


So the weather all weekend had been fantastic but I hadn't seen any of it just darkness! Still, I met a great new bunch of people under the cover of darkness :-)

I actually hooked up with Kerry again on Tuesday this week. I was hoping to get tickets for The Kooks from a tout but didn't bothered in the end but felt like a few "quiet" ones anyway. It was again pissing it down and I think that put off the Disco Twins that I had hoped to also hook up with. I think Kerry and myself managed to drink their share tho! It's been a while since some school night drinking back in Blackpool, but we kept knocking them back and avoiding going home early in the rain. Somehow beer by beer went by, bar after bar as they closed and before I knew it I was finally pedalling Betty home and my head hit the pillow at 4:54 am. Up at 8 for work was a killer. Fortunately (well for me anyway!) the guys on my project at work had busted an all nighter to get the system working so I was not the only one in the office feeling like shite. I keep my reasons to myself tho so I didn't upset them that whilst there were working their arses off I was ordering another round at the bar!

And so what shall this weekend hold? It's Pia's birthday amongst others who've hired out a bar to celebrate on Saturday - not been partying with everyone together in a while so really looking forward to that. Other than that nothing as of yesterday afternoon, but contact today about snowboarding, a late text message yesterday about going kayak surfing and an email about more British beers and it looks like another crammed weekend .=) Forget New York never sleeps, I think Amsterdam seems to also have a good rep! Better Zzzz now to be ready for it...

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21 November 2006

Shocking

Each day I get my daily feed of internet news using Google Reader as I guess some of my friends do too. Therefore I try not to repeat myself here. But today I was directed to an article about a student who was tasered at UCLA for not showing his student ID in the library - WTF?! The ordeal was captured on someone's mobile video recording device and posted to YouTube here. I don't know what the guys background was but I am appalled at the action the police took.

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17 November 2006

A few photos from Sophie

Sophie kindly sent me some photos of my recent drunken nights in Winstons. Charlie, Emma, Kate and Adam all feature...


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The Adam weekend of stiff necks


Adam visited last weekend for what seemed like an eternity! Hope you didn't get too bored whilst I was at work Adam? He stayed from Weds night through to Tues morning and I'm knackered for it. We managed to cram quite a bit in to his time here as you can see from yet another mighty blog entry...

There was no holding back right from the word go. As soon as I picked Adam up from the airport, we headed straight to the local indoor ski slope. It was a good start to his trip as after the half time beer we were hitting the bigger jump that I have yet to have the courage to play with. And also getting some 360's off the roller hip shaped lump next to the jump. OK so they were a little more like 270's for me, cheating a bit by carving hard into the hip ;-) But hey I was stoked, don't usually have the bottle to try those. Cheers Adam :-)

Friday night we went to the Melkweg again where I was the previous week with Emma. This time to see a hip hop act called Peeping Tom with Rahzel the legendary human beatboxer. Rahzel was really the main reason we went and it was a little disappointing that he only did one set on his own. But during that set he managed to reproduce Justin Timberlakes Sexyback sounding just like the real thing! It was quality - checkout this video that I found for an example.

We hung around in Melkweg to see if the resident DJ was going to get any better. He didn't - not even after the JD and cokes we started to knock back. So we hooked up with Sophie and yet another night in Winstons. I was steaming and made everyone aware by jumping in all the puddles on the way home in the pouring rain. I think I did a good job of soaking Sophie - Sorry!

In the morning there was a bit of deja vu from the previous weekend with Emma. I found myself waking up waaaaaaaaayyyy too late for the flow riding I had planned for the both of us. I await the speeding tickets, but we did still get there in time for the majority of our two hour session. Unlike with the girls on bodyboards, I opted for a standing up session for us guys. I'm glad we booked two hours cos it took a good 45 mins to get the hang of it. It's much harder than bodyboarding and our previous snowboarding skills did not help much. Yes we might have reasonable balance but on a snowboard all your weight is on the front leg, on a flow board you need to put all your weight on the back leg. A bit like riding powder? - NO - even more weight back than that so it took a while to get that. But once we mastered it we were ripping it up (kinda). Checkout the following video footage of us masters in action - note Adams 360 is entirely by fluke the jammy bastard! And I can confirm it's not as painful as it looks. Well not during anyway. Oh and by the way, you can click on the google logo to watch a larger version.



Once the wet fun was over the hangovers hit home and we generally lounged around the DWD white water course eating ham and cheese toasties before agreeing that was a waste of a day. I showed Adam another nearby indoor ski slope that had an "airbag" setup but more on that later. Then we went to checkout the local kayak store for a few shots at the ski ramp but the cold and dark got the better of us so we wimped out. With nothing else to do it was back home, pizzas and back on the sauce meeting the disco twins for another night on the town. Equally as messy, equally as late (6am) but at least we had a lie in the next day.

Now the flow waves don't hurt when you fall off, but both Adam and I had screwed ourselves somehow cos on Sunday morning our necks were well stiff. It even hurt to yawn - which we were doing a fair bit! What better way to treat a stiff neck than to go launching off a 2m high snowboard ramp. I say launching but a better word for it was hucking - spins & flips. No me and Adam have not become overnight snowboard pros but remember I mentioned the airbag? Well this was the setup ->


Coming second close to a fresh tracks day on Whistler back in Jan 2001, this is one of the best things I have ever done on my snowboard. After a few warm up runs we joined the back of the line for hitting this monster. Adam was up first followed by myself and for the first few runs we found it really difficult to even get just a grab in. The speed you have to hit the jump at felt quite unusual. Normally we are jumping off smaller jumps so a lot slower and know how much the ramp is going to kick you up in the air. This thing was a beast and with quite a rutted run in that I found myself nearly binning on a few times! But once used to the feeling (not that we ever really got a good grab in) it was time to step it up and I am proud to say for once I was the first to start the rotations flinging myself in all directions off the lip. Needless to say, Adam followed and skooled me but I'm chuffed I went for it first :-) I was the first to try a 180 (that actually ended up being a 360!) and the first to try a front flip (god knows what happened there but I didn't do it right I know that for sure!) Checkout the video footage below, the guys at the end of the video show us how it should be done. Quality!



