You can guess what he’s famous for…

Well, I don’t really know where to start, because I’m writing this offline and I can’t remember when I wrote my last entry. I think it was during my time in London. When I say offline, I mean offline on a mac, on which MS word just crashed so I had to write all of this again.

On Monday, after some Ninja Gaiden action in the morning, we went to Canary Wharf Mall and Baz bought Singstar Popworld. The rest of this story should possibly remain untold. Suffice to say that doors were closed by others in the flat and I may in fact be a Sk8ter Boy…

On Tuesday me and Baz caught the underground to Kings Cross station. We didn’t try running into any walls so we could get to Hogwarts, as running in stations in London is not recommended at this point in time… On that note, I managed to not get blown up on the Underground in London and I rode it many times. I still have a whole mound of tickets to prove it… We had some breakfast and then I took the train to Glasgow. The trip went reasonably quickly. I read a book and listened to music on my X drive.

In Glasgow without a map, I was immediately tasked with finding the corner on which Ayley had parked her car, which was accomplished via texting. We then went for some coffee (and internet), did the groceries and then went out for dinner to a place called Antipasti, which was excellent. We then went to the video store and rented Million Dollar Baby.

On Wednesday I had a look around Glasgow while Ayley was at work. I went to the Glasgow Cathedral, which was amazing, and also to the Museum of Religious Life and Art next door and the oldest house in Glasgow. I then wandered up the hill/cemetery called the Necropolis. From the top you can see pretty much all of Glasgow. Before I did all of that though, I got sucked into one shop that was advertising 3 DVDs for £20 (6 DVDs later I escaped). I also got sucked into a bookshop and bought a few books. I also had a quick glance through the lonely planet under Glasgow to find out what I should go see which was very helpful, and may in fact be the only reason I knew about the Cathedral. I saw the other places on the way there. After tea Ayley and me went to see Charlie and the Chocolate factory, which I think may be my new favourite movie of all time! Actually, I tend to enjoy most movies when I go to them and don’t generally pick favourites, but this may be an exception. Best in genre anyway. The category movie is really much too broad to be picking a favourite for. Not quite sure what genre you’d put it in though. On the way home before tea, I also took some photos of a squirrel rummaging through my bag looking for food, but I probably won’t post any more photos till I get home.

On Thursday I had a rest day, just hanging out at Ayley’s flat watching a DVD, reading a book for a while. It was pouring down with rain for big chunks of it too. Then I went to meet her at Beanscene again and took in the Museum of Transport on the way. I got to the café nice and early (I was kind of travelling between showers) and read my book for a while with a coffee. After tea we watched some DVDs of Ayley’s farewell and Merodie’s 21st.

Yesterday I went to Edinburgh. I had a look through the castle after climbing up the mound to get there. The view from the top was amazing. Lots of little museums throughout the castle. I also tasted some Whiskey. On the way down the road from the castle I was bombarded with leaflets for various plays etc happening as part of the Edinburgh fringe festival. I also stopped for some lunch at a gourmet burger place to escape the rain which had just started falling. I forgot to mention that in my hurry to leave for the bus in the morning, I forgot my cellphone, which is also my watch, so I had no way of knowing the time, which is a little worrying when you have to catch buses etc. I did make it to the bus in time, which was good as I was walking quite fast and had to catch the subway for part of the way and didn’t really know where the bus station was. In the afternoon it meant that I got to the bus station just over half an hour early, so I went wandering again and got to see the National Portrait Gallery at high speed, and still got back almost 15 minutes early.

After tea we watched Edward Scissorhands, which despite being quite old-school now, I still enjoyed it. After the movie we went out for a few drinks with Ayley’s friend Colin. Spent some time discussing movies. Strangely they are both of the opinion that Lost in Translation is a good movie….

Trying to figure out how best to divide up the rest of my trip and have decided that by country is probably best.

On the Saturday that I wrote the last post, Ayley and me went to Edinburgh for the day. We arrived there early afternoon and visited some of her friends. After that we wandered around in the rain for a while. (I had been informed earlier that there was no way we would need the umbrella that day.) We had a before dinner snack and drink at a nice place I have forgotton the name of (help Ayley) - something Bistro, and then met up with Ayley’s friend David Bradley. We managed to procure reserve tickets to see Antonio Forcione, a famous, most excellent jaszz/acoustic guitarist and his quartet. Twas fantastic. Then we went to a German beer garden, where I was ribbed by some South Africans (more friends of Ayley’s) about the fact that we had just lost the rugby. We’ll see this weekend is all I can say…

Then on Sunday we went to church and then to Loch Lomond with Ayley’s friend Kemi. We had a great lunch on the shores of the lake and then Ayley and me may have jumped in the lake… I’m sure that if we’d known there would be water at the lake we would have brought our togs.

