So this past weekend has been wonderful since it started thursday night. I have been lucky enough to chat with not one but FOUR of my lovely friends from Oxy- Serita, Christina, Erika, and Tristan- this weekend, along with my momma and sister! So great to finally see people's faces and to talk to them! Even better was seeing the creatures from B-more on the screen- Cookie grumbling, Jack being adorable, etc etc.
This past weekend has also been a tumultuous time for many of the squatters in the city. As of this past Friday (October 1) squatting in Amsterdam has been banned. So people cannot occupy abandoned houses to reside in any longer. Since there are around 20,000 squatters in the city currently, this news was not good news for these A-Dam squatters. There have been riots and protests going on Friday and Saturday, although I was not around any of those areas when the riots were occuring. Although apparently part of the riots were near Prinsengracht, where many people from CIEE reside, so they saw tons of policemen with bullet-proof shields and everything. Apparently it was quite chaotic, although I happened to miss all of it. According to the news and other people I've talked to, there was even some police brutality and some people were injured. Who knows if there will be more riots because of the ban on squatting.
Here is a YouTube link of some of the footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBiI1C_XoHk
This weekend has also been chock-full of lovely events as well, the majority quite relaxing and enjoyable, just in the company of some very cool kids in an even cooler city. We got to see what Dutch men do for a bachelor party here. I don't know if they go to the strip clubs or do that silly stuff here, but what I do know, and what I've seen, is much different. On Saturday afternoon we saw a big group of rowdy Dutch men walking past in the Red Light District, one of which was dressed up in the most bizarre get-up. He was wearing a duck bill, fake blonde hair extensions, suspenders, and a brightly colored floral dress, while his mates were all in their normal attire. They then found rubber dildos and then duck-taped one to his one hand, and the other i think the his stomach. It was very amusing to watch through a glass window while we were eating lunch, and we kept egging the non-groom-to-be on with thumb's ups and everything. I think they appreciated our enthusiasm for this man's upcoming nuptials. Just one of the many glorious situations that can be found in Amsterdam.
All I can say is, there's never a dull moment here.
FUN FACT: if a pedestrian is walking in a bike lane, or on the street, and gets hit by a biker, it's automatically the pedestrian's fault.
**note: while I thought this rule (not sure how official it is) was preposterous before I started riding my bike. Now I completely agree with it because many pedestrians (many of them tourists) can be quite idiotic and walk right into a biker on the bike path. It sounds terrible, but I always get mad at the stupid pedestrians. They can be quite a nuisance whilst biking.
FUN FACT: Europeans and all other foreigners think that it is so strange that they have the metric system and tell the temperature in Celsius, while we Americans use our own measurement system (which baffles them, by the way) and we measure the temperature in Fahrenheit. A very noticeable cultural difference, I think.
FUN FACT: Nutella jars can be turned into excellent cups and dining ware. For the amount of Nutella that all of us eat here (which is quite a hefty amount) we just can rinse out our cups and voila! we have cups!
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