That night we crashed early after attempting to watch "Ferris Buellers day off" - a movie I got from Gary. Gary mate if your reading then that was shite!

It got to Monday and both of us realised we had not done the standard issue red light district cruise so that kept us entertained for the night. Adam didn't quite have as bad an experience as Charlie tho! We had a few strolls around interspersed with games of pool until yet again it was waaaaaay beyond midnight.

I've finally caught up with my sleep so hope you enjoy the video clips and the collections of photos below. Cheers Adam for a class weekend :-) I've got a couple of weeks break until the Irish invade with Olaf...


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14 November 2006

Skitech540.co.uk

Remember Gary? The chap that took George's place in Fleeman Grove? Well he's offering his ski and snowboarding waxing skills in Nottingham this season - a first in Nottingham. I can fully recommend his service as he done my rig a few times so I thought I'd give his new website a shout out on this blog. This season Gary has invested in all the pro tools and setup a website to see if he can make a go of it. It's http://www.skitech540.co.uk so instead of getting ripped off in the resort, why not get your ride waxed before heading away this season. Save some cash and time on the first day away!

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The Emma & Kate weekend

So now that Adam has left, I can finally get round to writing a bit about the weekend I had with Emma and Kate. Both came over on Thurs 2nd Nov for a long weekend. It was Emma's second trip, so now an expert, and Kate's first visit to see me.

A delayed flight meant that there was nothing left to do on Thursday except catch up over a cuppa. Then on Friday, the girls explored the city whilst I finished off the week at work then the fun began...

We got a bite to eat at a nice place in De Pijp area of Amsterdam. Then Sophie met us in a bar called Chocolate but it was rammed so we only had one there. But I think there was already enough drink inside us cos we left on our bikes and headed for Winstons. At first Kate was on the back of my bike till she fell off at some traffic lights so we collected another bike from Sophie's home for Kate. Both Emma and Kate full with wine provided such a good laugh for myself, sorry girls but I've not laughed so much in quite a while. The bikes over here are quite large and well lets just say the girls are not! But the laughter soon stopped as the crashes began. Yes "crashes" - your right I did use the plural!

When we got to Winstons, Emma did not quite hear my calls of "slow down we are here" and spanked into the back of my bike, falling flat on her face right outside the nightclub. Thank god for the alcohol numbing her pain. And thank god we kept the alcohol flowing in Winstons cos when we came out crash number two happened for Emma. None of us saw that one but it was the most painful and involved someone getting in her way and some serious arse to floor move :-( Not satisfied with only two crashes, Emma decided to take a further tumble in the Vondelpark. Deciding that travelling in a straight line was getting boring she preferred to weave into my back wheel. This time sliding along the floor on her hands, knees, boots and chin. Yes chin - checkout the pictures below for the attractive chin graze!

Getting up on Saturday was an effort but spurred on by the thought that we were going bodyboarding on the flow waves at DWD we some how managed to rush out the door for 10am. I'd booked a 1 hour introduction session for each of us and it was a blast - a perfect hangover cure! It was not that difficult so we all had a good few rides on the wave as you can see from the photos.

After a wonder round the white water course we decided to hit the local beach, Scheveningen, for some fresh sea are and some grub in a really nice Italian restaurant. I'll be back there someday :-) But that knocked us out, the girls were asleep in the car on the way home and we all crashed out for a few hours that afternoon. Saturday night was a quiet affair, there was a Museum night going on around town so we met Sandra and Sophie for a quick beer. As you can imagine the bikes got left at home that night so we tried to catch the last tram home but just missed it by ten mins so I had my first taxi ride home. €15 - thieving gypo's!

Sunday, we went for a blast round the park on the bikes before heading to see a band called Children Sumandre. They were performing at a really strange hippy commune place outside of town. It was rather spooky but a real good vibe - there was a lot of love in the house people!

We bumped into Pia, Timbo and Shauny there and as it was also Sophie birthday they kindly invited us all round to theirs for dinner. A glass of bubbly and some nice nosh rounded off a great weekend. Kate was on the first flight home Monday morning. Thanks for visiting Kate - hope you enjoyed it?!

But lucky me managed to get Emma to myself for another night. We went to see Dick Dale at Melkweg and he was brilliant. I had an idea he would probably be a dab hand on the guitar due to knowing his music from the film Pulp Fiction. But he managed to make all those sounds on his guitar with no wammy bar and later played the bass, drums and trumpet. He played the bass whilst the main bass player was also playing the same guitar - he also managed to play the bass guitar using the drum sticks! When he played the drums, there was also the main drummer still playing - two people on one drum kit sounds awesome.

Well that's me - another long post. Checkout the pictures from our weekend below and come back soon for another equally as long post about my weekend with Adam just gone...


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07 November 2006

Just a quickie...

This will only be a quickie as I've just dropped Emma off at the airport after another brilliant weekend and Adam arrives tomorrow. So I doubt I'll get time to write a longer detailed post about the weekend of surfing waves, drums and concrete pavements but for now here is a teaser picture of Kate on the flow wave. (Kate was the only one who looked at the camera!)