Amsterdamage

Greetings from the Netherlands! I was on a party boat here three scant weeks ago, breathing flavoured oxygen, debating whether the D.J. was a man or a woman and learning the phrase "don't dip your nib in the company ink". I write today from a swish apartment twelve minutes ouwith Amsterdam, where my best friend and I just accepted that we need to clean the place up before his girlfriend gets home tonight.



From plane it was train and then bike, with my luggage split between the backs of two men not so accustomed to cycling. It's so flat here you can coast along and try not to worry that your bike doesn't have brake levers - you pedal backwards to slow down. It took some practice, braking when I only meant to shift my weight to the other foot, and I was sure to point out that bikes like this where I come from are meant for children. (Harumph!)

You know when you start to feel like you know your way around a new city and you're not the greenest person on the block any more? Well, that's me and Amsterdam on this trip. Which means we've been able to shop, eat, drink, play Lego Star Wars on Playstation and generally hang the fuck out instead of running around trying to sample all that's legally on offer here as fast as you can, in case the law should change.

Your eyes do not decieve you: that was just Lego Star Wars. I finally found out what it's like to be a two-centimetre-tall plastic representation of a fictional character from an over-rated film series. A power generator is an oblong grey brick with eight round bumps on the top, and there's a hole in the bottom of the Emperor's feet when he falls over! Love it.

Yesterday, we had dinner with three other grown-ups at the home of a very sweet couple. Tbey foolishly invited me before they had even met me! You can get the B.B.C. in Holland so we did the time difference math and saw The Christmas Invasion, which naturally made my day. But we avoided Her Majesty's speech - or The Queen 2005 as it was branded this year.

I went to bed contented last night. Tomorrow looks promising also.