On Monday night I took Ayley out for tea afer another day of relaxation while she was at work and then on Tuesday, all too soon I was winging my way back to Amsterdam… Not going to be written up today though, you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer. There may be some hints in the photos…

I almost forgot to mention that Sunday and Monday in Scotland were amazing sunny days. It does not always rain in Scotland. Although according to the placemat on the bar at the restaurant at Loch Lomond it does rain 312 days of the year… Happy Ayley?

When I arrived in Amsterdam, I rang up my cousin Pieter to see if he was busy and then caught the train from the airport to the central station and walked to his flat and then up 3 flights of the steepest stairs ever. We then went for a wander through the streets, stopping for lunch with some massive salmon rolls and a beer at vondelpark on the way. Then when he had to go to work at 5:30 I caught the train to Nijmegen (about 1.5 hours) where I stayed with Oom Stef and Tante Yvonne for a couple of days.

The first day (Wednesday) we went for a look around Nijmegen (supposedly the oldest City in the Netherlands - they were celebrating their 2000 year anniversary this year. We walked through the city and thought we’d go and have a look in one of the art galleries, where they just happened to be having an art exhibition, with lots of artists from Nijmegen. There were some very cool paintings. Then we went up a tower that had been set up as part of the celebration. It was about 50m high and made of scaffolding. It was on the site where a Roman watch tower used to be. The view was awesome from the top (see photos).

Then we went to the museum and had a look at the Roman artifacts etc that had been dug up around the area, followed by a beer alongside the Waal river.

On Thursday we went to visit my cousin Tim at his room in Nijmegen. We had lunch there and then Stef and Yvonne went to go look at tents and me and Tim watched a movie (The Big Lebowski) and then played some Tekken 5. All I can say is that my practice in London served me well… Then we went out for dinner - I had steak and it was yum. Then we tried to go to Café Jos, which is a special beer café with hundreds of beers, but it was shut because the owners were on holiday, so we went to Café ‘t Haantje instead. Lots of fun.

On Friday I went back to Amsterdam to stay with Pieter. Which I will talk about in my next post. I’ll get there eventually.

Right, I’m going to finish this. I got back to Amsterdam around 2pm and walked to Pieter’s flat again. This time in the rain. Every single shop along the street had a stand with umbrellas outside it, but I managed to resist the temptation and just used the hood of my hoodie. I made it there in one piece, albeit slightly damp. We then went out and bought some beers and snacks and went to the video store, and got Collateral, which we watched. Then Pieter’s friend Melle came round. For tea we went to a Surinamean? restaurant which was down the end of a long narrow street full of “coffeeshops“. We had a yum dinner and then went to a kind of theater festival thing in a park called “De Parade” where they have lots of fairly short theater/music/various shows in tents, and you just walk around and choose what you want to go to and then pay and go see it. There was a bit of a variance in quality, but most of the things we saw were pretty good. Then we went back to the flat and watched a movie (Miller’s Crossing) which I did sleep through a significant part of I think. Oh, I also managed to get the tram ride back to the flat for free because the conductor didn’t have change for my 50Euro note.

The next day Tim came down. Before he got there we went for a wander through the fleamarkets. We met him back at the flat and then went out again and bought a whole bunch more special beers and food for lunch and returned the DVD. We went to De Parade again and arrived bang on 5pm which is when the admission charge started and were just waved on through. We had tea there, saw a few more shows and got back in time to watch the soccer, although I would be lying if I said I could remember who was playing. We were consuming a few of the specialty beers as we watched the game, starting with the weakest and slowly working up to the strongest… This was actually quite funny comparatively as the weakest was 8.5%, working up to 11.6%…

After that at 2:30am we decided it would be a good idea to go have a look at the seedier part of Amsterdam - apparently my experience would not be complete without walking through the red light district. So we set out, Melle with his trusty umbrella, - I did actually end up with the hat, which we later lost in a bar where we went for a few more beers. I talked to an Australian girl there and Melle tried to convince a couple of Spanish girls that he was Irish. Anyway, long story short, we got back to the flat at about 4.30 and then I got up at about 7.30 to get ready to get to the airport via the train by 9:50, which I made right on time. At which point the journey home begun…

The journey home was relatively uneventful. I watched a bunch more movies on the plane, which I won’t go into because it’s to much to remember at this time of the evening and not really that important.

