vamos españa!

wien

just arrived back from vienna midnight last night. the trip was great. it was insane there -- all football, all fans, all crazy. i had never been before so it was quite nice. i got a bit lost when i arrived, because i had 6 different hostels and addresses written down, and i couldn't remember which was the one. i stumbled along a nice, drunk austrian guy, who, while trying to help me, tore my map in 3 pieces... but he did find my way, so for that i was grateful, despite the map.

i finally found the hostel ruthensteiner, checked in, and was on the hunt for somewhere to watch the spain vs russia match. i met these spanish guys from the hostel, they were sitting in a corner of the hostel talking crap about people, and i went to say something to them in spanish, which shocked them a bit... so then they invited me to stay & hang out with them... i went with them to watch the match at some bar. it was pouring rain in buckets, so everyone was soaked... of course spain won, so the streets were filled with spanish fans, flags, and chaos -- despite the rain. i was lectured all night for my support of italy, and was told it was a sin against my mother that i didn't support spain from the start.



friday morning i awoke at 7am and headed to the czech embassy.. groggy eyed, i waited for the gates to open with several others. finally the opened at 9, and i was second in line.. no sooner was i called, then the lady helping me retorted for me to leave. i looked at her dumbfounded, and explained the situation, slowly and clearly. there was a fight, and she basically put me in time out. i was asked to sit on the side, and she disappeared... for over an hour. meanwhile, there was only one other line open -- to apply for visas, so i receieved many a harsh stare, gaze, whatever you wish to call it, from the people that had followed behind me in the line. finally the visa application lady realized everybody just wanted to pick up their visas, so she started to help them. i was soon after called up, but by a different lady than before. she explained the situation to me, handed me 2 passports with visas, and told me i should be happy i got them, as it was an illegal stunt i pulled, and the other visa would have to be redone, something about one day insurance coverage. i tried to hassle her enough where she might have given it to me, but it ended up she shooed me away. i think that will be my first and last czech embassy experience.



i tried to save the rest of the day, as it was still early.. walked around the city, scouring for architectural gems... in the end i was lead on too many false paths, though i did see quite a bit. again i met with the guys friday night and they presented me with a spanish jersey, no.9 - fernando torres.. they said that would start my support for the spanish team. and it was one of the guy's birthday at midnight, so we all went out to celebrate. we had a nice salutary shot at the bar of the hostel, then headed to the wombat hostel's bar for the rest of the night. these guys cracked me up, the whole night 2 of them were hitting on girls left & right, but saying all these things to them that weren't so nice or just making stuff up in spanish -- of course none of the girls spoke or understood spanish so they thought they were saying all these romantic things, so it was pretty funny to watch for a while... and i realized i was exhuasted from the night before, that morning, and i would have to again wake up early saturday to check out.



saturday i woke up early to check out, then just roamed the city for the whole morning, then headed to the stadtpark for the afternoon -- where i feel asleep for an hour or so... i didn't realize i got a lot of sun till after i arrived in prague. red red red! i made friends fast with 2 czech guys as we were waiting for the bus, talked about football and the czech republic.. and i ended up sitting next to this girl from new york on holiday and had a nice chat about life, travel and all that jazz. it was already pretty late when i got back, but we headed to see a friend play some music, though i think it was soo late by then he had already finished. regardless, we had drinks, caught up, and had a great time.

austria bound

im going to vienna tomorrow morning for a visa run.. though i have no complaints as i am gaining a free trip from all of this. i'm packed and ready to get lost.

italy vs spain

my family -- for spain
me -- for italy

needless to say after the game i was poked fun at by my mother, my brother, and my father, not to mention my spanish friends. low, low blows. that game was rough enough, just the site of pirlo crying broke my heart.



spain is now my only hope.

football + stripping = ?

russia vs the netherlands, sad game.

luckily we caught the game in a strip club? it was a bit random, and the tvs were on mute, only crappy music blasting from the speakers.. my brother asked the woman in czech if we could pump the volume for the game, but instead she turned the volume up for us. come to find out, they couldn't turn the music off as the dancers needed it.. to do their job. fair enough? what?

it was quite difficult to get into the game as you have this woman just dancing around in front of you.. with the occasional boob popping out here and there. not to mention, the sound of the pole was louder than anything, so it really killed the whole strip dance objective, because the sound, plus the muted game, made it too comical. mind, the windows in this place are not tinted, crystal, clear glass -- and they started dancing around early, so imagine young kids walking by and just seeing boobs or a butt. i think we were all too distracted to fully engage in the game. well, at least i can say i watched a football match during a pole dance.

