day 107
Thursday started with a class of game theory in the morning, after which I brought the Estonian friends to Dappermarket where we bought some food for the day's dinner. Spent the rest of the afternoon idling, napping, trying to read an article and cooking dinner for everyone. Later in the evening, we had a simple dinner of salad and fried chicken wings, accompanied by best sangria I've drank so far, at the same time watching the Eurovision song contest.
Something about this Eurovision song contest, its like a singing competition which European nations compete in. There is a national leg, where the best singer (or band) will be chosen locally to compete in the regional semi-finals, from which 25 nations are chosen to go into the finals. Each country may sing their song in their native language, or translated into english, but it has got to be the same song throughout the contest. The winner is decided by a panel of judges, as well as Europeans who will participate via tele-voting. It is certainly quite a major television event in Europe, given that many pubs were broadcasting it too!
day 108
Decided to skip the tutorial that day and studied by myself on friday, which eventually turned out to be futile. I guess its really not too easy to get into the mood for studying, when there is a beach party in the evening to look forward to. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't quite as we expected. We experienced the heaviest rain since arriving here, and decided that we would not go for it. Then again, in Amsterdam, given the fact that there's always another party if you are not going for one, we decided to drop by another one somewhere near our place. One of the exchange students, who we didn't exactly know beforehand, was throwing a party at this small club. The great thing about parties here is that you don't need to have a reason or a friend to go for it. Furthermore, the theme for this party was to be formal, and the thought of getting into the suit and tie was really quite exciting. I mean, I've havent found a use for my formal wear till now, hahaha.
The party was decent, some nice music and a nice crowd, didn't really do much, but well, its really just nice to sit, relax and have a couple of drinks.
Given that we were dressed more elaborately than usual, it would have come as a waste to leave for home too early. Walked around the city for quite bit, taking some pictures along the way (something we haven't done in quite a while), and dropping by Dampkring (the coffeeshop in which a scene from 'Ocean's Twelve' was filmed) in an attempt to drink some coffee.
Sadly, the coffeeshop was closed by the time we reached, so we had to call it a day, but there were still things to look forward to the next day.
day 109
the day was meant for a boat trip on the canals in Amsterdam, but then again the strong winds and grey skies didn't do us any favors, so we would have to abandon the plan for the day and do something else. Of course, I would not want to miss the big match of Man Utd playing Arsenal at Old Trafford, where a draw would see Man Utd claiming the 08/09 Premiership title and silence the people who have long bragged about being the most successful club in English football. Go figure.
It was a boring match by normal standards, but who can blame them, when a draw is good enough for the trophy, and there's still a bigger match in the Champions League final to play for come 27th May?
When the full time whistle came, the hairs on my back were raised, very much like how Man Utd won the title last season. The cheers, smiles and celebration certainly brought back not-too-distant memories, where I was in another pub in HongKong just a year ago, watching the same trophy presentation with KingHei. Indeed, so much has happened in one year, then in Hongkong and now in Amsterdam, it seemed like Man Utd have only become better (or is it the case of other teams being less competent?) I look forward to another year, or rather many years of exciting football from Man Utd! Its really a pity that I missed out on the tickets to this match, if not it would have certainly be the best ocassion anyone can boast of watching Man Utd. Certainly looking forward to the great finals come next week!
After an early dinner, we decided to try our luck again at the Dampkring, only to realise that it was too small and we had no place to sit or even stand! Brought the 2 guests to our most frequented coffeeshop Abraxas, but not before a stopover at what I thought was a nice little spot in Amsterdam.
The Begijnhof, or a court of private houses is a piece of living history itself. Most people may not know that they can actually visit it (since from the outside one would assume its private property and transpassing is prohibited). I just love the architecture and the extent of how isolated it is from the busy shopping street that is just separated some meters away.
