My New Blog

As I promised last time I updated this I have now got a new blog on the go. I know it's taken a while but Rome wasn't built in a day you know!!! Anyway, here is the new address:

http://typingaloud.blogspot.com/

See you there.

Sorry, Can You Say That Again?

So here it as promised, the long awaited next entry. On this trip I saw some amazing things, experienced a whole range of new stuff, met some odd and great people and heard some of the most ridiculous things ever. This entry is dedicated to the most idiotic comments I heard on the journey. I have left my own little snide remarks and the country of origin of the guilty party to try and pad it out a bit. I hope you are sitting comfortably because here we go:

"Can I get a no gas water?" American - surely 'no gas water' is just water.

"Is there a beach in Prague?" American - beaches, my old chum, are incredibly hard to find in countries with no coast line.

"I'm a feminist." said by a Canadian MAN, how, as a man, can you possibly be a feminist.

"What is a kilogram?" American - no comment is necessary here I feel.

"Budapest? Where is that?" American - I just about give up. Idiot, absolute idiot.

Guilty Party: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Leeds, in northern England."
Guilty Party: "Oh I know someone from Leeds, his name is Pete, do you know him?" Australian - Maybe not so much stupid as just a bit dim.

"I've just been to Croatia, someone asked me if I'd enjoyed Split, I've never even heard of Split." American - Despite the fact that about 10 years ago you couldn't switch on the news without hearing about Split and the Croatian war, she had just been in the bloody country for a week. Moron.

"North Americans speak proper English, you English don't know how to speak the language properly". Canadian - I'm sorry but that is bollocks. Words such as gotten, favor(it's got a 'U' in it for God's sake) and gnarly are proof enough that that is rubbish. The next comment provides indisputable evidence.

"Great D man." American - You mean good defending, knobhead.

When ordering food in restaurant;
Idiot: "What's the tagliatelle?"
Waitress: "It's just pasta."
Idiot: "Oh, that sounds absolutely beautiful, I'll have that." Canadian - I know this isn't really that stupid, it's just been irritating me for weeks.

"England are going to win the World Cup." Me - I'm afraid that was 4 litres of Augustiner Brau Munchen talking.

Now whilst all these comments are 'special' in their own way, I have to dedicate a whole section to one very unique American individual. He came out with all these unbelievable things:

"What? Auschwitz is in Poland?" I'm actually lost for words at this point.

"Where is Poland? The man was in Germany, it's boarder country at the time.

"What is Scandinavia anyway?" He was going to Sweden the next day. Incredible.

Commenting on Cologne Dom:
"Why is it called a Dom, it's not dome shaped at all!" In this crazy world of translations, 'Dom' means 'Cathedral' in German.

Me: "Did you know that the Dom took 600 years to build?"
Idiot:"What? And they are still building it, look!" They were doing some cleaning repairs at the time.

I know there is an overwhelming amount of statements from Americans here, and I am not intentionally picking on the States, I do genuinely like Americans, but fuck me do they come out with some stupid things.

Anyway, it's time to go now and call time on this blog. I will be starting up another one in a few days about little curiosities and things that impress and annoy me and I will post a link to it on here. But until then, remember kids, there is no substitute for an education and please, pretty please, remember to think before you talk.

All that is left for me to say is "We'll meet again, I don't know where, I don't know when, but I'm sure we'll meet again in cyberspace",
Goodbye,
Rich

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again - Part 2

That heading should technically read 'I've Left On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again - Part 2' as I am writing this entry back under the cloudy skies of Cleckheaton but it wouldn't have had the same John Denveresque qualities if I'd written it that way now would it.

For those that were paying attention when I first started writing this blog you may be more than a little surprised to find out that I am back in the art and culture capital that is Cleckheaton instead of the unruly and unrefined surroundings of Florence, but, true to form I spent all my money on alcohol and McDonald's again so I've had to return home. Don't worry though as this will not be my last entry, I'm in the process of preparing something that I hope will amaze and amuse in equal proportions. You'll have to check back in a day or so for that though as now I need to give you the lowdown (although considering the amount of mountains that should probably be highdown) on Switzerland.