czech land

loooong bus ride. made friends fast with some czech kids. i thought i would easily get some sleep, but as soon as we stopped in utrecht, 1 czech kids hopped on, ready with wine, beer, and chips. they invited me to watch this strange czech movie (with the chubby guy from death at a funeral)... he's a funny guy, but that wasn't enough to captivate me for this flick. finally pulled into florenc and i was ready to pass out. headed home, showered and felt anew. caught the portugal vs germany match at the globe. damn shame, portugal lost.

tot ziens

i am packed and ready. i'm leaving tonight, heading to prague to drop off my stuff and get lost somewhere while i wait for my brother to finish his exams. i'm taking eurolines, it should be something like 18 hours i believe? its still by far the cheapest way to get around -- the train was 230 one way...

i don't know if i'm really ready to leave, but it hasn't hit me yet... i went to the office to bid my farewells and parting mementos. i will admit, despite the bitching, i will miss it a bit.

i took a long bike ride today, something like 4 hours... i got turned around, and was heading to haarlem over the highway, as soon as i left the city, but i did manage to remember the path to osdorp. the whole time i was anticipating the reunion with this memory and place.. a year later the entire town has gone through radical change -- built up like crazy. new housing projects, new fence for the park, and as i was approaching the final bridge before dijkgraafplein, i could see something was missing.




de gravin is gone! they bulldozed it. all that remains is the strip of shops behind it and the newspaper place next door (with the strange, space-like footballer statues). my heart broke a bit, and i then proceeded around the corner to see if the second hand shop was still going.. nope. gone too. at this point i was really bummed, and took a turn to the hospital, i parked the bike and walked around the perimeter for a bit. i didn't see anybody outside, so i opted to leave. the whole ride back to the city was full of flashes from that summer.. and all i could do was wonder what happened to all those people we met.. i got nostalgic i admit, and even more so, upset because de gravin was a hangout for them, away from the hospital -- and the second hand store was a major accomplishment... allowing them a chance to interact with people. that empty feeling is still with me, and feels like its growing as i get closer to leaving tonight.

forza azzurri!!

watched the match in rembrandtplein with pina... ended up meeting another italian and there were just 3 of us for italy, surrounded by an army of french nationalists. nothing to say other than, forza azzurri!!!

the last supper

yesterday was my last day at work... i had to send my last pr article, but it was taking so long, so thomas found a way to stream the italy vs romania game so we could watch it on the projector. nothing like sipping champagne and watching the game -- in style of course. when i finally finished we headed to de prins for dinner and drinks. the food and company was great... and we were lucky to catch the end of the italy game. beautiful, thank you buffon!



after the dinner we headed to the usual, finch, to catch the long awaited france vs the netherlands. everyone was squeezed in with beer in hand, pretty much impossible to breathe, much less move. it was great though, we were all together and that day will forever remain bittersweet. of course jennifer and i were rooting for france, it was impossible. so he shifted us to vodka to cover the blow after the dutch victory. everyone in the bar was going crazy, luckily they won, otherwise it would have been a bore. the rest of the night was great... i got a million pep talks from my boss, and "but why?," "you can always come back... whenever," "you are an amazing person," ... i felt like i had gone through a dr. phil love yourself session after all that. i think the big guy ended up with a huge bill of 500euros or something -- because we all drank senselessly. i ended up going with him and his girlfriend to a houseboat party, where everyone was slightly odd, so after about 20 minutes i headed home. again, i made it home, but still a mystery.

i felt a bit saddened last night, and even so this morning, though i have more of a headache still lingering.. i realize i'm a bit hesitant to leave the country/city more than anything, i will miss life here, my friends, my bike, the doner kebab smell from every corner even at 4 am.... last night was a great pinacle to the time i've lived here. at least i feel a bit more appreciated and more assured about the whole fiasco. it will be strange to not go into work on monday morning.

now i have to figure a game plan of sorts about what to do next and where that will take me.. as of now i haven't the slightest and there are too many options, with emails waiting to be responded to.

at least we had spritzers

today was a big day... i had to help present this proposal i've been working on all week with jennifer about zeeburg. we pinned everything up last night, and the big guys came in today to discuss and hear the ideas. i briefed the big guy and he basically went off what i said but in dutch.. i picked up on a lot of the meeting, and they liked the ideas presented and the fact it would boost the area -- now just little things are left to be figured out, but there's plenty of time, something like 20 years.. the head guy made a comment about how he'll be in the ground before he will see it. maybe. i'm just happy it all went well and ended on a positive note. i kind of wish i could stay to work on it, but too many other things, and i'm sure i wouldn't feel the same in 3-4 months?

