Needless to say....best party ever! :)

Labels: travel

Old recap post from May 6 that was living on my PC....

I am totally in love with Amsterdam - and no I haven't smoked weed.

Tuesday
Tuesday was my last free day before I had to start work at the conference, so I decided to make the most of it. I got up early and headed to the Van Gogh Museum hoping to beat the crowds. Unfortunately the crowds had the same idea. After waiting in line for a long time to get in, I then had to face masses of tourists sometimes 2 or 3 deep at each painting. The only way to see up close was to go to the barrier and shuffle along, but I couldn't be stuffed and had to settle for a faraway view.

I got to see Sunflowers - and it was pretty amazing - after seeing endless postcards and images, the actual painting was so cool. Just seeing the brushstrokes and movement, and the way the paint rises up from the canvas - all those things you miss in the 2D image - was worth braving the crowds for.

Afterwards I walked over to the Rijksmuseum, which was equally as packed, but I'm glad I went - the collection is amazing, and consists of paintings, weapons, china, silverware and woodwork. It was slightly frustrating because there was a Japanese tour group and American tour group side-by-side taking up heaps of space but I managed to see most things, albeit without the kind of peace and quiet I would have preferred.

I was feeling a little bummed out, but kept going and ended up at Anne Frank's House. The queue was around the corner, so I went to the Pancake Bakery up the road and then came back. The queue was still around the corner so I sucked it up and joined. I had heard a lot about it, so I knew it was going to be worth the wait. Once again it was totally packed, but again, was definitely worth it. You get to walk through the whole house - learning about Anne Frank and her family, through the secret annexe - it's so moving. I almost burst into tears on three separate occasions but managed to keep myself under control....just.

Wednesday
I transferred hotels with little drama and then it was off to work. 888.com took us out to the Supperclub for dinner - and it was a pretty amazing experience. The place just oozes cool. You sit around on massive lounges being surprised with a four-course menu. We were all talking and enjoying the wine, when a guy wearing a black codpiece, feather headdress and little else strolled in. He made a beeline for one of our party who declined, when Damon stepped up to the plate. Although looking slightly terrified, Damon took one for the team and walked away with a snappy henna tattoo.

Thursday
After lots of meetings, we got to go on a VIP cruise courtesy of Everest Poker. I never ever thought I would enjoy playing poker for the heck of it, but being seated at a table with Gaz and a bunch of German affiliates, I had an absolute riot. Gaz stacked me with aces vs kings (I swear he plays 58os the same way) but I got a secret rebuy, and managed to bust a couple of people before going all in blind and losing to Gaz who had looked at his cards (pussy) and called. We ended up at the Euro Bar with the Everest Poker crew drinking cocktails with sparklers in them and eating dodgy fried food.

Friday
This was our only free dinner, and I used it to make a reservation at Sama Sebo - an Indonesian restaurant near the Musesumplein. We had the rijstaffel - an amazing spread of roughly 15 dishes and rice. Afterwards we rolled ourselves over to the Mansion club for the 888 party (go figure) and stayed about half an hour before caving in and going back to the hotel.

Saturday
I woke up at 10am (yay), had a quick meeting and then went for lunch at Gauchos....mmmm rack of lamb.... Afterwards we stopped in at the beer social, but quickly opted for the party at Noah's house instead - and what a party! Noah lives in one of the floors of Marcel's six (?) storey house. NL PokerNews has an office on the first floor as well. It's right on the river and apparently there were lots of famous dutch tv celebritites and some cool rappers and a well-known DJ - obviously we didn't really care and got stuck into the Coronas. Approximately five hours later we were in the upstairs poker room with vodka playing acey-deucey and pass the ace. After the vodka ran out, so did we...and made an ill-fated attempt at finding chips before giving up and heading back to the hotel.

Labels: travel

A long time ago when I was heavily involved in the Christian band scene (long long story) a really cool band called The Frugals wrote a song called Other People's Sweat.

I'm not very girly but the one thing that totally grosses me out is people going public with their bodily fluids. Once when I was living in Adelaide, I was on the bus and the guy in front of me started picking his nose. He then proceeded to unearth a yellow crusty booger of immense proportions....and stuck it on the side of the bus. I started to dry retch.

And then there was the time in London when I was at a swanky party in Cafe de Paris. I was standing there holding my drink and minding my own business, when someone turned around and sneezed directly on my arm. He then went straight back to his conversation without even a second thought. I was highly traumatised and had to sit on a couch.

Today was Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) in Amsterdam. I had been pretty excited about this as I heard it was one big party and there were lots of markets with second-hand goods and stuff. I ventured out in the morning and it was starting to look quite busy. After seeing if I was going to meet up with my friends I gave up and decided to go out on my own. Things were totally chockers and by this stage there was rubbish everywhere. Since I had been having massive problems with my hip from my other shoes, I was wearing thongs and managed to get some beer and another unidentified liquid substance on my feet.

I pushed on in search of some good buys, and was greeted with fake gucci handbags and oversized novelty sunglasses. Slightly deflated I headed back to the hotel.

Later on I went in search of Vleminckx - apparently home of some of the best frites in Amsterdam. I decided to take the Amstel to avoid going through the Rembrandtplein. Bigggg mistake. I suddenly realised that I was stuck in a very large group of people, actually a very large group of men, actually a very large group of men with a high proportion of leather trousers.

Having discovered the heart of the city's gay scene, I finally worked my way through and headed for the fries. By this stage the rubbish was starting to pile up - I saw one lady try in vain to help by uprighting a beer bottle on the ground - nice one! There hasn't been any rain in Amsterdam for the last few days, but there were a lot of wet spots - no prizes for guessing what that's about.