As I have been judging entire countries on the performance of 1 city for most of this trip I feel it would be wrong of me to break with tradition now I am at home, so the future of Swiss tourism is precariously balanced in the hands of Interlaken. Luckily for the Swiss tourist board, Interlaken is absolutely amazing as you can probably tell from the accompanying photo. You may also like to note that I have added photos to my other entries as well. I would have done that whilst I was traveling to give you visual as well as literary pleasure but I forgot to take my USB cable with me which rendered my uploading capabilities somewhat useless.

Anyway, enough of the incoherent rambling about technical crap, let's get stuck into the meat and bones of Interlaken. After I left Copenhagen I traveled down to Nurenburg as a stop over on my way to Interlaken. A quick comment on Nurenburg, it is seemingly quite a nice place and after Germany lost to Italy in the World Cup semi finals you would probably expect it to be a little subdued, but instead it morphed into Little Italy with flags awaving and car horns abeeping everywhere you turned.

The train journey from Germany to Switzerland was top banana. Traveling along the banks of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz was very special, the water looked so clean and pure it was untrue. Once again we got lost looking for the hostel, that was until we bumped into a Finnish guy named Tuukku who was one of the craziest but funniest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. His main aim in life was to use the following 3 phrases: "I love you", "Follow that cab" and "Pint o' lager please barman." Genius. The first day in Interlaken was spent just getting used to my new surroundings which was helped and hindered in equal proportions by a 2 for 1 happy hour. Except this wasn't a normal happy hour as it lasted for 2 hours. Hello Mr Hangover, very nice to meet you.

Having been forced to rise early the next day by the hostel room cleaning police, Tom and I decided in our infinite wisdom to go mountain biking which was great fun, incredibly tiring but still great fun. For some reason every time I went careering off down a hill uncontrollably I felt compelled to sing the Superman theme tune at the top of my lungs which I enjoyed immeasurably but left a few farmers looking confused. Despite the fact that the heavens opened the moment we sent off and didn't relent until we got back it was absolutely mega. The mountains and scenery were perfect, if you can get better than perfect then they were probably that and it is something I would recommend to anyone. BRILLIANT!!

When we got back to the hostel we had some new room mates, Koreans this time. It has to be said I love people from the Far East as they keep giving me gifts. The first person from that part of the world that I met was my Japanese flat mate at university, who I called Mikoto despite that not actually been his name, who gave me a carton of Ribena Toothkind as a welcoming gift. Then there were the Koreans in Australia who gave me an ornate money bag to put money in so my wealth would grow. I put a dollar in that until I had to get it out again because I ran out of money. This time around, despite uttering no more than a courteous 'hello', I received a packet of Ritz Peanut Butter crackers. This would have been a great gift as I was very hungry at the time but they had to go straight in the bin due to my life threatening nut allergy. Still, kudos to the Orient.

The next day I decided to go for a swim in Lake Brienz, although I ventured down the wrong path and ended up stranded at the cusp of a fast flowing river so I had to feed the ducks instead which got boring after about 2 minutes (kind of like reading this I guess) so I went to Hooters to get something to eat, which, due to the attractiveness of Swiss girls, was great.

But anyway, the time has come for me to close yet another chapter on this trip. Switzerland easily slips into second place on the country leader board with a score of 8.99/10, mainly because of the scenery but also because of the Ritz crackers.

So as I say check back again either tomorrow or the day after for my next update but until then it is au revoir, auf wiedersehen, dag, szervusz, zbohem, hej, goodbye,
Mr Richard C Allinson

If Music Be The Food Of Love. . .Rock On!

So, as sure as day follows night and tock follows tick, so arrives another update in the greatest piece of 21st century literature since yesterdays copy of The Sun.

I've just arrived back in the land of the living having been at the Roskilde music festival for 6 days. I arrived back into Copenhagen in the early hours of Monday morning on what was something akin to Madnesses 'Night Boat To Ciaro', except it was a train and I was going to Copenhagen. The reason for this hasty departure from the festival was because we appeared to somehow get camped in the scally part of the festival site where 16 year old kids thought it'd be a top notch idea to set fire to tents. I know my tent stinks but arson is a bit strong! I'll get on to talking about the festival and Denmark in a minute, but first we have the small matter of Berlin to contend with.

As I'm sure you remember (and if you don't just scroll down and read it again) I signed off last time by mentioning the Berlin wall and a certain Mr Hasselhoff and my mission to locate both. Unfortunately, but perhaps more significantly, I only managed to loacte the wall. It was the longest stretch at some 300m and it did make you think about the the odd history Germany has had but also what a crap job the Russians did in trying to stamp their authority on the world. I was diassapointed to find that the aforementioned Mr Hasselhoff wasn't still 'Dancing To Freedom' atop the wall, but let's face it it was always a long shot!