met tonight at cafe toscanini off the lindengracht to watch croatia vs germany.. they had great apperitivi (including their take on farinata) and venezia spritzers (with campari - -delicious). pretty much everybody was german minus 3 or 4 of us... so it was a harsh blow at the end when they lost. afterwards we headed near the albert cuyp to watch the austria game, as it was their second hopeful.

ga turkije!

turkey just beat switzerland and amsterdam is going crazyyyy... even still people are driving around with their turkish flags, honking their horns, in the streets rejoicing.

free dinner and drinks

a friend of my boss from australia, peter, has been in town for the past 2 days, just passing through, as he is taking some holiday time... he invited jennifer and i for dinner tonight, and since we have been working nonstop all week, we both agreed it would be a welcome break. after trekking all of jordaan looking for anything open, we opted for cinema paradiso.

seems lately amsterdam is in hibernation as everyone has been flocking to their local pubs, stores closed very early, and no one on the streets - at pubs or at home. portugal was playing czech republic -- i was rooting for portugal (as i have a fond place in my heart for them, though that's as far as it goes, because they play the same way, hard at the beginning then they die off when it matters).

we ran into yvonne, irene, and gang as we were leaving.. we headed to finch to catch some drinks and watch the turkey vs switzerland match. again we ran into the girls as they had just finished dinner and headed over -- we tried to get the big guy to come out with us, but he was still in a meeting, so it ended up being 7 girls and 1 aussie; mind 6 of us were football fanatics, jennifer not so much as well as peter.

annemarie's surprise birthday

annemarie's surprise birthday was last night.. we all met at the dock on the brouwersgracht. as i was arriving there was a huge touring boat and the girls, come to find out the boat's expected corporate client canceled and they were left with all the food -- so they opted to give it to us for the party. annemarie showed and the party kicked off... though we were greeted by many a passing boat and the occasional dinner boats who docked there. met some great people, had some good talks, and then we decided to head to some friends' apt for the rest of the evening. i think i smoked too much, plus with all the wine -- it finally hit me. i ended up staying at their place till it was midnight and then figured if it got any later i wouldn't make it up in the morning for work.. i don't know how i made it home.. but i did.

zeeburg

today i went with jennifer to zeeburg, an island off amsterdam, for site analysis and citing measurements. i think after that i am dead.. i rode the whole way from the office with her on the back, up the bridges ... we illegally snuck into the site, supposedly it was forbidden and there were "hidden cameras" watching us? we had to measure the existing silos... they are HUGE!

italy vs the netherlands

italy just lost. i have no words.

salsa dancing and bike hoppers

the commercial we spent the afternoon waiting for.. pina's debut for ing

lazy saturday, met with pina, watched the football match to catch pina's spot on the ing commerical, but we either missed it or it wasn't shown. we ended up heading towards mercatorplein to meet with alessandro for a tango workshop -- and to see otros aires in an open concert... but nobody was around except some 25 or more sugar induced kids running around. so we met, and headed to a small bar next to the melkweg. later viola and some other italians showed up and we all decided, or better yet alessandro convinced us we should go salsa dancing... to this underground place by albert cuyp. i must admit, i missed that scene a bit, so it was really nice to just let go and dance around. somehow we managed to get home... though it was pina, viola, and me -- and as we were asking for directions, some guy decided to jump on viola's bike. so then there were 4. he tried to convince us to head to another party, but we ended up dropping him off at museumplein. i don't know how i made it home?

king kong

i had a fantastic weekend. went to rotterdam, spent saturday with alex.. walked around, went for coffee to cafe dudok and ran into cecile and caroline... alex was a grouch so i sent him home to nap and prepare for the king kong party, little did i know he would opt out and find a way not to go.

the king kong party was a success. all the djs were great and it was a good time had by all. che got into a fight with the stupid portuguese guy as we were leaving at about 6am... he seemed a bit foggy about the details this morning.

as i was heading to rotterdam centraal to catch the train home, i was all of a sudden surrounded by orange everywhere... there had been a friendly football match and all the fans had now dispersed and were heading to their respective homes.. little did i realize that this morning as all i had brought was an extra orange shirt, so everybody who passed me made some comment, and at this point i was just trying to be nice, so i just nodded and smiled -- god only knows what was said. all the trains to amsterdam were delayed 1-2 hours... so i just ended up hanging out at the station, talking to some dutch students.