Marksy

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and I got up early to prepare for our pal Marksy to come stay. I found a single mattress stuffed in one of the communal closets. I pulled it out, and headed off to the train station.

Took a tram to Centraal and hung around to meet up. Eventually found him and took him back home. We dropped his gears off at the Van Eeghenstraat pad and then us 2 lads went for a look around town.



This is the Iguana park. "Hello Colin !?!". These brass statues look very real, especially on a grey day - I've done double-takes on the ma few times. We walked around the shops and then headed back to the pad to prepare for some drinks and food out.

We met up with the Dutch and went to a classic Dutch pub (whose name I dont know). We all tried the local favourite, Amster beer, talked some, sank a few more, talshkd, drinkded, tshalked then ...

then headed down to the cheap Italian pizza! We said goodbye to the Dutch after dinner and had a wander around the red light district. Yes, its actually pretty un-seedy. There are red lit windows and pretty girls in undies. You can wander around and window shop (so to speak). Not really our scene, but novel to wander around and observe.

Sunday we decided to try a few local foods, including some not-very-nice ones. His face says it all...



We all went for a Sunday walk thru the Vondelpark and saw all manner of doggies on their outings. Lots of great doggy-spotting in the park. I read a news article noting that the council here allow sex in Vondelpark; but dogs must be kept on a leash. Make of it what you will.

Mark felt a little ill that afternoon, so we let him rest and have a shower (ask him how he felt). We all had a lazy afternoon watching crap TV - you know, that reality TV that keeps on repeating the same clips over and over. Its like being in a infinite loop sometimes!

For the whole week, I had to go to work :( . Marksy and Princess spent the week together, looking around and taking pictures. You can read his blog post here (http://www.mechanicalmarksy.com/?p=500) and see his neat-o pictures. Some of them are quite pretty!



There is lots of junk food options here, so we sampled lots of new things. One nice treat we found was these "Fatty-Boom-Batty" cakes that are awesome. I don't know their names, but MMmmMmmmmm! We ended up drinking and nerding most nights. Lucky we had 3 laptops!



One night we went for a walk through town past this building I spotted cycling by a few weeks ago. Its all blue-lit and it looks like its hollow. We spent the 4 euro to get into the Sex Museum, and looked at all the weird and wonderful variety in sexual expression thought the ages. Plus its fun to point and giggle..



I know Mark found it amusing.

So yes, lots of computing - its much better then conversation and all that kind of thing. Why talk when we can just instant message? Or skype?



Another geek glamor shot.



This is a nice pic of Marksy checking the street below. Unfortunately he might be smoking a cigarette - thats naughty! I hear that he has given up now - hope so.



I usually take one cigarette out of his pack, out it down my pants and wiggle around a bit. Then I slip it back into the pack and give it a shake. Instant dis-incentive. I think that deep down he appreciates it even if he does get grumpy on the outside. Marksy took some nice pictures around town; check this one out:



...and in the window...



Yes, its as bad as you think it would be. But seriously, some of his pictures are very pretty.



Amsterdam has a style best summed up by my cousin, Scott:

lol, gingerbread houses!

We planned on hiring a bike for Marksy, but while we were looking for a rental shop we stumbeld across some people racing up and down the canal in bathtubs! it looked like a charity event, and looked cold!



I never found any information on why they were doing it, but I'm sure it was something very scouting-like. We got Marksy a bike and took a bike ride around a few local parks in Amsterdam: Vondelpark and Rembrantspark.



We pulled some skids and chirped a wheelie here and there. My bike survived a few bunny-hops and a jump over a ramp. I wasn't confident, but the bike has proven very solid so far.



There is a video that I'll be putting up on youTube soon with us doing some ace skids. Stay tuned. Was awesome fun to have Marksy stay - we had all manner of shennanagins!