To give a brief overview on what else Berlin had to offer, Checkpoint Charlie was quite interesting, The Jewish Museum (a museum about the history of Jews, turns out they don't have a very interesting history) the Reichstag and the Bradenburg gate. Just a quick comment on the gate, apparantly I was 1 of 1 million people there to witness Germany against Sweeden. That is a lot of people to watch television.

Now, as many of you are aware I'm not exactly a fan of what the kid's call 'dance music', infact i'd even go so far as to say "burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ" (Morrisey/Marr) But that said Berlin is meant to be the capital of European club culture so I thought I'd put on my dancing shoes and hit the dancefloor. However, in my own inimitable style, we mangaed to end up in a place that bared more than a striking resemblence to the loft in which Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagen and Bill Sykes AKA Oliver Reed lived i.e. it was a shithole. The whole feel of it was nicely complemented by the fact that instead of having your run of the mill furniture they had deck chairs.

A couple of final things on Berlin, on the way to the Brandenburg Gate you had to walk past the Adlon Hotel i.e. the hotel from which Michael Jackson felt it necesary to dangle his baby over the balcony. Chamone Motherf*cker!! Also, and this doesn't relate to Berlin specifically but more so to every country I've been to so far. It appears that you don't have to pay for public transport in Europe, I mean, yes, you are supposed to and, no, it's not optional but no one actually pays, it's quite remarkable really.

As for the rating the old east Germany gets i'll give it a decent score of 7.61. It was good just not as good as it's western counterpart.

Next stop after Germany was Copenhagen before Roskilde and the train journey was incredible for the sole reason that the train transformed into a ferry. I'm not talking the full Optimus Prime routine here obviously but the train had to be parked on a ferry to take us across the island on which Copenhagen is located. A bit more advanced than Richard Branson and his tilting tracks!

Not much really happened in Copenhagen, although I did make a sucessful return to the Sydney Two For One Tuesday eating contests when I consumed a pizza that was at least 22 inches in diameter - viva la junkfood!

Get ready to rock out now because i'm about to turn the amps up to 11 and tell you about Roskilde and it has to be said it was brilliant. However, it was on the first night when there was no music and I was bored out my tree drinking cans of warm Tuborg and upmarket goon that I decided as a trainee lawyer I was maybe a bit too old for this camping and not washing lark and made the conscious descision that this was to be my last festival. However, Thursday came around, the music started and I soon changed my mind.

The day kicked off rather late with Editors followed by Radio Soulwax, a little bit of Guns 'n' Roses (I missed most of this because I'd heard that the singer wasn't gonna turn up because he had been arrested for biting a security gaurd). After that I moved on to watch Sigur Ros, who were wicked right up until the point that somebody vomited on my shoes. These, were no ordinary shoes either, these were the same pair of Converse Allstars that I have been wearing for the last 5 years and I was going to retire them in some kind of prize giving ceremony at the end of the festival but the vomiter went and ruined all that.

Anyway enough of the sentimental crap, Friday saw me entertained by the likes of Babar Luck, Gogol Bordello, Martha Wainwright, Morrisey, Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan and The Streets. I have to give a special mention to Bob Dylan in the most uncomplementry way possible as he was shite to an unbelievable level.

Saturday.Football.Portugal.Wankers.Bollocks. Other than that I went to see a DJ called Tiga who played a rather dubious version of Everyday I Love You Less And Less by the Kaiser Chiefs and Kanye West who did a mega mix approaching Jive Bunny proportions which included Eurythmics, The Verve, Al Green, Michael Jackson and A-Ha.Bonkers.

I´ve already told you how Sunday finished but that was in direct contrast to the rest of the day which began with Arctic Monkeys, followed closely by The Strokes who were absolutly brilliant, then Franz Ferdinand and finally the Kaiser Chiefs who were most entertaining indeed. I would have gone back to see Roger Waters do Dark Side Of The Moon in full, but for a couple of reasons i.e. he´s shit and a pikey was going to burn my tent down I left early. I also went swimming on Sunday, that´s right, they had a swimming lake at a festival. If you are reading Mr Eavis, pull your socks up and get that sorted for Glastonbury next year please.Thank you.

