Le Weekend

Flying to Amsterdam is very quick and easy. We hardly had time to finish our drinks before the plane started its decent and the cabin staff hurriedly collected to the rubbish. Having taken everything on the plane as hand luggage we were straight out of the airport and onto

the cheap, efficient and quite train to the city centre with 90 minutes of leaving Liverpool Airport.

We didn't stay up that late on Friday but we did manage a little wander around the local coffee shops including returning to Balou. I spent an interesting hour or so discussing the difference between drug laws in our respective countries as well as the origins of the coffee

shop soundtrack CDs with the guy behind the bar.

We met up with J&K who are friends of Jess and Lee's in the morning. We then proceeded to wander about the place, alternating between bars and coffee shops so everyone could suitably indulge in their inebriating substance of choice. It was basically a holding pattern while waiting for Jess and Charles to turn up later in the evening. I did get

invited to a party in January though, which should give me another reason to get my arse down to Nottingham.

My linear memory is a little hazy as to what order things happened. However notable events include: a nice Thai green curry, a very nice Italian lamb dish, Lee's item anti-retention field, geek discussion with a member of the BSD camp, a little (prompted) open source evangelising, bloat trumps libido, one unfriendly coffee shop, lots of

friendly coffee shops, plastic grinders, the politics of inaction, minor french bashing, wondering why the British drink so much, cold outside, warm inside, repeated attempts to visit the modern art museum, being congratulated on my pro-European views, fine selection of plants, temptation (and not yielding to it), finding a cool present for my dad, failing to find equally cool present for my brother, proactive nocturnal sonic management techniques, my bad dutch impressions, early nights!

All in all a very relaxing weekend. It was great seeing Jess again (and in much happier circumstances than last time). Amsterdam is still one of my favourite European cities. Its compact enough to walk around but also full of lots of interesting places to explore. The Dutch are

all most universally friendly and excellent English speakers. I love the cafe culture of the coffee shops where going out implies meeting and chatting with friends and not a scrum to the bar to drink as much alcohol as you can before last orders.