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| High School Picture, Marika and I |
We arrived in Amsterdam in the afternoon. The boys set off to find their hostel and we boarded the tram to my friend Marika's place about 20 minutes out. Marika Freaka, she's the best, we've been buds since 2nd grade when she moved from NY to VA. We always got ourselves into harmless trouble, putting a frog in my bathroom sink, playing pranks on Marika's family members. Such good fun and such good memories. It was great seeing her, it never feels as if we have spent time apart but it had been I think about 3 or 4 years since I'd last seen her. She's one of the only people who can always make me laugh so hard I cry. Just a word, a face, and bahahah. Well, that day we went to a local bar where Marika is well-known to get some drinks and stick around for a poetry session. I stepped outside to sit by the water, walking back to the bar with my mind at ease I couldn't help but have a big smile on my face, how lucky am I, to be walking the streets of Amsterdam, to be in Europe, to be with my friends, so absolutely lucky. So we walked to a nearby restaurant, a real Dutch classic. The menu was on the wall and all in Dutch so Marika read it off to us and helped us decide. I became obsessed with this bar snack called bitterballin, seriously delicious, kinda like croquettes but I think better. After dinner we were a bit cold and headed back to Marika's place for some warmth.
The next morning we woke up and it was 11am! Agh we'd slept in so much, and sniffle sniffle now I had a cold to add to my bad health. We went to the pharmacy, then headed to a nearby park. It was so easy to sit there and enjoy the beauty of the place. It wasn't even one of the biggest or best parks in Amsterdam and it had such a variety of birds and plants. We had wanted to rent bikes, but since both of us were a bit under the weather Marika suggested we not. And after seeing the constant flow on the streets, I realized that bike riding in Amsterdam can be a bit dangerous and you've gotta be on your game. They always have the right away, which was very hard to get used to as a pedestrian. We made up some salad for dinner and we all three watched some Sex and the City, sharing laughter with a girls night.
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| Park Near Marika´s, Colors of Fall |
The next morning we woke up and took the tram to an awesome pancake place. But as I was walking on the street, shit fuck bollocks wanka, I'd left my bag on the tram. Contents: camera bag, Marika's book, $300 sunglasses. The day ended up just being a pretty stressful process of trying to locate my bag. But we got some shopping in and walked through the red street district. I thought it was quite interesting, basically every street set into different categories-white, black, asian, pregnant, so on and on. This one guy tried taking a photo and this big black lady strutted out cussing him out. Although Caitlin was repulsed by it, I thought it was pretty fascinating, I mean Marika told me that lots of these women are the richest in their area. Ok, I would never do it myself. But it was a pretty crazy spectacle and something to definitely check out once you are there.
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| Pancake House |
Caitlin went back to the house and I spent the remainder of the day waiting in line, searching for a local phone to call the lost and found, and finally I obtained the information that it would take a full day after my complaint to get my bag, and that was if, and only if, my bag had been turned in. I wasn't so upset about the contents, I mean I had my camera itself and although I lost the memory sticks of past countries, I had downloaded almost every photo from my camera to Caitlin's computer and saved it there, and I was gifted the sunglases, but I was upset about the bag. It was this cool stitched/crocheted bag I had bought in Costa Rica when these aborigenese people had visited our school. That was what I was pissed about losing. But in the grand scheme of things, I also realized this was the first time I´d lost something so far. And after 2 months, constantly on the move, I think that's a pretty good feat. Before I returned to Marika's I decided to meet up with the American guys we had travelled with. We hadn't seen them yet, I was sick and we were in different neighborhoods, but it was a definite necessity to see them before we both left the following day. I went to their hostel, was introduced to some fellow backpackers they had met at their hostel and we all went to a coffeeshop in their area. It was fun sitting and just talking about the cool places we had been in Europe, music we all liked, and what we all had going on once we got home. I said goodbye to the boys, knowing that I would definitely be visiting them in Oregon in the future.
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| Beauty of the Amsterdam Riverways |
Now ready to spend the next 23 days practicing my Spanish! Adios!
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