3 Haggi dazed and confused

Welcome back. We left off with Jeff, Shannon and Olaf bound for Amsterdam, Holland. Wow what a city, so small yet so much to do. Needless to say the whole of our six days there were in a haze of smoke...And then a whole lot more smoke. The coffee shopsare very welcoming, friendly environments...we sampled a lot. To our delight there was a national holiday on April 30th known as the 'Queen's Birthday'. All of Holland parties it up with the majority of the population converging on Amsterdam which turned into the largest garage sale I've ever seen. People marked off a section of sidewalk days before so they could set up and sell off their spring cleaning junk. The canals were crammed with boats blaring tunes while for the passengers' dance party. We were in fine shape for it even though the day before had been quite the adventure seeing as it was my 27th birthday. A great weekend of partying topped off with a visit to the Heineken brewery before busing it to Brussels, Belgium.

Brussels is a decent city but easily conquered in a couple of days. We ended up staying for five days though as Shannon was enjoying herself so much, too much so it would seem as one night at the pub she lost her camera to a local she'd befriended. Did I mention the beer is an average of 8% and the pubs are open 'till 4am? That may have had something to do with it. Chasing him down the next day she managed to retrieve it. Meanwhile...in another part of the city Olaf and I were desperate for a place to wiz, and therefore headed to a nearby park we knew of that had two large pits dug in the corners. We'd observed this was where people went to pee, but in the evening we found it to be the hangout of a very different sort indeed, the local gay pit! We did not realize this until well into the pit as shadowy figures moved towards us with only the sound of crackling twigs. The thought struck us both simultaneously, without discussion we b-lined it for the exit, with one or two in hot pursuit. A narrow escape indeed, no pun intended. Turned out the very next day was Brussels' gay pride parade!

Well that was enough excitement for Brussels, our next destination was Paris to visit a friend of mine. As this was my second visit to this great city and with my french up to par I was feeling very comfortable. Unfortunately I only managed a three day visit as circumstances beyond my control called me back to Bristol. It seemed rent at my house had somehow been misplaced for two whole months! My housemates were irate saying we all faced eviction and I needed to return immediately. Leaving Olaf and Shannon to finish the last week of our holiday on their own I returned to my dumpy house in Bristol only to find the situation was not nearly as bad as they made it out to be.

So I'm back in Britain now working hard to save up for the next big adventure. Love to all and will keep you posted.