4-8-05 - Beer Bike Recap
4-7-05 - NBA Regular Season Wrap-up
1-5-05 - New Year, Same Debauchery
12-1-04 - Behind the Curtain: Poker
11-17-04 - November Thoughts
11-11-04 - Lingerie Ball Recap
10-31-04 - NBA West Preview
Archives
As most of you know, some of my friends and I recently returned home from a week long trip to Amsterdam. This trip had been a long time in planning. Last summer, when their incomes were both equally stable, Jeff and Hari decided that they wanted to visit Rob in Azerbeijain. After a quick check on prices, they decided that it would be both more fun and more cost effective to meet halfway in Amsterdam. As time went by, the trip just started expanding. Kevin and Reid made there love connection and decided that a romantic European vacation could be magical. I started to win at poker, so I had no excuse not to skip a week of law school (umm, whoops). Also, when I was feeling flush with cash, a plane ticket seemed like a good Christmas/birthday gift for my brother. Blake hooked on when he figured out that he could fit it into his med school rotation schedule and G decided to make Amsterdam the starting point for his previously planned European vacation. Jon and Reid could stay with a friend who was studying in Amsterdam, and at the last minute, G came
1) Up All Night - Razorlight
2) Jolene - Ray Lamontagne
3) Make Up - Elefant
4) All These Things I've Done - The Killers
5) Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) - The Arcade Fire
6) Naked as We Came - Iron & Wine
7) Goodnight, Goodnight - Hot Hot Heat
8) Sleepless and Tooting - Rachel Goswell
9) All I Need - Damon Aaron
10) Some Incriminating Photographs - The Faint
-No matter what time of day it was, no matter where you were, two hot blonde girls would be riding by you on bicycles.
-European music taste is as bad as advertised. We'd be standing in what amounted to a sports bar, and we'd hear Robbie Williams. We'd be in a coffeshop and would hear a Phil Collins marathon. Pure hell.
- The city is much more picturesque than I had imagined. Something about the canals and the age of the buildings makes you feel like you are living a movie. Even the architecture in the Red Light District was quaint during the day.
- Rembrandt is overrated.
- The national food seems to be french fries with mayonaisse.
- The people were polar extremes...95% were incredibly friendly and helpful, but the other 5% tried to make up for it.
- Bitterballen is possibly the greatest food ever. What's in it? When asked, Jon and Reid's Danish friend replied it, "Pure Awesome". About sums it up.
Although I could provide another thousand words on the charms of the city, I know that is not what you want. You guys want stories...and I am only too happy to oblige. While reading this, keep in mind that we all had an incredible number of toxins in our bodies throughout the week. Let's just say that my recall is not total. Paying homage to New Orleans 2004, here are:
THE AMSTERDAM AWARDS
Best Way to Do Europe Cheaply - Gamble - Put away those "How to Do Europe on $10 a Day" books...all you need to do is limit yourself to countries that have casinos and learn how to play blackjack. It worked for Hari, Kevin, and I...but let's not talk about Jeff...
Worst Use of College - Jon - On the first night we were in Amsterdam, Jon, Hari, Kevin, Jeff, and I capped our night off by visiting the first coffee shop of the trip. We bought some pot, found a table, and prepared for our first real Dutch experience. Unfortunately, none of us knew how to roll a joint. You never feel more like a tourist then when Jeff has to get the middle aged Italian hippies sitting next to us to roll our joint for us. So why do I single out Jon for this failure? He went to Trinity. If you can't learn to roll a joint there, then what is your diploma really worth?
Dumbest Drunk - Me - It is never a good idea to get so drunk on your first night in a new place that you are yelling "Rugby Players are Pussies!" to three guys in rugby shirts and yelling "Fuck You" to everyone else who walks by.