I had an approximately 15 hour stopover in Singapore, arriving just after 6am and leaving around 9pm. I was fairly feral by this stage, having not shaved for quite a while or had a haircut for a few months and reasonably travel worn as well. I looked all over the airport to try and find a cheap t-shirt to change into and eventually succeeded, finding one for 8 singapore dollars. I then booked a hotel room for 6 hours, and went for a shower. Then went and had McD’s for breakfast, followed by sleeping for about 4 hours, after which I noticed on a piece of paper in the room that I could get a shaving kit at reception, which I did and then shaved and had another shower - the showers were awesome. Then I had a haircut (which included a head wash and massage (the third time in 5 hours that my hair had been washed, which was a little excessive), followed by a bus tour of Singapore. We weren’t allowed off the bus, as we were technically still in transit. After that I bought a webcam, which was about $40 cheaper than I could get it in NZ and had dinner at a fancy Chinese restaurant. - This was brought on by how much the tour guide talked about food. She was awesome! I think she was even more passionate about food than me…

After that I bought a single volume Chronicles of Narnia and hung out on the free internet for a while and then hopped on the plane home, where I arrived safely to be greeted by Mike. I was surprised at how warm it was actually, although twas nothing compared with Singapore. There, the trip is done! Now I can start posting about what I’m doing now again.

For those of you who are wondering what happened to the rest of my holiday, I do plan to write about it, but have been busy sleeping off the after-effects and working. I will post about it soon and put up the rest of my photos.

I did make it back safe and sound.

I’ve put the rest of the photos from my trip up. I do plan to add captions, but for some reason I’m feeling really tired, so I’ll do it later.

Well, I’m having a fairly productive evening. Most of this week has just involved me sitting around reading a book or surfing the web, not really being in the mood to do anything useful. Tonight however, I have already done all the dishes, (which I was supposed to do on Friday, said I would do on Sunday and finally did today) and have cleaned all the clothes off the floor in my room and put in a load of washing. (I hadn’t done any washing yet since I’ve been back.) I’ve been home alone since Sunday, as the rest of my flat has gone to Nelson till Friday, so the dishes sat there quite happily… It only took me an hour to do them

Anyway, the plan for this evening is to bring my blog up to date. I might back date the posts a little so that they fit in in the right place, so you may have to scroll down a bit. I’ll use this post to update you on what I’ve done since I’ve been back though. On the Tuesday I got back I caught up on everything that has been going on since I left and went to Navs in the evening. I was quite tired, and was rambling a lot about anything that anybody said to me. - This was the case before Navs as well. I even got an awesome “Welcome back Luuk” cake, which I wasn’t expecting, but was very cool and yummy. I had a good 9.5 hours sleep and went to work the next day feeling pretty good. I spent the rest of the week regularly feeling very sleepy in the afternoons though…

On Friday night we had a cocktail party at Matt’s place which was good fun, although I was driving, so couldn’t sample all the concoctions. On Saturday we had a LAN at Gordon’s, where I actually won the occasional track in trackmania and the occasional map in MOHAA which made for a nice change. Then I went to Michelle’s 21st, which had a Barbie theme. I even prepared for it and went online to look at some options. In the end I decided against swimsuit Barbie and went as “Barbie Cali Girl Ken” which involved wearing board shorts a singlet and jandals, which I managed ok, although due to not shaving I was a lot more manly than the Ken in the photo… Lots of fun, and some very disturbing costumes…

On Sunday I went to church, and then came home, planning to achieve lots with my day, but instead did very little…

Anyway, here I am an hour later with a post about how productive I’m being, so I should probably actually do something…

I’ve been lacking motivation/not even thinking about posting about the rest of my holidays recently. I read the Chronicles of Narnia last week, which could have something to do with it… Yep, all 7 of them.

My weekend was quite good too. Saturday we had the end of season 7-a-side soccer tournament in the morning in the rain with cold Southerly winds. Despite not winning anything and being cold it was still a lot of fun, although it did highlight my lack of exercise over the last 2 months. I’m still feeling it actually.

On Saturday night I went round to Mark’s place and watched the rugby, which was a fantastic game. Well worth the watch. Mark appears to have a phobia of M&Ms - he has never eaten one in his life. I have now tried unsuccessfully offer him all 3 flavours - original, peanut and crispy. How could you possibly refuse such sweet chocolatey deliciousness?

Sunday night we watched The Interpreter. I was sure I had seen subtitles for some of the foreign language sections on the plane, but the only result of trying to see if they were there somewhere by turning on English subtitles was to see “[Speaking Ku]” on the screen. I will find them!