Aja aja aja aja aja aaaaaaaahhh......

Man the first week of easter holidays was a blast. First of all, of course was IC's Malaysian Night. Very very entertaining. Whatever they said, this year's was better than the last. **Proceed to distance myself from any association with Warwick's mnite(shhh!)**. Noteworthy mentions were the intro dance ( amaaazing choreography!) the bhangra ( hilarious!) and of course the 'chicken' and 'tai chi' scenes - classic.

Over the next coupla days i managed to get a leeetle bit of shopping in, made vietnamese kuey teow soup for my UCL sistas over at Windemere(ahhhh...missed Puteri's razor sharp banter and Alina's disarmingly cute blurness), and ate way too often at the Jap centre in Picadilly.

Uw inzet, alstublieft..*(your bets, please)

Met up with Taib, Woon and Wave at Gatwick on tues for the midday flight to aaAAmsterdam!! Well....what can i say? The train ride from the airport to the town center wasn't particularly scenic ( yup...flatland, canals, flatland, canals and the occasional 10-storey-ish building). The central station and town center wasn't really that much different from any other European capital...except maybe a little more drab and there were a heckuva lot more bridges.

We got a cheap yet really nice and cozy room in a hostel just on the edge of the red light district. Just outside the hotel there were already buttloads of "coffee shops"(mmm that doesn't smell like cigarette smoke does it?) and just further down there were already some of the main tourist attractions of the city - the subtly highlighted windows and the 'cabarets' with their "variety shows". At night the main streets are quite colourful - and busy. Mostly tourists ( some already walking rather strangely, i might add), those who are more seriously perusing the 'wares' and the oddly common pusher or two. Of course, with the munchies being a pretty common ailment here pretty much every other shop is either a restaurant or a takeaway too.

Further out of the town center, there are quite a few museums ( Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Sex museum, Marijuana museum and the like). We also took the tour of the Heineken brewery there - quite an unconventional tour....a run through of the brewery and the brewing process i can understand - but a shot at DJ-ing and 2 motion master rides ( of the bottling process and of a horse drawn beer shuttle)? Haha at least we all got free glasses in the end... We also saw a casino on the way there, so we gatal gatal just HAD to give it a shot that night......haha started with 50 euros, played a little blackjack - got pretty lucky....after some violent winning and losing got away with about 150 euros 'clean'(shh) wins.Yay......man some of those hardcore gamblers are fuckin scary.......like want to die only like that..

On the last day, i suggested that we take a coach tour to the countryside - a typical dutch fishing village that also makes clogs and cheese. But in the end not everyone managed to get up in time for that tour so we scrapped that. Sigh. Sooooo we ended up going to the casino againnn!! Not so hot this time tho.......almost lost all my winnings. So far during our 3 nights and 4 days we've had Tibetan food, lotsa chips and waffles, argentinean food and italian food....the only things dutch we know of were pancakes and raw herring - i found the latter quite nice...but we didn't bother trying the pancakes.

Yayy..London...again....

Over the next coupla of days i managed to play chef again at Windemere - hehe they asked for french and they definitely got it. Lemon mustard roast chicken with edamame and sweet potato coulis, ratatouile, potatoes gratin and creme brulee.....managed not to screw anything up althoooo the chicken took a bit longer than expected to cook..(yes thats it...masssaaaage the chicken..hee hee hee). And also tried my hand at making some Jap food for Darren's household and Lu......haha strangely i rolled the worst sushi rolls. ( but im a lot better now, serious!!)

Back in Warwick again. Boo.

Alll settled down in my cozy, tiny Cryfield room. I can't count the number of times i've leant back and banged my head on the freakin dresser. I've been pretty much spending my time doing obscenely little work, playing Unreal and Warcraft with the plonkers in Lakeside and Heronbank and sleeping too much. Bleurgh. Well, i finally managed to get back my key( that i left in the auto-locking kitchen) so i'm going to make something outta this sleepless morning and dash over to the gym! Adios, compadres!