When we reached Abraxas a moment later, we realised that there were no spacecakes available, so Dehua and Serene had to be contend with trying to smoke weed at that point in time. However, as with non-smokers, one may not get the kick out of smoking weed, and the weed they bought was considered to be the mildest the shop had on offer. So, we went back to Dampkring, bought 2 muffins and headed back to Sebastian's place. The night was spent watching the finals of the Eurovision song contest, and 3 of us shared the two muffins. I had initially been very relucant to eat the muffin, considering the amount of work to be done, but under peer pressure, I went ahead and took 2/3 of a muffin which contained 0.3g of hash and cannabis.
Well, I guess this comes as the most interesting part of the night. I can safely say that based on previous encounters with spaceakes and smoking weed, I wanted to approach the encounter that night from a different perspective. To be more precise, I wanted to feel how exactly I would transit from the rational, normal me, into someone who would drift in and out of moments of uncontrollable laughter, as well as other behaviour that I had experienced before, including being very stoned and unexplainable hunger. At the same time I was forcing myself to think as normally as possible, even during moments when the effect of weed will totally dominate my chain of thoughts and actions.
I came to conclude that spacecakes, as much as they are enjoyable on the first time, become far more predictable in subsequent encounters. However, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable experience, from how everything would sound funnier than usual (the part I love most about a spacecake), to how the 3 of us who were getting stoned while making our way back to my hostel would stand at the ground floor of Seb's place, and let Seb splash water on us, not once but twice! I swear that in the interval which Seb was pouring the water out of his window, I looked up to see this particular blue-looking alien laughing at me. Yes, Sebastian is this blue alien I saw from where I stood.
On the two previous occasions, I had consumed the cake and stayed either in my place, or over in Seb's place. This time round I also tried something new, which was to attempt to walk back home with the weed in effect. It proved to be another interesting challenge, from trying to unlock the bicycle, to walking the seemingly endless road home that will usually take less than 10 minutes. Of course, on the way home, certain events which would have seemed ordinary took a twist. They included how on-coming bicycles seemed to travel in a start-stop motion, and how I saw this old man standing on this patch of grass, holding onto a purple umbrella and looking into the patch of grass right beside the Artis Zoo. If anyone had asked me to talk about an unforgettable night spent in Amsterdam, this has certainly got to be one of those.
After much difficulty heading back, I tried to sleep early, and hoped that the sleepless night I had on the first time I had a cake wouldn't repeat itself. The second time I had it, the effects came and left quite quickly, so sleeping was not a problem. I had no problem trying to keep myself controlled, in terms of actions and speech, but there was this uncontrolled craving for munching the pack of chips that was by my bed. This particular bag of chips have been lying around for 1 week, and I had previously not want to eat it because it did not taste all that fantastic. However, there was somehow this voice in my head which controlled me to reach for that packet of chips, and go through the motion of 'taking chips out of bag - putting chips in mouth'. Before long, the chips were finished, and it was then I managed to somehow sleep. Peter helped Dehua and I take a couple of pictures, which I am very sure will mark the end of my series of space expeditions here in the Netherlands.
As mentioned previously, the after-effects of weed include fatigue, which saw me sleep through the whole Sunday afternoon. The only time I was awake was the time when Dehua left my place for Stuggart. I don't know why, but after this latest episode of spacecake, I feel extremely motivated to come out with a book, or at least an article (I've even thought of the title while making that difficult journey back home the previous night - 'My one-night-stands with cakes and grass'. How appropriate!) to detail all these extraordinary nights. Well, I've already given an in-depth account of my latest adventure in the paragraphs preceding this one. Hurhur. If this article were ever to come to fruitation, it will probably make it one of the funniest reads ever. (at least that' what I think) Oh well, guess that will have to wait until I return to Singapore!
Yep so that's all that's happened in another good weekend, its day 111 now and I am still halfway through my 10 page essay, with another 6 more essays waiting to be written. These on top of a 3 day trip to Paris, which will be the highlight of this week. I shall be back hopefully with more interesting stories to share, and till then do have a great week ahead everyone!
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