Fireworks, oh my.

Published on Aug. 14, 2003 in Netherlands

I have stooped to a new low.  You may be asking, "what bout Ana."  She would be disappointed in me, that is what.  Why?  Reasons,  Complicated reasons.  Californication is playing in the background, and I am very content.  Why? I am sitting in a KFC.  Somebody just spoke to me in some language about my PDA that I am typing on -- in Den Haag in a KFC.  How disappointing.

We arrived on the 14th at about 11:30pm at night or so.  The train ride took a while with a few transfers, and one delay due to "air conditioning."  Whatever, I can live with it.  Well,

Phew!  It is now the 18th, and a lot has happened since that Well.  Let me backtrack to where I was however.

So, we had to switch trains, Another great story!

Ok, back to the story.  We arrived rather late and all the hostels and all the hotels were full.  Another girl tagged along with us to find a hostel, however we had no such luck.  A guy first met up with us and asked us if we needed a place to stay, indeed we did but it was really sketchy.  And next, he met up with us again and we all agreed.  We went back to his place and crashed at his apartment, for like 30 euro each, ahh!  I know, it was expensive, but we had to sleep somewhere!  The next morning we woke up and left, went and checked our bags at the airport, and wandered around the town.  Quite enjoyable wandering around, walked through the red light district, but nothing really nice happened.  Amsterdam was not really my city - people were smoking wee everywhere, but it just wasn't my thing.  That night at about 6:30 I jumped on a train to the Hague, where I had reservations and everything.  Checked into my EXPENSiVE hostel and  left immediately.

Which brings me to KFC.  At the end of the "Well" above the two guys started talking English to me, and we chatted for a while.  Very kind, and they offered to take me out on a tour. I went, and got the unofficial official tourist tour.  Walking around we went to the main part of town, saw all the government buildings, and then went to the embassies and saw them.  Quite a good tour.  We ended up at their flat (one of their lats) and had a few beers.  Luckily one of the guys was a computer nerd similar to me, so we chatted for a while about computer stuff, which always bonds people.  Next they asked if I as going to the fireworks they told me about earlier, and I said that I would try and make it.  They  i invited me with them, so of course I went.  We jumped on a tram that was q quite full, and went down to the pier.  We went through thousands of people and sat on the beach.  At 10:00 Sweden went and at 11:00 the Nederlands went, it was a Europe competition for the best fireworks.  Amazing fireworks, in between these two fireworks we went to see a casino, and they both won a little bit of money.  That is always nice.  After the second fireworks we wandered over to a bar , ordered drinks, and drank really quickly.  I ended up running home because of a 1:00am curfew.  The next day I woke up, pretty early, found a grocery store, ate food, came back to the hostel, and fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon.  I slept for the entire afternoon!  Woke up at 8:00pm, got ready, and met Rene and Sytze at 9:00pm.  We drank a few more beers and headed down to the beach again.  Fireworks again, and afterward we drank a lot o vodka.  Eventually we made it back to their apartment, met up with some of their friends, drank a few more beers, they smoked some hash, we laughed, Rene passed out, and eventually Sytze took me on his bike back home.  The next day I woke up rather early to the whines of a japanese girl, packed my stuff, and checked out.  I went to the train station and jumped on a train to Rotterdam.  An hour and a half later I arrived in Rotterdam, walked around, took a few pictures, wandered around some more, jumped on a train to Amsterdam, and then got on a train to Coppenhagen.  Overnight train to Copenhagen, ahhh!  I was in a room with two people from Portugal and also a couple of Sweden.  Now I am in Copenhagen, about to go biking, and so goodbye!