Two Beers and a Pretzel

So Friday was another fun dinner with Ingrid’s parents and friends at their favorite bar.

At some point ingrid and I got into a fight

I clearly won.  She claims that I threw the snowball from point blank range, but I swear I was at least 2 meters away and simply used the old fake throw followed by a real throw and got her on the way back up from a flinch.  Actually, she got me pretty good in the face too…

Then it was driving in the snow back to Dordrecht to catch the train to Amsterdam.  Even with the hyper efficient train system here, it took us about 2 hours to make the trip because of delays and cancelled trains.  When we finally got there, we got our room and stashed our bags before heading out to the nearest bar.  It happened to be an Irish pub with a very happy bartender who gave us ‘Hot Whiskey’ (Irish whiskey, hot water, sugar, lemon wedge, and cloves).  It warmed us up quick, but we had to leave when a very strange Norwegian guy would not stop talking to us at the bar and kept asking very odd questions.  Luckilly, one of Ingrid’s friends called, so we had a destination.

As for the destination, dance clubs in Amsterdam play the same crappy R&B mix music as American clubs, except that in American clubs they occasionnaly mix in something good like Johnny Cash or the Beatles, or Rolling Stones.  In this club, it was a non-stop deluge of crappy dance music.  Now also imagine a crowded club.  Multiply that by 5.  And another 2x for good measure.

Ingrid’s friend and his friends left with us to go to another place closer to our hotel called Bubbles.  Same story, different bar.  Eventually (like 5 AM) I started feeling sick and left.  I got to the hotel, but could not fall alseep.  No heat in the room, fire alarms, and a general queesy feeling.  I bit the bullet and just got up around 9 to find a pharmacy and get some breakfast.

 They have BIG pancakes here…  probably because this pancake house was next to a Coffie Shop (hash bar) and they get a lot of people coming in with the munchies.

When I got  back to the hotel, Ingrid was getting ready to go shopping and go out for breakfast herself.  I took a nice 2 hour nap.  When she got back, we headed to the Ryksmuseum and saw a lot of cool paintings, but the clear highlight was Rembrandt’s Night Watch.  WOW.  If you’ve never seen any of Rembrandt’s work in person, it’s amazing.  Photos do not do it justice.  It’s hard to explain, but he adds textures and 3D elements like no one else… then top it with his dramatic use of light and you can see why he was a true master.

After the museum, we headed out for dinner before meeting my surfing buddy Linda at BOOM-Chicago for a comedy improv show.  In a long standing family tradition, they asked for a name when I bought out ticket’s so I used the name ‘Fuzzy Bunny’ – and the staff got a kick out of it.  That show has been running for 10 years, and it put on by an American cast.  This one was a compare and contrast between America and the Netherlands.  Very funny.

Then Ingrid, Linda and I went back to the Bubbles bar, but this time we were the first ones there.

It was much more fun, possibly because we left just after it got really crowded at around 2 AM.  Again, the room was freezing, again there was a fire alarm – so when we checked out, I complained.  They could/would not refund me anything since I pre-paid on Expedia… but they did give us both free breakfast (valued at about $18 each – worth about $5).

Then we walked thru the Vondelpark in the fresh snow and checked out Dam square.

A little while later we got to the train station…  just in time to find out that all rail traffic in Holland has been suspended due to bad weather.  OK, seriously, Dutch people – it was 3 inches of snow, your country is FLAT, and we’re talking about big TRAINS here…  This should not be a problem.  This reputedly efficint and well kept rail system is really getting on my nerves. 

So, in the spirit of adventure, Ingrid and I decided to hitchhike home.  Around the back of the train station, we started thumbing for rides and immediately got a delivery truck to take us to some small train station outside of town, but very near a busy freeway on-ramp heading South.

Then we got a ride in a really screwed up little delivery truck with two strange ladies that ended up taking us North instead of South. 

They dropped us at a freeway intersection in the middle of nowhere… when we were luckilly picked up by a nice lady in a Mini Cooper who took us back to the small train station.  This time we decided to create a sign saying where we were heading.  We also met Sabine, another stranded rail passenger.

We found a nice guy in an SUV that took the three of us all the way to Rotterdam (where I snapped a nice pic of the skyline at night).

There, Ingrid an I found a convenience store cleck who gave us free soup, and found yet another delivery truck to take us to her apartment…  and he dropped us right at the door!

So what should have been a 45 minute train ride became a 6 hour hitchhiking adventure in Holland, in the middle of winter.

