I arrived at Grand Centraal in the afternoon of the 17th of June and made my way via tram to Surinamplien which is just south of Vondelpark and next to Rembrandt park (2 posts below), where I had organised to stay at Suzanne and Hans place who had found me on the internet. Suzanne is a writer who was a manager/coordinator for Townes Van Zandt a country/folk artist who died in '97 amongst other things and she had many a story to tell, we got along famously.
Hans' cafe was closed a year or so ago, so he had plenty of free time to give me the locals view of the city. We went on a couple of bike tours, and I got shown where the cheap food was, were the uber rich live, and where the best priced weed was. Which was at Katsu if you were wondering, away from the touristy places right next to the Albert Cuypstraat market which was open every day bar Sunday. I recommend the "Black Widow".

Where I was staying was so nice it was tough to leave, but I did manage to get my bearings by the end of the trip as I rode around for a good 3-4 hrs most days. Jordaan was beautiful, I took the photo above there (which still needs work) before stopping at a local wine store and picked up a bottle of Jenever which was the precursor to gin, I found it tastes awesome with apple juice or anything lime. Other Dutch favorites were Stamppot (kinda like sausage and mash with sauerkraut) which Hans made, and "Roomboter Honingstroopwafels" or crack cookies as I call them.

10 days was still not enough for Amsterdam, learning some basic Dutch will be key next time too. Now the countdown begins for Canada, I have a couple of photography related things going on before then, but will be trying to save a few more dinero before I leave.

Back from Amsterdam today, back to the grindstone tomorrow. . .

Having just spent Sunday playing football in the common, my body is feeling a little rough in preparation for Amsterdam, which is happening on Wednesday morning when I take the train via Brussels, a 6 1/2 trip. I really love trains, the town I grew up in had no tracks and the rail system in NZ was so shit I think I saw about 10 trains before I left there, the novelty of trains has not worn off yet.

I'll be there for 10 days, plenty of time to visit the coast, go on some big bike rides and recharge. Also Gilly from Yellowknife is randomly going to be there for 3 days, will be nice to see a familiar face.

Flights and tickets are booked for Canada for July 27th to Sept 14th and I'm hoping to meet old friends and hook up some with new ones along the way to Shambhala and Burning Man as well as give my new camera gear a workout in between by doing a bit of hitchiking and trekking into the hills.

The Thinktank site is almost ready to go live, just have a bit more alpha testing to do before I want people to start trying it out, I have Natasha helping me with that, but anyone else who has web skillz is welcome to help out (this means you Drei!).
Next post will be from the continent!

Went on a shoot with Sean today, have more on flickr.

So we got back into the country without a hitch and we greeted by the fog and the rain, but after a day it cleared up and it has been hot! My garden is going hard, had a few salads from it all ready and the tomato plants are taking over, if only I enjoyed radish. . .

Went into the city the other day and hung out with Johnathan and Sean, frisbee, swimming, sun etc, chill. Getting some much needed handstand practice in before I go to Canada this summer, Francis has laid down the challenge. I might even make it to Burning Man this year if the time permits as well as Shambhala, other than that I have no concrete plans for 6 weeks in BC, maybe some hitchhiking, maybe some climbing, definitely some Wreck beaching. Oh yes. Are you in B.C in the Summer? (late July-Aug-early Sept)? See you there.