WHY HALDO THERE.

Yes. Me again. Your old pal, Rosemart.

Today I woke up late and the damned internet Would Not Work.

I dunno about you, but I like to check my emails while I eat breakfast.

So I went to a little breakfast place with free wifi. Same place that had the goat cheese. It was great.

On the way I saw many bits of graffiti.






Pretty sick, eh?

These were all along one wall. They kind of overlapped and ran into each other. I liked them a lot.

Amsterdam graffiti tends to be pretty cool. Paris graffiti was almost entirely tags, and boring, but the stuff here is mostly art or interesting ('interesting') sayings.


Thought provoking. Mmm.

Anyway, I went down to the Rijksmuseum? I think that's how you spell it. It's mostly under reno, but they had a number of their highlights on display, including, as they made very sure to post a sign about, The Night Watch by Rembrant WAS on display, thank you, so please come in and give us your monies.

There was also some Vermeers! Yaaaaay!

The one I liked best of the ones they had was being hogged by this woman.

Seriously. She stood about a foot away from the painting and wouldn't move. It's not like the museum was deserted; there were lots of other people trying to look. I tried to menouver around her to get a good look at the painting, but she'd all but wrapped her legs around the guard rail.

So I took a picture of the back of her head.


ENJOY INTERNET SHAME, LADY.

(I eventually gave up and went to casually gaze upon The Night Watch, by Rembrant. It was okay, I guess...)

Then I double backed, and the stupid lady had moved on. It was a purdy painting. Vermeer painted some nice stuffs, he did.

After the museum (which my mother will be pleased to know I got an audioguide for, and listened to every entry) I decided lunch was in order.

Lunch turned out to be gelato, and lounging around beside the canals.

My life is so hard.

Have I mentioned this is the warmest March they've had in about a million years?

Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating on the million. Maybe just a couple hundred thousand.

Brilliant. It's been perfect weather.

So I wandered. Got a little lost, but not too much. Found my way to the Anne Frank House.

Man.

As big a jerks people can be to elephants, they apparently can be bigger jerks to each other.

Let's never repeat that particular point in time, shall we?

Everybody?

Good, we agree.

No more of that.

Afterward I kinda dicked around the streets (that's not hard to do in Amsterdam). Did a little shopping. Spent perhaps more money than I ought to have, but it's okay. Come a certain someone's birthday, there's going to be little girl squeals. (I hope.)

Then I went back to the hostel for a little nap, and my buddy Cipri was all: "ROOOOOOOOSIE! COME SEE THE TERRIBLE PLACE WHERE I WORK!"

And I was all: "*SIGH* You are so hard to deal with, Cipri."

But I went. (He also promised to take me around the Red Light District at night, which up to this point I had been too frightened to do.)

So I found the building okay. Got buzzed in. Promptly got lost.

I *did* find the H&M headquarters! Like, I was right in the middle of it because I came out of the wrong stairwell! And there was nobody around!

I was frightened. I look at H&M a bit like Wal-Mart. I'm pretty sure if anybody high up in the company found me I'd be tied to a table and people would be dancing around in goat skins.

So I fled. Found an elevator.

Encountered a bevy of Dutch speaking businessmen, who all very cheerfully chattered at me and laughed and I didn't know what they were saying and so I just smiled and blushed and I think that was what they wanted because they all laughed some more.

I eventually found Cipri's work, which was in the top, top, top of a building right on Dam Square (which is the main square; there's a palace and everything!). He made fun of me for getting lost. (Jerk.)

I don't know what's going on down there, but something's on fire, and everybody looks interested. There are a lot of police and someone looking very official, so I can only imagine it was intentional.

Cipri's work is right at the top of the building, there's pretty much a 360 degree view. It's pretty crazy.

(That building on the left? That's the palace. Cipri says the Queen is rarely ever there, and pretty much only comes round once a year for her birthday party.)

(Apparently the birthday party is kind of insane.)

Anyway...

HOLY CRAP. WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?

WHY, IT'S CIPRI!

Everybody say hello to Cipri.

(He can speak way more languages than me.)

(Which isn't really saying much, but there you go.)

So we hung out on the roof for a little while and he pointed out good alleys for smuggling ladies into the gentlemen's club (which apparently used to be on one of the lower floors).

Then we went for a walk in the Red Light District!

It was getting dark(er) by then, and all the ladies were out in full force.

I learned a few things on that walk:

Red light means ladies for hire.

Purple light means Dude Looks Like a Lady.

Cipri is colourblind.

HILARITY.

Moving on.

I was famished, FAMISHED, so we popped over to a sushi place.

They had pretty good sushi.

They also had a few pieces that were like: salmon, with melted cheese.

And: shrimp with melted cheese and pesto.

And: tuna with melted cheese.

And I was all: Okay. What?

But I thought: If I'm gonna have weird cheese-based sushi, I might as well have it in a country that had MAGNIFICENT CHEESE.

Right?

So I tried all of them.

My conclusion is.....meh. Not bad, but not great. I don't suggest the melted cheese sushi. (It was basically like a normal piece of sushi with a sliver of cheese on top that's flash melted, so the fish is still raw(ish) and the cheese is melted.)

After that....what did we do?

I think I just went back to the hostel. It was late. We closed out the restaurant.

We ran into Cipri's sister and her boyfriend on the way back and I tried to fulfill all the Canadian stereotypes I could. I also explained encountering bears to Cipri, and how to scare them off or generally not get eaten. (He thought being covered in bells was a pretty hilarious thing. Hilarious and LIFE SAVING!)

And then I tried to stay awake to post this last night, and compeltely and utterly failed. My brain turned off around 1am and refused to be revved up again.

Oh well. Now you get late posts.

HOORAY FOR LATE POSTS!

Here, have some more graffiti pictures: