Well, my Easter holidays are now over, and I have to say I am rather relieved. These holidays were more like a 2 week bender, with very little quiet time for R&R. The first weekend of the holidays was spent in Amsterdam, the fine city 3 hours west of here. I got on a ICE train with my english mates Sam and Pete, while a Syrian friend of mine Adnan decided to travel by regional trains to avoid border guards, due to the fact that his passport had expired, and he didn't feel like getting locked up as a suspicious Arab with no papers in Europe. Anyway, we arrived in Amsterdam on the Friday afternoon with absolutely no idea where we would be staying. We looked around for a few places, but absolutely everything was booked for the whole weekend. I guess we could have been a little better organised and actually booked something in advance, but that would have been boring, right?
After almost giving up hope and preparing to pull an all-nighter, we went to the hostel we stayed at in October, which predictably, was also full. However, as we were standing around outside debating what we should do, a bloke came out of the Kebab shop under the hostel and told us that a booking hadn't arrived yet, and if they didn't come by 10pm, we could have the room. Naturally we were pretty happy with this development when they didn't show and we got a place to sleep.
After dumping all our stuff we went to an Aussie bar and proceeded to knock back a few Coopers Sparkling Ales, a beer that I hadn't drunk in almost a year. These went down a treat, and after Pete's brother and a couple of his friends arrived in town and met us, we went to the Doors Cafe, a cool Jim Morrision themed Bar/Coffee Shop. We then settled in for the night enjoying ourselves immensely. Floating home at about 4 in the morning, I had a good night's sleep before a rather blurry day spent in various establishments around the city, culminating in a brit rock club in the wee hours of the morning, followed by a pint of Guinness on the way home.
The Sunday was very similar to the previous day, but we spent a few hours drinking in the park before Sam and I went to a fruit and veg shop and purchased some foodstuffs from mexico that the guy behind the counter assured us were quality. After having a sample, we went back to the Doors and chilled out there for a few hours staring at a large portrait of Jim Morrision in wonder, before the fun started. At this stage the others came and met us, just before the Doors closed at 1am. At this stage we had no idea what to do. As far as we knew, everything in the city was closed (Being a Sunday) except for a place called San Francisco. After a rather panic filled and complex argument about what to do, we eventually got a few cabs to said place. Now I don't know what I was expecting here, but it sort of reminded me of the bar in Star Wars on the rogue trading planet. Full of the dregs from all walks of life, including a a guy who looked like Blade, and assorted other scary individuals. The other thing that struck me as strange was the fact that every third song would either be 'I like to move it' or 'Ring of Fire'. This started to cause us great distress after while. After flipping out at the table for what was probably about 3 hours, we stumbled outside at closing time, to be greeted by a street covered in vomit and what we were hoping was dog shit. After wandering home I had a rather weird night's sleep, before we had to get up at 10am to vacate the hostel.
We wandered around town a little dazed for a while, before finding a coffee shop called 'Lost' where you could sit around on beanbags all day, relaxing. This is what we did, until we got our train home at about 7pm.
After taking a few days to recover back in Dortmund, and having a couple of regulation nights out on the piss the following weekend, the weather started getting warmer, and I was invited to a barbeque of a friend of a friend. What made this different was the fact that it was in a 'Strebergarten', in a ghetto-like block of tiny gardens on the outskirts of town, where flat-dwelling Germans buy blocks so they can grow vegies and such and such. Usually you only see these tiny gardens with their tiny houses out of train windows, so this was my first time in one. It actually was pretty cool, as you can make as much noise as you like because no one lives in the area, and the gardens are usually immaculately maintained. So after a rather pleasant bbq, with equally pleasant beer and vodka, we went into the city to Bakuda, before getting a train home very early in the morning. The next day I forced myself up early and went with a mate of mine to Westfalenstadion for the match between BVB and Nürnberg. Naturally we got stuck into the bratwurst and beers, and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere with 70 000 other fans at Dortmund's second last home game of the year. Afterwards we went to Westpark for another barbeque, followed by another night at the seedy metal club 'Spirit'. After stumbling home at 7am, I passed out and woke up almost 20 hours later. I think my body was trying to tell me something. Anyway, after one day's rest, I went back to school, not feeling refreshed in the slightest after a rather seedy two week holiday.
