Email (7 Sep '07)

Hi!

I'm in London!

I'm going to a music festival (www.bestival.net) on the Isle of Wight with Justin and Meri for the weekend, so it's an early night tonight and I figured it was emailin' time.

OK from the beginning:

The airport at Incheon in Korea is cool. So is the Hyatt Regency hotel. That's all I know about that country. I spend some of their crazy Korean funbucks but I never found out what they were called. The Koreans do not, as I had hoped, have free wireless broadband everywhere. I think I paid like 3000 funbucks for an hour or something. Their pedestrian crossings talk to you and play music. Music like when you win at the pokies.

The flights were adequate. I have neither praise nor scorn for Korean Air. They got me and all my stuff there without a fuss.

I landed in Holland and my suitcase became my Nemesis for an hour and a half. Train, walk, tram, walk, 3 flights of narrow stairs. Flying Pig Uptown hostel in Amsterdam. Then I went downstairs to the bar and by the end of a pint of Dommelsch my anger had completely subsided and I met some Canadians who helped me drink their pitchers of beer. We didn't leave the hostel that night. There are photos on Flickr of the balloon creatures some guy was making.

The next day I wandered around Amsterdam during the day. I saw all sorts of cool stuff but I didn't read any of the signs or learn anything about the city, or go into any museums because secretly my mission was to find somewhere to buy shampoo. Beer, pot, and magic mushrooms are so much easier to get in Amsterdam than shampoo is. Oh, I did go into one place apart from the supermarket and the chemist: Burger King. So, back to the hostel, use the cleaning products, back down to the bar, food at a pub around the corner with the Canadians, back to the hostel, repeat previous evening. This time they had juggling balls and I spent waaay too long using them.

Next morning Josh the guy from New York, who I've numbered amongst the Canadians, is sitting around with his (awesome Mac) laptop trying to find something to do. Apparently Noordwijk has a beach. I'd been doing lots of drinking in Sydney, then flying, then more drinking in Amsterdam, so beach action sounded good and I cancelled the rest of my nights in the 'Dam to go to Noordwijk. Turns out there's a Flying Pig in Noordwijk too and we go there to ask for directions to the other place. A couple of beers later and we're like "do you have any rooms left here?". So we stayed there for the rest of the night. This is when I met Lionelle the French Canadian girl from Scotland and developed a new disdain for sand. I think she's in Rome now.

Next day Josh and I wandered around to find somewhere for breakfast and basically just spent all morning sitting in a cafe watching the Dutch and the tourists go past. The waiters were cool and brought us free beer. Got a Dutch SIM card and pretty much decided that once again, the hostel was the best place to be. After the sun went down at 9:00 we had a fire on the dunes with a bunch of people from the hostel.

Next day I met up with Tineke and her friends in Amsterdam and we went to Texel (tessel), ostensibly to see the seals. Texel is an island off the North end of Holland. This is one of the places where you find the windmills, the tulips, the bicycling amongst sand dunes and farms and people actually using their clogs. We barred the whole seal thing 'cos it cost too much and we were hungry as.

So then I stayed in Utrecht with Tineke (she was studying there, but is now in Geneva doing clever, important things for no money). The first night we got super-kickass pancakes and she took me on a pub crawl until we ended up at a music bar and met up with a bunch of her friends, including Centine, from Woollongong, whose name I keep getting wrong. That there was an awesome night.

I think Tuesday was the "BBQ" night at Tin's, at which we ate spaghetti.

Now I should mention here that Utrecht is awesome. It's got some seriously ancient buildings and it's canals are apparently unique. There's a whole storey gap between the roadway and the canal, which means there are all sorts of bars and cafes along the sides of the lower level, with tables outside along the canal. The pancake place and the music place we went to on Monday night were both on the lower level. So during the day I wandered around looking at all the cool stuff and occasionally stopping for a beer or to read in the sun. The big thing to see in Utrecht is the Dom tower, which I embarrassingly remain largely ignorant about. It's a big bell towery clock thing and it's really old. I have about a million photos of it on Flickr. Anyway I really like the place. The people are friendly and everyone speaks English. There are heaps of places to go. It's a big student town so there's a great night life. Best of all, it's possibly cheaper than Sydney. Oh and it has a huge electronics shop that puts everything in Sydney to shame. If I can get a job there, I'm going to take it.

Wednesday we went to a party and drank "cannabis flavoured" absinthe. It wasn't really cannabis flavoured but it sure as hell was absinthe.

Thursday I went to Rotterdam and wandered around during the day. Rotterdam's pretty cool, but I really should have gone at night. By the time the night life was about to start I was knackered and went home. Sightseeing really isn't a talent of mine, though I am getting better at it.

Friday was a day in Amsterdam with Centine and some of her friends. I think I really did Amsterdam properly this day despite spending a lot of it sitting around in the park. When night fell we wandered into lots of different coffee shops and pubs and did the inevitable tour through the red light district. No, I still haven't been to any of the museums. I will go back though.

So I'm done with Holland now for the moment. I'm sitting in bed at Justin's place in Dulwich, London, I've got my English bank account sorted and a British phone number. I'm heading to the Isle of Wight for a music festival this weekend and I've seen many of the landmarks around London. I've got the hang of the tube and I've got a ton of photos. There are a few more things I want to see before I leave, and I haven't really digested the stuff I have seen properly yet. There's a gallery with a Dali exhibition and a Star Wars exhibition on at the same time, but I only found it after it had closed today, so I'm going to have to go next week. My body clock has adjusted to sleep in just as much as I always did, so every day starts late.

Sorry I got a bit carried away with storytelling. I like stories. So that's it really, anyway. More on London when I've figured out what I really think about it.

I think I'd like the next stop to be France, but I'm not sure if I can swing that 'cos the Rugby World Cup is on and it'll be hard to get accommodation.

OK! Enough!

Hope everyone's happy and well. Do lots of things!

T