T'as envie de faire quelquechose?

Perhaps another unnecessary entry into the blog, but it is what it is.

Last week was quite badass, going up to Amsterdam and checking out the city. It's been so long since I've been to the Netherlands... 13 years, in fact. I took a bus up there, which was quite the experience in and of itself. Getting on board I realized that I had about 3.2 seconds to get off and save myself from the miserably journey that I knew lay ahead. Ok, in all honesty, it wasn't that bad, but the sheer mixing of people took me as quite as a surprise. I just assumed that I would be on a bus filled with random French people, ready to embark on a trip to Amsterdam. I didn't realize that it was a mass of people of random nationalities going anywhere from London to Paris to Brussels all the way up to its final destination of Amsterdam.

Along the way I was accompanied by 2 rather incredibly annoying children who refused to keep their mouths shut and stop themselves from singing hideous Cher songs. And I love children. I was greeted by the scent of piss for a good duration of the journey. As well as forced to make rather uninteresting conversation with some Sri Lankan woman who was about my mother's age and certainly not as charming. What can I say, I am unable to tell someone to piss off and leave me alone.

Of course, the journey was not nearly as bad as I make it out to be, even though at times I did feel that I was some type of illegal immigrant secretly being shipped off to a brothel in Romania, but this was all made significantly better once I saw my one and only roomie. The week consisted of us just wandering around Amsterdam as she showed me all the little things that she likes most about the place. We went to this public beach, some really cool bars, the Red Light District, pretty neighbourhoods, Den Haag, the Van Gogh Museum. I rented a bicycle; what can I say, I'm addicted to the velo.

Tara and I visited some shops along the way. Amsterdam has quite a nice selection.

Had a lot of picnicks and bought a lot of cheese.

When to this really cool gig in a place that resembled a lot like someone's living room, with 7 Euro haircuts being given in the back.

A visit to a beach at night.

And a trip to Scheveninghan, the beach I used to go to as a kid growing up in The Hague.

Surprisingly, I don't remember much about Holland at all. I remember vaguely the trams. I remember my school a bit, my old apartment, those stupid pink cakes that I used to eat every single day when I came home from school. Hell, I bought several packets while I was there.

We did take a little afternoon trip out the The Hague, but sadly enough we weren't able to make it out to my old school and apartment. I was gutted. Really. I don't know what the desire was and still is to go see the old place. I have this image in my head of what the place looks like, feels like. I want to go back and see how correct my mental image is, and if it's different, is it different because my memory is off or is it because things have really changed in 13 years? I want to relive something of my childhood that I know made a significant impact on who I am today. I'm curious what my penpal is up to.

Enough mushy bullshit. Basically, I had a good time.

This week has been pretty chill as well. Strangely enough I've gone into Lille multiple times this week, perhaps realized how much I need to profite while I'm here. Just in this past week several people have talked to me about leaving and how sad it's going to be and how weird it will be for me to not be here. Ok, when I say several I just mean handful, but still. All I can keep thinking is Shut up! I'm not leaving yet, I still have 2 months left and just let me enjoy them!!!!! But it's true. I have 2 months left. That's nothing. That's hardly anything. So I just go and check shit out. Monday I went out to Rue Solferino, this road that has tons and tons of bars. There were probably about 20 of us, all trying to smush around one table, a huge mixture of people that would ordinarily never mix together. Thursday involved more bar visiting as this time a much smaller group went out to this place called the Tudor Inn, where there are no chairs and tables but just comfy sofas and rather odd pictures of children working on one wall and half naked women on the other, further joined by a waiter stating, Moi, je suis la carte, when asked if we could potentially see the menu. Of course, we ended up all ordering just about the same thing, the majority of our drinks coming in the shape of this weird contraption of a glass resembling an hourglass in a hourglass holder, complete with a certain little trick required to drink it properly without spilling everywhere.

Tonight was rather cool as well. I remember a long time ago, Rachel explaining that there was this really cool place in Lille where you could pay about 4 Euros and see really badass films for the entire month and sit on couches. Yeah, it's a room full of couches and you just sit and watch some great artsy film, which I quite enjoy. Well, tonight, we finally found this place. And it was awesome. Rachel, if you're reading, I jumped for joy when I realized where I was. Beers were hella cheap since we hit happy hour and David and Patrick were nice enough to treat me to drinks. We sat in these great sofas, watching really cool short little films and clips of bands, some famous like Animal Collective and Sigur Ros and some I've never heard of like Zombie and Zombie.

Life is rather great. I seem to say that a lot, along with a lot of other shit I seem to keep repeating in this blog. But perhaps coming here has made me realize how much I appreciate all that. I do have a language update coming up soon, and seeing as Saturdays is usually my devoir days, I'll be sure to blog again tomorrow.