Biggest News - Rob and Anne's engagement - Ok, its official. Rob is the worst liar ever. On his first night in town, we were all talking at a happy hour. One of us jokingly asked Rob when he was getting engaged and when he stumbled over an answer, Blake and I looked at each other and knew. Before he got even a portion of the story out, I was standing on a chair announcing his engagement to the bar and buying a round of shots. It turns out Rob skipped out on a snowboarding in Iran (a HUGE sacrifice, if you know Rob) and flew to Africa to propose to Anne. She was matched (for surgery) at Baylor, and the couple will be living in Houston once he returns from the Third World. (P.S. Congrats to Aaron and Susan as well! You guys would have gotten a full paragraph too if Aaron would have been conscientous enough to wait to propose until I was ready to start writing columns again.)
Ugliest American - Rob - After Rob announced his engagement, the priority of the night was to get Rob drunk. Sometimes, you get what you wish for. When drunk, Rob's personality changes more than anyone I know...well...not counting Blake. After another round of shots, Rob was beginning to round into form. He stopped in the middle of a conversation and decided that he was annoyed that this girl Hari had flirted with earlier was talking to some other guy at the bar. Rob wasn't going to stand for this, so he threw a piece of candy at the guy. It missed its intended target, instead striking the large Eastern European bartender on his foot. This enraged the bartender, who came over to yell at Rob. After much ego stroking, we had the situation smoothed over. But Rob didn't think it was settled. So just before he split off with Jeff, G, and Blake to explore the Red Light District, he chucked another chocolate at the bartender. The bartender chased them out into the stree, screaming obscenities the whole way. And to think, Rob is the well travelled one...
Worst Babysitting Experience - Me, taking care of Kevin - After they left, Hari, Kevin and I went back to hang out with Jon, Reid, and some of the other students that we had met. After a while I was exhausted and was ready to head home, but Kevin was nowhere to be found. After thirty minutes of looking, I would have been happy to leave him but he had the only key to the apartment and one of the two cell phones we had in our group. Which he wasn't answering. This was an especially big problem because Jeff, Blake, and G would have no way of getting into the apartment, so we had to beat them back. After nearly two hours of searching for him and inadvertantly waking up half of the dorm, Kevin finally came stumbling back with a couple of the students we met earlier in the night. After much convincing, I finally got him to stumble home with me (although he did try to call Lynn about ten times on the way home...thank god he forgot to dial the country code). When we got to the apartment, we were surprised to find that the other guys weren't waiting outside for us. After we had been in the apartment for about five minutes, I heard the phone ring. I rushed to answer it, since I didn't think Kevin was in any shape to talk. Unfortunately, I ran around the corner a little too fast...and was greeted by Kevin holding the cell phone, wearing nothing but a wife beater. That image has given me nightmares since.
Best $30 Euros Ever Spent - Cover for Moulin Rouge - The reason that Kevin and I beat the other group back to the hotel was that they were having a night to remember. Once Jeff, Rob, G, and Blake arrived in the Red Light District, they decided that they had to see a sex show. They chose the Moulin Rouge. When they were paying the cover, G was adamant with the hostess that they sit up front and be as involved as possible. Again, they should have been careful what they wished for. Before the night was over, three of them would be on stage. One would orally help one of the "dancers" with her...umm...marital aid, another would be served a banana by a dancer, and a third would have "THE END" written on him by a dancer with a Sharpie. Use your imagination. From what I hear, it changed their lives.
Best Day - Monday - Woke up and had breakfast at this amazing bakery close to the apartment, read a book outside while everyone got ready, went to the Rijks but skipped out with Reid, Blake, and Jeff (we went back later), smoked pot, drank at an Irish bar, inadvertantly bought hash but Reid and I were too high to figure out how to work the tobacco machine, bought more pot, met up with the other guys, went and had an incredible dinner at this Uruguayan steakhouse with supermodel waitresses, ate a space cake, went to an awesome Ted Leo and the Pharmacists concert (one of my five favorite bands), drank at a completely empty (except for two girls) gay bar, met some Scottish girls....all in all, a very full and memorable (if very hazy) day.
Best Diss - (Name withheld to protect the guilty) - A couple of the guys went back to the Uruguayan steakhouse to attempt to hit on the gorgeous waitresses we had seen earlier. When they went back in, the host recognized them from earlier. He started to seat them in a section with a male waiter, but my friends asked if they could be seated in the girl's section. The host hesitated, then said he'd be back in a moment. He walked over to the waitresses stand, spoke to one of the girls, and came back and said, "She's not interested".