Anyway, I´m in Switzerland now, and rest assured I´ll give you the lowdown on that soon but Denmark gets a score of 8.5, mainly because of the festival. If it was for the actual country it´s self it would still score quite highly but it would be more in the 7.1 region as it is so expensive and there is not a great deal to do.

I´m going now,
Rich

Once a Country, Twice a Country, Thrice a Country, Four

Welcome friends and foes to the next update in my travels. As you may or may not remember, last time I updated this literary masterpiece I was in Munich bound for Vienna, and I'm glad to say I made it without a hitch. As the money pot is not exactly overflowing at the minute, we decided to camp out under the stars in Vienna, which was an absolutely brilliant experience, if not an ever so slightly cold one. It turns out that buying your tent and sleeping bag for a combined 12 quid from Argos doesn't exactly provide you with the highest quality product. Also, something I would advise, if you haven't used your tent since a particularly wet and muddy Glastonbury Festival 2 years ago, give it a bit of an airing or else it will have a certain 'aroma'.

Whilst the campsite was absolutly beautiful, it was set on the edges of a forest, just outside Vienna, the views of the Northern Limestone Alps as we travelled from Munich were just unbelievable, it was seriously one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Whilst i'm on the subject of train journeys, European trains are immense, especially the German and Austrian ones. As I'm sure you know, second class train travel in England would entail either standing for the entire journey as there aren't enough seats or if you are lucky enough to get a seat you end up with chewing gum all over your arse as the train hasn't been cleaned for about 60 years. All that and the train is usually late. In Austria, 2nd class trains include your own private cabin with plug sockets and air conditioning and it turns up. On time. Maybe we should fully integrate ourselves into Europe.....only joking, I've not gone mental yet!!

Vienna was wicked, not exacxtly party central, but the architecture and the history of the place is really cool, there really is an amazing amount of stuff to see there, and I'll just have to mention the scenary once again as it was so damn good. Now, as I've set up the rating system on countries I better carry it on and Austria recieves a very respectable score of 7.84/10

After Austria, it was over the border into Eastern Europe, Hungary to be precise. It was on this particular train journey that I had my passport checked 4 times by 10 different policemen. A little excessive I think, but I guess everybody has a job to do! To be perfectly honest, my inbuilt middle Englandness meant I was pretty wary of Hungary and the prospect of getting robbed on every street corner and for this reason only I wasn't really that bothered about going to the place. It just shows how wrong you can than be though as Budapest is fucking mega. Other than a top notch night life, the thermal baths are awesome, I managed to spend 4 hours messing around in a wave machine which was infinitely more fun than working for a living! Also, goulash is a very appetizing meal indeed. The hostel I stayed in there was a little different from any other i've experienced before, each of the rooms had a different theme which included Bob Marley and a jungle, I was staying in the Ganesh room, which had a massive mural of said spiritual God and josticks burning 24/7. The place stank to high heaven! I felt my inner hippy shining through for a while. Back onto the rating system again and Hungary scores a much higher than expected 7.99/10.

And so we progress steadily on to the 3rd country in a week which was the Czech Republic. Originally the plan was to only be in Prague for 2 days before moving onto Dresden, but the fact that Prague is mega and Dresden is apparantly a bit shit we ended up staying in Prague for 4 days. Also another factor that played heavily on my mind when making this descision was that a beer in Dresden would have been about €2 but in Prague it was about 15p. Not to bore you once again with all the touristy stuff but there is so much to do there I can't help but mention some of it. For example, the Prague Castle and Charles bridge are really good and so is Wenceles Square, which despite not being a square but more of an extended rectangle, did inspire me to sing the old Christmas carol ''Good King Wenceles last looked out etc etc etc'' Watching the Czech's play on the big screen in the town centre was cool even though they did lose 2 - 0 to Ghana! It has to be said though that the hourly parade on the Old Town Square Astronomical clock is rubbish, nothing actually happend as far as I could tell!

A couple of curious things did happen in Prague though, the first was watching USA vs Italy in an outside bar with hoards of Americans who surprisingly knew quite a bit about the game even if they did use phrases like 'great D man' instead of 'well defended old chap' and 'wow that game was a tie' instead of 'well, you can't complain at a point against the Italians'. Cultural differences I guess! It was after this match and several more pints of Czech lager that I got completely lost looking for my hostel and ended up trailing the streets of Prague for a couple of hours before finally putting my male stubborness to one side and admiting I was lost and getting into a cab with the only directions I had been a comedy map of Prague. I somehow made it though so everything is still ok. Another thing that happend that rather amused me was that an American bloke (I know it seems I keep having a go at Americans and it's not intentional but they keep asking stupid questions) asked me if there was a beach anywhere in Prague. I didn't have the heart to tell him that beaches are very hard to come across in land locked countries!

