bryan wann :: binary fury

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.

Groeten uit Amsterdam! It’s been a busy the last couple weeks. I never made it to STP. Two weeks ago I went to Seattle to visit Alex & Victoria and for STP. I met Lux the dog, spent much time playing with her. At some point Victoria and I went to lunch at Alki Beach. We used walking Lux as an excuse to sit around watching two hot blondes in bikinis (day glow green, white/blue stripes) lay out on the sand. I also finally realized Lake Washington really was a huge lake.

We went over Aaron’s for dinner, met him, his wife, Sam the dog, and the Unimog. Standing up through the Mog’s gun turret while riding down the road then going through the drive-in at Jack in the Box was lulz.

My bike arrived in one piece on Thursday. I put it together and took a short ride up to Kirkland. Lots of people soaking up the sun on the grassy banks.

Friday we went back to Canada, this time I made it through. The line at the border was quite long, we waited for a couple of hours to cross. Carloads of people were getting out to use the toilet or play hackysack in the grassy median. Alex took us up to Deep Cove, Mt. Seymour, North Vancouver, and finally we took a ferry over to Vancouver proper. We met up with one of his old friends and walked around downtown. I’m now hooked on iced tea lemonade drinks from Starbucks. It was getting late in the evening, so I wanted to come back to rest up for STP the next morning.

Coming back from Vancouver, the Jeep died. We had to get towed back. By the time we got home, it was 12:30 AM and I needed to be up and out around 3:00-3:30 AM for the 4:45 AM start. I tried sleeping on the ride home from Canada, but it wasn’t enough. I decided to not ride STP. There’s always next year I guess. We went out for late night food instead.

Saturday, we wound up going to the Museum of Flight. It was an interesting place, I spent most of the time browsing their space exhibits. They also had a Concorde jet, and a 707 used for Air Force One back in the Kennedy/Johnson/Regan era. The weather on Saturday was perfect for riding, warm and partly cloudy; it was killing me to be outside and not on the bike.

I flew back on a 12:55 AM redeye to Houston. I took monday morning off to re-pack and take care of last minute errands. Tuesday and Wednesday morning was a flurry of catchup work before the big trip.

We left for Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon. It was pouring down raining, some flights were already being delayed. I was completely soaked as I transfered my luggage to another vehicle. The flight was long, around 10 hours. Lots of ass time and trying to keep myself entertained. I slept for a 2 hour stint on the plane. As soon as I got off, there was a hot 6′ Dutch blonde standing on the jetway. I suddenly remembered why I like this country.

We went right to work after getting off the plane. Finished up, checked in at our hotel and headed to the Leidsplein for dinner. Burton thinks the hotel was testing us; when we first arrived they stuck us in tiny, tiny rooms that clearly saw their share of traffic and either wreaked of pot smoke or stuffy from no ventilation. The next day they moved us to a quieter wing in much nicer rooms. There’s quite a few Brits staying here, the hotel bar is hopping right after work.

We’ve been going to different places for meals; we prefer a place on Middenveg for breakfast that makes awesome ham/egg/cheese sandwiches. I finally had a uitsmijter, a standard breakfast of fried egg and ham. On Sunday we figured out nothing is open, wound up having to come back to the hotel for breakfast. Burton introduced me to indonesian food, great stuff. I’m in love with chicken and coconut currry. Roast beef here is real roasted beef and quite chewy. More than one I’ve had to pop out my knife to cut it since I couldn’t bite it off. It is very, very nice to sit outside of a cafe and have a relaxing meal.

We’ve had problems with some of our parts from the states arriving here. It changed up our plans, and right now we’re at a standstill until more stuff arrives this afternoon or tomorrow. I took advantage of my Sunday afternoon and took a much needed five hour nap. The sun sets around 11 PM, it makes it hard to call it a day when it’s still light out.

I’ve decided Amsterdam is like Burning Man. Lots of people partying, you’ll see flashy lights, weird things and some nudity. Austin’s 6th street only wishes it was as interesting as any given street in the Leidsplein. Studying the language over the past couple months has been very useful, much more stuff is easily recognizable now. I’m annoyed, though, that I don’t have a travel-sized English-Nederland dictionary so I can lookup words while I’m riding somewhere.

Busy week, busy weekend, the first of many. After having the 4th off, leisurely feasting, partying, and fireworking at Ryan’s parents, Thursday was busy as hell. I was one of the few in the office since everyone took Thursday and Friday off. I spent a good chunk of the day working up export paperwork for our gear we’re sending to Amsterdam on top of a dozen other loose ends that needed to be tied up at the office and datacenter. That night after getting home, I re-packed my bicycle and packed for my trip.

Friday morning I went to back to the datacenter to double-check my paperwork because I’m paranoid about doing what I can to make sure it goes smoothly and give things a last minute lookover. I also dropped off my bike at Fedex for Seattle. Insallah, my packing was adequate, the fork isn’t going to get broken, nor is a tire going to be bent.

After a couple hours on the road, I got a call from the shipper handling our crates asking about the dimensions. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of them as to what happened, either the crates were too big for the airplane or their driver was incapable of using a tape measure. Turns out nobody from the shipper thought to get the dimensions off the quotes we had worked up, they sent too small of a truck and our crates wouldn’t fit. I don’t have the full story yet, but it sounds like they sent a larger truck later in the afternoon. Then, the export paperwork was wrong. I had asked about the old export schedule code, shipper told me it was old, gave me a new one which I used; turns out what they told me was incorrect. In both cases it was the shipper’s fault, but I’m waiting to see if I get yelled at for it since I wasn’t there to handle it.

My trip was extended a couple of hours because of dealing with work and trying to find internet hotspots where I could send emails. I finally rolled into Bartlesville at 8:30 PM. Saturday I left for the parent’s. Sunday, I left to come home.

This week is rapidly approaching the point of no return. Wednesday I leave for Seattle for the Seattle-Portland ride on Saturday. Insallah, my bike will be intact, I won’t get sick, and Rainier doesn’t erupt. I leave at the ungodly time of 12:55 AM on Monday morning to return to Austin. Insallah, my bike frame or a spoke will not have broken on a 50 MPH descent, and I’m not in the hospital for heat stroke or something. As soon as I get back, I’ll be leaving on Wednesday for Amsterdam.

I’ve been completely obvilious to things lately too. It finally clicked yesterday that J.P. and Gwyn got married on 07/07/07; it also clicked that their honeymoon roadtrip was why J.P. had been fixing up his car lately. I was watching some Discovery Channel programme about the huge bridge being built over the Colorado river in front of Hoover Dam. Turns out going to Hoover was part of their honeymoon too. Speaking of dates, Boeing unveiled their new 787 jet yesterday, on 07/08/07. Cute.