20041130

'i was playing with myself for a while... but i think i cheated'

pre-amsterdam -
post crit [which i will not talk about here because that's boring crap that no one really wants to hear about...], we all go out for drinks at sam's because it's morgan's last night to dj at the bar and i get to say good-bye to everyone from miami and because we're all really in the mood for a drink after a really rough week and such. so, we're at the bar and having a marvelous time and i'm getting only fairly tipsy, as i have to be at the train station in time to catch a 5am train to pisa in order to catch a 10am flight to amsterdam... we have a grand old time at the bar and stay there clear until closing time...

this is when it gets good...

so, we're all standing outside of the bar, as we're on our way to a club called 'anima' because we want to shake our ‘groove thangs’ until the sun comes up and all that jazz... david [who is very very very inebriated by this time] comes up behind me with his back to mine and with out even warning me, he loops his arms through mine and leans forward really quick... because i wasn't expecting 'the turtle,' my weight wasn't distributed properly and instead of me stopping him from pulling me all the way over his back, my feet left the ground. the thing is, david wasn't coordinated enough to stop our forward [well, his forward, my upward/backward] momentum and we fell - he on his face, me on the back of my head on the wonderfully hard roman cobblestone... i whited-out for a good 5 or 6 seconds... when i could see clearly again, i realized that david was laying, belly-down, arms outstretched on the cobblestone with blood gushing out of the bridge of his nose... there's a whole lot of commotion, i end up sprinting from campo dei fiori to our apartment to get david's passport so that the ambulance can whisk him away to the er to get stitches [which he adamantly argued that he didn't need even though he really did] - anyway... it was kind of funny, because cat [the lovely woman who owns sam's] normally calls david 'arkansas,' but she kept calling him 'arizona' instead: 'hang on, arizona. you'll be just fine. you'll be in and out of the emergency room in under an hour.' ‘yes, arizona, you will have a scar. that will leave a scar.’ 'yes, arizona, you'll still be able to go to amsterdam.'

anyway, saved for the initial panic of sending david to the emergency room and me feeling overwhelmingly guilty for having basically caused david to break his nose and end up with 7 stitches [yeah - they gave him 5 on his nose and 2 on his forehead], it was at least an interesting night. we were even early to the train station.

amsterdam -
we were good little architecture students while we were in amsterdam... yes, we were. i promise. zack, peter, allison, david and i did all of the 'architecture walks' in the blistering cold and the butter-thick fog. we perservered...

so, i have a little side note to add here: unlike all of the hostels that i've been to, the hostel 'cosmos' - though really nice and all for a hostel - didn't provide towels... we ended up taking showers and having to dry off with our t-shirts... well, most of us dried off with our t-shirts, zack, however, preferred to dry off with his previous day’s underoos [actually, not his whole body… only his hair] on the first day... needless to say, we ended up buying towels... oh - and yeah, the shower at the hostel was at least 250 degrees... good god! it felt like someone was trying to make soup out of me… you know, in those old ‘merry melodies’ cartoons where some dude on a desert island sticks bugs bunny into a cauldron over a really big fire and tries to make rabbit stew out of him? yeah, that's what i'm talking about... that’s exactly what it felt like

we ate pancakes and watched dutch television [which is entertaining just because the language is just silly - i can't think of any other word to describe how it sounds... well, i actually can, but it's not very 'p.c.'] and went 'coffee-shopping' and got completely 'lost' and went to nemo [it's a science center place with lots of cool gadgets to play with and such] ...

rotterdam -
unlike what everyone told me, we did actually make it to rotterdam... we didn't just veg out in our hostel room and smoke ourselves stupid... aren't you proud? we went to the nai [netherlands architecture institute] and the kunsthal... we saw the un studio 'baby blue monster' erasmus bridge [sigh] and walked around looking at all sorts of cool junk... we also ate at a cool cafe called 'floor' - i had pumpkin soup that rocked my socks off! - and then at a blessed pizza hut... all i have to say is that that was the bestest hawaiian pizza i've ever had... mmm mmm mmm. david and peter had a ridiculously entertaining eating contest - david eating, rather, stuffing the pizza into his mouth with his hands and peter stuffing the pizza into his mouth with a fork... i haven't laughed that hard since i was a little girl... ahhhh. so loverly...

anyway... this has been way too long... i could tell you more, but i won't... i can tell you that i am planning on living in amsterdam as soon as possible for as long as possible... oh yes.

ttfn kiddies...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't be happier for you, kid. Reading your blog reminds me of how friggin' amazing the life, culture, environment, noises, smells are, and even how that paralizing cold air that the Netherlands has to offer seems to make you feel comfortable. Enjoy every second, because it definitely went too quick for me. Now let's see how crappy Roma feels when you get back...

Po

natalie blair said...

po -

i'm already back in rome... i got back on sunday evening... it was kind of depressing in a way, because rome is so inefficient and really very dirty. nevertheless, i am starting to really enjoy it here... there's something about it that's very comforting and i guess that i am realizing that i have a little under a month until i go home... anyway - i did enjoy every single second that i had in the netherlands... i just wish that i had the opportunity/fortune to get to go back before i go home, but c'est la vie.