To conclude the Czech Republic, it was good, very good infact and that is why it recieves a higher than normal 8.5/10.

The final country in this little week long escapade is Germany, and in the main eastern Germany, basically Berlin. Not a great deal to report here at the minute as i've been here less than 24 hours, but I went to watch the England match last night at the Brandenburg gate surounded by about 10,000 Germans and what with me in an England shirt and Tom with the flag of St George trailing from his back, I was more than expecting to get punched on the nose. All I recieved though were a few dirty looks, apparently the Germans were scared of us because they thought we were hooligans.

That, however, is nothing in comaprison to the secuirty checks crossing the border into Germany. I thought maybe the trip from Hungary, through Slovakia, and into the Czech Republic would have produced the most rigorous checks but basically that was just miserable bastards looking at my passport. The German police interrogated me a bit like the Gestapo would have done a few years back, but my winning wit and charm and that fact that all I was carrying was a bag of very dirty clothes meant I got away with it.

Anyway, as I haven't been here anywhere near long enough I can't give Eastern Germany a rating yet but rest assured, you will be getting the definitive opinion on it soon. I reckon my next update will be after the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, so sorry to keep you all waiting for more insights in European culture but sod it, I'm not a writing machine you know!

Anyway, i'm going to look at the Berlin wall now and to see if I can find David Hasselhoff anywhere so it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from him,
Bye,
Rich

Ps, Sorry it's so long, I didn't realise until i'd finished typing.

Deutschland Über Alles

So here we are again, yet another update and such a short time after my last one as well. I really do spoil you!

As you no doubt will have deduced from the heading, I've just been to Germany, which, once again, is a slightly bizarre place, mainly because of the people I have encountered along the way. The first stop in Germany was Cologne, or Köln as the locals call it, where we alighted the train to be immediatly confronted by the Dom, a more than impressive gothic cathedral that had taken 600 years to build. The question was later raised by an American of "why is it called a Dom? It's not dome shaped at all!" Because of laughing so much I was unable to explain to him that the German for Cathedral was Dom, however, that pearl of wisdom was not the only thing to fall from his lips. The question of "What is Scandanavia?" was particularly good as his next destination was Sweeden. Amazingly he was the most sane person I met in Cologne, the people in my dorm were really freaky people, not just a bit simple.

The first night there, a bloke in his mid 40's ambled into the room, stared at his bed for literally 10 minutes before letting out the must lung busting cough I have ever heard. He then wandered over to my bed and stared at that for a couple of minutes and, yes, I was lying in it at the time. He went away for a while and came back in and just switched the lights on and off for a few minutes before leaving again, coming back and repeating the procedure, which was punctuated by yet more death defying coughing. I awoke the next morning, which was surprising enough as it is, to see the guy putting his coat and iI thought `thank God he's about to leave´, but instead he got back into bed, shoes and all. What with the other person in the room who was out all night and then spent all day in bed they really were a cracking bunch. As for Cologne it was okay, there was not a lot to see but alright all the same.

After Cologne we moved on to Frankfurt, which it has to be said, is very, very nice. There was a marked improvement in the weather which may have helped my opinion of it but still I like it. Frankfurt was the first place that it was noticable that the World Cup was taking place and like a complete muppet I got sucked into buying a beer in the official fan zone. However, this was no ordinary beer. For a start it was 1 litre of pure German lager, it also cost me €10, which when you are on a daily food, drink, accomodation and tourism budget of €35 it was a significant blow to the back pocket. Still, it got me so tipsy that I ended up debating the merits of the monarchy for 3 hours!

The World Cup of course also brings together many people from around the world and when you´re sat in a bar listening to 3 Brazilians playing a bit of samba music it is pretty damn cool. What is not so good is when some knobhead from England wearing tracksuit bottoms, Reebok Classics, an England shirt and €3.99 Next sunglasses walks in with his own amp and mic and starts beatboxing `Drop It Like It´s Hot' by Snoop Dogg. The phrase "absolutly, completely and utterly gut wrenchingly, pain inducingly, put burning nails in your eyes fucking awful" does not do justice as to how bad the guy was. Whatever happened to our great nation eh? In addition to that there are also a completely disproportionate of Mexicans around.