Best Cock Block - Jeff - At some point in the night, we met two twenty-one year old Scottish nursing students. I was a little too...altered...to remember how it started, but the next thing I know I am deep in conversation with one of the girls. Somehow, despite her thick Scottish accent and my less than my best state, we seemed to be showing some signs of conversational chemistry. I think I won her over when she said she was from Glasgow and I asked if she was a Rangers fan. How I drunkenly pulled out a soccer reference is beyond me, but the brain works in mysterious ways when it is trying to get laid. While I was talking to one of the girls, my friend was deep in conversation with the other. Better yet, someone tells me that we are heading to the Red Light District to go see a show with them. This night definitely seemed to be heading in a positive direction. Not wanting to be a fifth (or tenth) wheel, everyone else breaks off to go back to the apartment...except Jeff. You see, Jeff had smoked a LOT of pot throughout the day. And marijuana makes Jeff paranoid. And paranoid Jeff feels he needs to protect us. About halfway to the Red Light District, he pulls me aside to tell me that he is sure that these girls are prostitutes that are going to steal all of our money. Gee thanks Jeff...you think that the only way a girl could possibly want to sleep with me is to not only be a prostitute, but a dishonest one at that? But that little suggestion was enough to make an equally high Glenn equally paranoid. After we got to the Red Light, the girls ran into someone they had met at the hostel. While they were talking, Jeff pulls us aside and says, "Ok, we have three options: Option 1...Run!!!"" and with that, Jeff takes off running across one of the bridges over the canal. We look at each other, not knowing what to do, and take off after him and hide behind a dumpster accross the way. I'm sure those girls now have extremely high opinions of American boys.
Worst Choice of Hang Outs - Amsterdamned and Pirates - Nine guys go to Amsterdam, meet very few girls, and consistently end up in gay bars. Not exactly the script I would have written, but I have to admit, the drink specials were pretty good...
Best Street Performer - British Fire Juggler, Midget Female Singer (tie) - Couldn't choose between those two luminaries.
Most at Home - Jon and Reid (tie)- The Sheridan Boys' brothers seemed just a little too comfortable in the city. So comfortable in fact, that we wouldn't see them for good portions of every day, and they always seemed a little glazed over when we did catch up to them. Not that I'm willing to guess how they were spending there days...
Best...Drug...Ever - Mushrooms - I have never really gotten much of a thrill from drugs. Marijuana never did it for me and the other things that I tried one time didn't really have much of an effect. But let me tell you mushrooms...are...outstanding! I could write a whole column about the experience. Blake, Jeff, Hari, and I tried them on our last night in town and I think we each had a unique experience. Jeff said he enjoyed them and I never really got much of a sense of what Hari felt, but Blake and I really loved it. The best way I can describe it is that I was aware of what was going on around me and could focus when I wanted to, but I could drift off completely into my own world when I wanted to. It wasn't a very social drug, but it was great to disappear into myself. Walls would bend, colors would change, and I would see patterns, just like it is presented in the movies. At its peak, I still realized everything that I was doing, but it was like all of my problems had disappeared. I remember lying in bed, listening to my head phones, thinking how incredibly happy I was. I'm lucky I don't know how to acquire any in Houston, or I'd probably be doing it once a month.
Best Quote - Umm...I was going to attribute this one but I was denied clearance: "You can never love someone so much that it will stop you from hitting on hot girls." - This actually happened after we got back to Houston when we were recounting our time in Amsterdam. It shouldn't officially be eligible for these awards, but I thought it was too funny not to print.
Best Reason to Go to Museums - Conversation fodder - If you don't go to the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Rijksmuseum, what are you going to say when your family and co-worker asks you about your trip? Well we smoked some good...ummm...we tripped on these great mush...umm...we saw this young lady do amazing things with a ba....uhh...well, we had a lot of fun.
