Pauleblog: Juli 2007

Well, before you start reading my post, download the Song "Gorillaz - Kids With Guns" here (3rd choice) and play it - I found it at http://www.joy-port.com

It took me several hours to write this post, so please only read it if you have enough time for it. However most of it consists of pictures, what means, it won't take you too much time.

I see you aren't playing the song yet, so just do it!

Okay, that's much better. Now enjoy!

Lets start right off: Several months ago, my Cousin Martin and me were on vacation to Amsterdam. A friend of us lived there for several months - so we didn't have to pay for accomodation.

Here is another link to Martin's blogspot; to a post, in which our journey is documented.

We took the train straight to Amsterdam and, of course, began to party as soon as we entered the train. Equipped with alcohol, MacBook (this means music creme de la creme) and a power supply built in in our train section, we were having a real good time.

As we noticed soon, our friend had a "flat" in an old russian ship, which has been converted to a place for students to live.

When we arrived, we really had a lack of sleep: We travelled for about 18 hours and drank so much alcohol that even Dionysus would have worried about us. 30 minutes after being awake, first weed from the coffee shop :P

On the following day we were able and ready to explore this multicultural metropolis. We passed by several bordels, coffee shops and so called "Smart Shops", where you can buy magic mushrooms right out of the fridge.

Oh, and by the way: These guys know how to make business in a country in which weed is legal:

In the middle of the night a shop, which just sells candies...

The candy and cake section in a super market: I have never seen such a great choice; at least not in a shop of that size; i think 20-25% of the whole space was reserved for candies and cake.

Besides of being a drug paradise, Amsterdam also offers unique architectural masterpieces:

If you ran out of music, refresh your media player with this song (Console - My dog eats beats) - download the first file.

In this metropolis, you won't go far by car. So there are many alternatives like train, bus or of course, bicycle. You can't imagine how many people there go by bike. I think there are more bicycles in this city than in any other here in Europe. If you don't believe me, check out the following pictures i've taken.

This here is a parking block just for bicycles, I mean, in our country we use this size for cars, I mean, Oh My God!!

Watch the breadth of the sidewalk. Maybe I should mention, that the lane on the right is not for cars, but for cyclists...

Second hands fietsen...

And guys, i can tell you that these people are really taking care of their bikes not to get stolen. I haven't seen a bicycle, which was newer than 15 years; I guess there really is a reason for that, if you may see on the pics below. I took some snapshots: Pay attention to their locks...

Half of the space in our accommodation...

my own 2 square metres...

most important equipment :]

view out of the bull's eye

...and Quake for entertainment :)

One day, as I was really sleepy and didn't want to go out into town with the other two guys, I decided to stay at home and to wait for them to come back. I couldn't leave the ship, because you couldn't go back inside without keys... So I was waiting for several hours in a room not bigger than my bathroom :[
You can imagine what I have done in this period of time (O.O). I made a short video clip to capture the mood in here:

But finally, the great day has come: Club 11. It has this name, because it is in the middle of the town and in the 11th floor. As my cousin won € 300,- in the casino in the same night, he decided to pay all the drinks there. Here is a scene, in which we enter the elevator in this building after one whole hour of queuing. Pay attention to the sound:

Entering Club 11:

Parteyyyyy!!!

I really loved the plug-ins in there, so I captured one of them. I found the idea crazy and brilliant to same parts:

During our vacation, there were really funny moments while being stoned and drunk.

(While asking my Warcraft III - friend Jim from greece, what would be the right word for a condition of being drunk and stoned at the same time, he was thinking about it for several minutes and gave me the following, ingenious answer:
"In addition to our unexisted self-imposed limits, we threw ourselves in an extraordinary mixture of sensations. Mentally and physically, we became slaves of a divine pleasure offered by chemicals and alcohol... a precious gift, worthing for everyone to sacrifice temporarily his freedom to taste it...")

I have picked some quotes from my cousin here (It's not the very same meaning when translating them into english).

After finished to prepare for smoking a spliff and to set up a good playlist:
"Ich mach mal eine Reise ins Wunderland. Auf Wiedersehn ihr Idioten!"
(I'll make a trip to wonderland. Cheerio, idiots!)

Martin is really overwhelmed, because our host and me wanted him to do something at the same time:
"Ich steh im Zimmer und mein Gehirn gibt mir auf einmal keine Befehle mehr"
(I'm standing in this room and all of a sudden, I don't receive any more commands from my brain)

There is no end in sight:
"Drogenurlaub ist ein Scheiß dagegen!"
(Drug vacation is nothing in comparison to this!)

Translated to english: "Hey Martin, how does the mushroom, how does the mushroom?"