After Frankfurt followed Munich which is an amazing place. World Cup fever has really exploded here and it would be churlish of me not to say I am loving it, the other night was spent drinking steins in beer halls with Germans which was great fun and all very good natured I may add. I did get a little carried away and insist we were going to win the World Cup, but what the hell, we are!!!! I must give a special mention to Jan and David for the fact that they supported England during our game against Paraguay, I guess that's hard for a German to do, but thanks guys!

Amongst doing the normal toursit crap in Munich, we also went to the Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp, which was a very sobering and memorable experience to say the least but I can't really go into much detail on that, i guess it's something you have to experience for yourself to get the full impact.

So that's Germany almost done with, we do visit the old East Germany in a week or so but not before I've been to Vienna, Budapest and Prague. 4 countries in 1 week. Bring it on!!!

Overall, I must say I have really liked Germany and that is why it takes the lead in the country leader board with a spectacular 9.2/10. It would have scored full marks except their language is complicated, the`y´key on the keyboard is in the wrong place and they also have ö ä ü letters on the keyboard which makes typing a pain, and they booed Bobby Charlton when he came on TV the other day.

It's All Double Dutch To Me

Howdy, I'm in Amsterdam now and I'll get onto telling you about my Dutch escapades in a minute but first of all I've gotta tie up a few loose Belgian ends.

The Back End (so to speak) of Belgium
Litterally 10 minutes after I last updated my blog, I began aimlessly wondering the Antwerpian side-streets until I somehow got caught up in an anti racism march through the centre of the city. I'm sure it was quite a bizarre sight for any onlookers, as in a sea of people from the the former Belgian colonies like the Congo and a whole host of immigrants from Turkey, Morocco etc, stood two confused looking pasty white Englishmen not knowing quite what was going on. Anyway, it cleared my social conscience for the day, and, surprisingly, I think I may even have the begginings of a young Nelson Mandella.

Anyway enough of the radical freedom fighting, they also had a outlet of Greggs the bakers in Antwerp, no Steak Bakes though, which was a shame. That was pretty much it for Belgium. If I had to summarize it in one convoluted sentance, it would be the kind of place you'd go to if you liked picturesque gothic architecture, market squares, rain and getting fat from drinking from the selection of over 450 beers and eating waffles.

Now, in a new feature of my blog I'm gonna give each country a rating and Belgium gets the ball rolling with a solid if not spectacular 6.84/10.

Holland
Holland or The Netherlands if you want to be pedantic, is odd in the most complementary way possible. We passed over the border from Belgium about a week ago now and our first stop was Rotterdam. The first thing that struck me about Holland in comparison to it's Benelux rival is that there are a lot more bikes, litterally thousands of them. The road system is geared almost entirely for the cyclist which makes crossing the road particularly tricky as not only do you have cars coming from the wrong direction, there are trams which seem to appear out of nowhere and then of course the bikes. I'm sure if I remeber the Green Cross Code i'll be ok though.

Rotterdam is a pretty cool place although it is quite modern, this apparently has something to do with a few stray bombs thrown their way by Adolf's barmy army, this resulted in there not been an amazing amount of stuff to see but it was good anyway. The highlight of Rotterdam was drinking with Dutch football fans before a match, which was a bit like the atmosphere you'd get before an England game but without any fighting. The lowlight of Rotterdam, and I can't really blame this on Rotterdam in anyway, shape or form, was finding out that the mighty GTFC fucked things up in the playoff final. As you may have gathered i'm grasping at thin air for stuff to write about the place really.

Next stop was Amsterdam, which is bizarre and beautiful in equal messures. There is so much cultural stuff to see such as the Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank's house and the Vondelpark that the prostitues and drug taking almost take a back seat. When all the degenerate stuff is so blatent that it is quite hard to ignore, but rest assured I managed to resist and keep my saintly nature intact. It is a fucking wicked place though.

I also went to Den Haag. It was crap. That is it.

But anyway, I'm a little bored of typing now so i'm gonna go. In the new wacky rating scheme i've got going Holland gets 8.8/10. It would have been higher but Den Haag sucked and i keep getting lost in Amsterdam. Good country though.