one of the canals during Queens Day
Lucky Lake... near the hostel/caravan park I stayed at.Overall, Amsterdam was not fun. Exciting, but not fun.
Well, it definitely would've been better had I had a friend or ten to accompany me around the craziest little city on Queens Day. At least, it would've been nice to have had someone to meet up with there (ie Wesley), but I won't get into that, and instead will decide to give it another chance another day.
I did manage to get a Dutch, Iranian's and Canadian's number in good ol Holland. I suppose that's always a...compliment?
The Canadian, Dave, 27, I met in Barney's, when I decided to get some pancakes for breakfast, and he is actually planning on coming to London in a few days to meet up with his dad (who supposedly owns a mining business in South Africa). Whatever. I was very grateful for his 40 minutes of conversation.
I enjoyed the scenery and took a couple of pictures, but it was freezing and raining and just not my weekend. I did reflect on a lot of things.
OH, and I could've gotten brought to jail because the police caught me without a ticket for the metro, but lucky me, was instead escorted to the ticket booth where he let me off the 34.70 euro fine, and allowed me to continue on my journey with a 1.60 ticket. teehee.
I also got let off the hook of not paying the bus driver, Kelvin, 40s, (the Iranian, and he insisted i not pay), because he enjoyed our 5 minute conversation so much, he gave me his business card (taxi service) and instead offered to take me to Amsterdam himself. He also dropped me off at my hostel instead of the bus stop that was further away. how thoughtful.
and the Dutch man, Tom, who reminds me of a cross between Dick van Dyke and Willy, was nice, but according to Dave, not to be trusted. (FYI, I don't plan on calling any of these people, so do not worry...or get your hopes up)
Gosh, can't a girl travel alone in peacethankyou?
But I'm safe and sound and enjoying every last minute of London I can.
Today, Saela and I went to the V&A. Then to the Trocadero for the arcade games and acted like children with free money. Essentially, that's what happened. We started playing those bloody 2p games where you aim a 2 Pence piece into a moving shelf which should thereby knock more 2 pence pieces into your wallet. We got the hang of it rather quickly however lost our money even quicker. (relax, it was only 60 p)
We then wandered to the other floors and found a 10 pence piece game when all of a sudden Saela's eyes lit up and whispered "Nicole! look!" and there were 2 shiny stacks of 10 pence pieces. We waited around to see if anyone came back, and looked for cameras. after a couple of minutes we decided we were going to count the stacks and return it saying if anyone claimed the right amount, it'd be rightfully theirs, if not, we get it. Well that was all going good and well until we ran back to the 2p games and exchanged our 10p pieces for 2p pieces. (altogether, it was about 5 pounds). We spent it like crazy people addicted to gambling and winning lousy 2 p coins. So much so, we lost it all (I kept the 60p i had lost before). Then she said to push the game so the pieces would fall. We did and the alarm went off, so I ran away.
After that, we went to Tesco to get candy and ate it til we got sick, and later watched Napoleon Dynamite.
Always an adventure with Saela around.