I walked up to the hole in the wall and asked for the klein with mayo. "Small fries with mayonnaise," the guy at the counter barked at his fellow employee manning the deep fryer. Even more deflated I headed back to my hotel, this time braving the Rembrandtplein. By this stage, not only were the streets incredibly filthy, so were the drunken guys all over them. After dodging some seriously handsy (holla all you Scrubs fans) dirtbags, I got back to the hotel and vowed not to venture out again.

With only one real day left for me to do sightseeing, I now have to cram Keukenhof (80ha of tulips), Anne Frank's house and the Rijksmuseum into one day - wish me luck!

Labels: travel

I've been a pretty blessed traveller in recent times. Last year when I went to Las Vegas in June, it was the first time I'd been on a plane in ten years. When I got to the airport - I saw a family friend of ours who is the queue bitch for Qantas - she took me out of the economy queue and shipped me to first class where there was no one waiting. When I got to the counter, the check-in guy said the flight was overbooked and asked me if I wanted to get upgraded to Business.

I became cocky with my travel blessings and began to mock others that weren't so fortunate - in January when my bag turned up at Heathrow and Gaz's didn't, I had a great chuckle.

It all came back to bite me in the ass today.

Firstly, my BA flight was full of british people - ok so I know it's British Airways, but the flight originated in Sydney dammit. Secondly BA has no On Demand inflight entertainment, instead there were a few sketchy channels. I started watching Dreamgirls and had just about gotten used to the random fast forwarding when it cut out towards the end (I'm guessing). Actually all the movies cut out at the same time, leaving me with the choice of the Lilo and Stitch cartoon series, or the ever enthralling map. I chose the map.

We got to Bangkok ok, and I endured the stupid ritual of taking my laptop off the plane, going upstairs, through security and back onto the plane. I was hoping that the seat next to me would stay empty but some guy wearing a snazzy check shirt and logo embroidered socks sat down and fell asleep straight away.

Since I didn't have time to suss out if he was the kind of guy nice enough to let me wake him up every time I needed to go to the bathroom, I opted for the whole Romanian gymnast persona and acrobatically climbed over and back without incident.

I popped a Stillnox and woke up with about 90 mins left in the flight, which was a real bonus. I got off the plane and was faced with two lines - first line had no-one and was Terminals 1,2,3. The second line stretched around the corner and down the hallway and was marked Terminal 4. I walked up to the front of the queue and asked someone what Terminal I had to go to - Terminal 4....reverse ding!

I walked all the way to the end of the queue and asked someone what time it was - 7:30am... I looked at my boarding pass and it said 7:15. I got sent back to the front of the queue and had to book a new flight.

The guy at the BA counter said I could go on standby for the next available flight, or that he could put me on the 11:30am flight which "would give me a better chance of my bags being there." Little did I know that this was really code for "We are going to fuck your bags up anyway, if you take the later flight you won't have to wait as long for them."

Needless to say, it was about 4pm once I got to Amsterdam - around 35 hours since I left Melbourne. In true Asian form, I scoured my options to get to my hotel and picked the cheapest. Hopefully this will offset the ridiculous cost of my hotel room.

I left my digital camera at home, so I can't even post pictures of funny things like the arrow and two feet marks on the floor where you're apparently supposed to put your feet when you sit on the bed and take your shoes off.

I will post some happier travel reports tomorrow.

Cozza

Labels: travel

I finally realised that he was that skinny kid that used to play bball on my brothers' (they're twins) team. I had a mega crush on him and used to drag my cousin down to the stadium every weekend - actually she didn't need that much encouragement :)

Speaking of reality shows, I'm making an audition video for the Calvin Ayre Wilcard II Poker show - my bro is being a real sweetie and is helping me put something together before I fly out to Amsterdam tomorrow. I might post it here if it's not too embarrassing...

Next stop...Amsterdam!

Labels: donkaments, poker

It may just be possible - but I think I am probably one of the luckiest people in the world. This year, I've already been to London for work, and am now about to head off to Amsterdam at the end of this month. Things are super busy these days, but I got the thumbs up for some time off so I've got about 4 days in Amsterdam to have some rest and relaxation.

As it turns out I've picked a great time to go - an old workmate of mine from Rehame (hereby referred to as the 7th circle of hell, shared with limit tournaments) is going to be there at exactly the same time. Plus it's Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) on the 30th, which is apparently a massive public holiday where everyone wears orange and goes crazy. The quote I got from my Dutch friend is that, "You can buy anything on the street." I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm looking forward to finding out! Here's what I'm in store for (photos courtesy of traveladventures.org)

Balloons and silly hats - my kind of holiday!

Insert your own witty joke about smoking too much weed here

Labels: travel

I got back from the gym about 10pm, ate dinner and was watching tv when I came across this on Lateline on ABC...

Poor old Labeed Abbawi (Deputy Foreign Minister of Iraq) had found himself out of the Green Zone and in a rather windy spot. He managed to somehow right things when the camera cut away to the interviewer for a question:

However it seems the ABC was in on the joke as well, because from that point on, they started to keep Abbawi in frame even when a question was being asked:

And once the wind picked up....he had no chance......

Kudos to him, Abbawi never once tried to fix his hair on camera. I started filming some video in the hope that the interviewer would say something like, "Thanks for coming out on this extremely windy day," but apparently the ABC Lateline crew are equally as professional. Ahhhh late night tv... :)

Labels: funny stuff