I had a great night last night with the Brazilians.  We had to wait on the girls, but we still got to the club before 2 am.  Once there, it was a pretty typical euro-style disco playing mostly Argentinean & Latin dance music.  A beautiful Argentine girl started talking to me.  About a half hour later she told me how old she was….  20 years younger than me.  I’m not used to clubs where girls that young are allowed in.

I made it back to the pack of Brazilians for a while.  There was also a cute girl from North Carolina that somehow ended up partying with us all night.

We all danced for a while.  Then the club completely stopped around 4 am.  A curtain opened up, and there was a 1/2 hour runway modeling lingere show.  Since my grandpa is having heart trouble right now, he should not watch this video….

Directly opposing my mugging experience, almost every Argentinean in this club was interested in where I was from and how much I liked Buenos Aires.  I can’t even tell you how many people I met.

We left the club around 6:30 am during daybreak.  I hadn’t done that since Acapulco in 2000.

FUTBOL!!!

I slept until noon, then got up to get ready for the futbol game.  Boca (the team with the stadium I saw yesterday) and San Lorenzo.  Major crosstown rivals.  The hostel booked us on the Boca side of the stadium, which was a mixed blessing.  Boca won 3-1, but we got there 3 hours before the game and had to stand the whole time.  It was unpleasantly like being in a mosh pit tilted at 45 degrees for 6 straight hours.  I’m exhausted.

I thought it would be OK, but just before the game started, 20 shirtless guys showed up and pressed their way around me.  They all had tattoos of Jesus, and the Boca team logo.  I was not allowed to bring my sunscreen in with me (you get frisked 3 times before you can enter), but these guys collectively had about half a pound of weed.  You can see the Fidel Casto looking guy toking in this pic.

Don’t I look happy?!?!

I’m not sure what this says about this guy, but you have to really like a movie pretty badly to do this…

Other things they apparently did not check for at the gate were massive banners, fireworks and smoke bombs.  People were setting them off constantly.  In team colors, of course…

The oddest part for a North American at an event like this is getting used to the total lack of personal space.  I might as well have become best friends with the six people immediately surrounding me.  Their sweat is all over my shirt.  There are no seats or railings.  Each time Boca scored, the crowed pushed forward – forcing you to jump down 2-3 steps with everyone else.

They cheer and wave their arms all game.  I got nailed in the head with an elbow a few times by the guy behind me.  I decided to teach these guys the Canadian martial arts of shoulder checking and high sticking.  They still leaned on me after that, but no one elbowed me anymore.

The best part was just before the game started and at halftime when the fire department came in and hosed down the crowd for 10 minutes.

The fans here put American Football fans to shame.  They bring their own drums to play the whole time while everybody sings and yells for the entire pre-game, game, halftime, and post-game.  Six hours.   And that’s without serving alcohol in the stadium.  No seats (not even bleachers), no concessions – just a few vendors selling popsicle’s before the game started.  The fact that there seem to be no rules other than “don’t bring knives, guns, or sunscreen” may contribute to the madness.

As far as stadium experiences go, this makes my top 10 – just barely, but it’s in there…

#1 – being 20 ft from Sam Wyche at the Bengals-Seahawks game in the late 90′s when he grabbed the stadium mic and yelled “You’re not from Cleveland” to the unruly crowd.

#2 – Watching Kirk Gibson jack one out of old Tiger Stadium back in the 80′s.

#3 – Seeing “The Great One” in “The Joe” when he played for the Oilers (again, in the 80′s).

#4 – UC Beats a ranked Wisconsin team in Football.  We rushed the field and tore down the goal posts.

#5 – UC Bearcat Basketball season tickets during Kenyon Martin’s senior year.  Bummer about the broken leg in the post season – we could have won the NCAA championship that year.

#6 – Being the first to do the Icky Shuffle on the field at halftime the week after it was banned from the NFL.

#7 – Green Bay in sub-zero temps with girls in Bikinis and drunk, shirtless guys.

#8 – Yankees at Indians.  Some lady sitting in front of me was waving across the stadium and on her cell phone telling whomever it was “no, over here”.  I stood up behind here and did the “spank the booty” dance.  Whoever was on the phone laughed loud enough for us to hear it.  She turned around just after I sat back down.  Ask Steve – that’s true!!

#9 – Luxury suite at the Blue Jacket’s for Joe’s 30th birthday – then skating on the ice after the game.

#10 – The 6 hour mosh-pit of Boca vs San Lorenzo.  I wouldn’t do it again, but it was worth doing once.