What a night! Yesterday I was so sleepy I kept dozing off on the ride to lunch. We got to the hotel and instead of sleeping, I went downstairs to hang out in the lobby and met up with Stefan. Stefan began teaching me the intricacies of pool and how to plan shots. Around 23:30 we decided to go out to the Centrum. We made our way from Centraal Station, to the red light district, then to Dam square where we hung out at a pub listening to a group of drunk Brits singing along to all manner of songs. We chatted with an middle-aged Swede gentleman and his attractive brunette Dutch girl, both staying in the neighboring hotel, about Iraq, Van Gough, Europe, movies, and things to do.
By 3:00 we were ready to call it a night. The last #2 tram ran long ago, so we were forced to figure out the night bus system. I knew our hotel was on the 351 bus route somewhere. First of all, I wasn’t really sure where the night busses ran, so we walked back to Leidsplein, had a pizza, and found the 351 route there.
I wasn’t familiar with any of the street names, in fact now in retrospect I was looking at the wrong bus line. I was thinking the 351 bus ran through Amstelveensweg, we could at least get off there and still have an idea of where we could get back to the hotel. The bus took off and kept going north and east on every turn. Several minutes later the bus was at the A10 highway. I figured it was as close as we would get, so I think we got off at Admiraal Helfrichstraat. Turns out, that’s about as far away from our hotel you can get on the 351. We walked south along Rembrandtpark, and walked and walked and walked, following A10 since our hotel is right next to A10 too. It started lightly raining too. As soon as we arrived at Heemstedestraat, we saw the 351 bus pull into the Westlandgracht stop, which is our usual tram stop. !@#!@#!#$@$!@# 3:40 AM – 4:00 AM by now. We instantly crashed. I woke up today at 1 PM. It’s so nice sleeping with the window open.
I think today is a visit to Albert Cuypstraat to see what’s for sale. I made sure to hit Albert Hejin this morning for water and sundries, because they’ll (and every other business) be closed tomorrow. In fact, I’m rather annoyed that they close at 8 PM. I walked into the AH next to the hotel on Thursday night right at 8, this woman follows and yells at me “MIJNHEER! MIJNHEER! MIJNEER! We’re closed!” After this, I rode the tram up to Spui, knowing the AH was open later. It was, but the tourists had picked it clean. I decided to catch some dinner, so a 5 minute walk to buy some water turns into a 3 hour ordeal.
