In Amsterdam at about 11:34pm...a drugged up 50 year old junky stuck a revolver into my ribs and offered me two choices: money or pistole. I wasn't sure what he meant by "pistole" but I guess he meant pulling the trigger. I slowly raised my wallet...and he took my money and vanished. I thought he was going to sell me his gun since I gave him 100 Euros...but he didn't. Go Figure... Spent next morning in Police Station trying to fill out a police report in Dutch. They gave me free coffee so it all balances out in the end... Lost 100 Euros but it was my social donation....hopefully that cracked up crackhead used my money to buy his kids some ice cream.
CAUGHT IN PILOT STRIKE!
After traveling from Canada for 10 hours...I arrived in London to catch my connecting flight with dry contacts, dry mouth and feeling wrecked. I couldn't sleep on the flight because of baby's crying, parents fighting, bad food and getting wrecked on many bottles of wine, whiskey, and rum. It would have been okay if the 5 hours of movies were good....but it was movies I saw once before and swore I would never see again... oh well....I was happy that I was 45 minutes away to Ireland by plane... went to the counter to reconfirm my ticket and they said....sorry sir there is a strike...there are no flights for 5 days....and there are no hotel rooms/hostel rooms because it is World Cup Weekend and the Queen's Jubilee Celebrations... they said my bags had been lost and I needed to line up for 2 hours in a stressed out line to get my new ticket reissued. They also said they couldn't compensate me because it was the fault of the pilots and not the company. I turned lemons into lemonade by kicking my carry on luggage a few times to let out some aggression...and heading on the tube to go explore London for five days. Lucky the sidewalk didn't become my bed...as a old friend offered his couch!