The last supper

I left London on Thursday morning just gone. On Wednesday night I had dinner at Jimmy's place. He cooked up a mad mexi feast which was a good way to end a quick week in London catching up with everyone.




The trip back to Amsterdam sucked. EasyJet... More like Fucking RudeyJet. The staff and the customers. It is basically a discount supermarket in the air. Real assholes. Real Euro swine.

I might go see M Ward play tonight. Gaslight Anthem and Polar Bear Club are playing on Sunday night and then we might go see Titus Andronicus on Monday or Tuesday? (Ryan might be jealous - that is about it though).

De Zotte tonight. I can't wait.

Job prospects looking up... We'll see.

For British Eyes Only....

Have been hanging in London for a few days - haven't really been using the camera much.
Hasn't been as cold here as it has in Amsterdam. Have caught up with a lot of people that used to love me. Stayed at my sister and her dude's place a couple of nights, stayed at Gareth and Nina's place on Saturday night, now I'm going to stay with Jaimie and Tim and their unborn son Vince for a couple of nights.

Still sniffing around for some work. Havn't had much luck thus far, but I was expecting that... So I'm just kind of hanging out and enjoying seeing old friends.

Currently sitting in the pub that Jaimie works in Camden. She is pregnant and due on the 3rd of June. I hadn't seen her for about a year so we have been hanging out and she has been serving me a lot of beers. There have been two customers in here over the past five hours. Good times.

Jaimie and I.

Chiswick Tube Station. Saturday afternoon.

Saturday night - Matt, Gareth and Lucy's birthday party. We ended up at The Nordic Bar which is just near Oxford Street and has a shit tonne of beers and drinks that are Scandinavian. Matt was my old boss at Atticus/Macbeth, Gareth is my homeboy who lived in Australia with Nina and I for a year, and Lucy is a good friend who used to work at Atticus/Macbeth as well and lived with Gareth and Jimmy whose couch I crashed for a couple of months. Three of the best Londoners you will ever meet.

Matt and Sabira.

Lucy made Gareth a cooking apron for his birthday.

Gareth and his cousin Nick. Nick was one of the first people I met when I came to London in 2005. Good dude. Loves cats.

Nina, Sari and Lucy.

Jaimie and Tim's cat - Dizzle. Used to be called Pandora until they found out if was a boy.

ps. If you didn't know - you can click on the photos to see the big versions of them.

Back in the state

I fell asleep on the tube last night and woke up in Ealing Broadway. I now remember the dangers of getting drank in London...

Mum said I swear too much on here, so I am going to curb my enthusiasm from here on and fucking edit my shit before I post it...

Love you mum xo

Scream, shout, rip that mother out

Santina said one of the funniest things she has ever said to me just before. She asked, "Nick, do you think there are any cultures that lay down to take a shit?"

On Friday morning I woke up at about 9am and got the tram to Central Station, then I got the train to Schiphol Airport. I arrived at 10am. I was of the understanding that Pat and Matt were flying in from London on a British Airways flight that was to arrive at 10am. Unfortunately I'm an ignorant asshole who doesn't read emails properly. The shitty thing is, I wish I could be mad at them, but they gave me the correct flight number and time, I just had my head in my ass and didn't read the message from them... Ugh. I hate myself.

Turns out the guys were arriving on a British Airways flight at 11.25am. In the time I had to kill waiting for a flight that I wasn't sure was ever going to arrive I saw a trashy newspaper with the headline "A DAD AT 13" with a cover shot of a kid who looked no older than 11 cradling his new born son. I wish I'd have taken a photo of that shit, it was hilarious. I watched hundreds of people unload through the arrival gate from four different British Airways flights over the space of an hour and a half. By the time the guys got out I was ready to storm through the customs hall and grab the first two Australians I could find and get the fuck out of there.

Matt, Pat and obnoxious French child

Matt & Pat on the train

We get the train back to Gijs' and Santina's place and on the way, we talk a heap of shit and the guys fill me in about their holidays so far in Barcelona and London. Highlights included something about a dude named "K-hole Matty" who organised for the boys to each pay forty pounds to go to a rave and score a shit tonne of MDMA... Understandably they declined. Matt has a great photo of that guy resting his sandwich on his head while he rolls a cigarette. Genius. Also, both Matt and Pat were pretty haggard because they'd been up all night at a pub where Matt's ex-girlfriend works. Turns out Mastodon were staying in a hotel across the road, and dudes were getting wild until stupid o'clock. I guess dudes with face tattoos know how to party!

To deviate from the story briefly, early that morning I watched the garbage truck drive around the residential streets near Gijs and Santina's place, collecting the trash... Sounds boring huh? Sounds like another Nick Lucas story... WRONG MOTHERFUCKER! Look at these photos. There is a city of fucking trash under this city! The Lost City of Trashlantis! What looks like a simple bin on the side of the road in fact has a container underneath it big enough to drop a car into. Not even a Ford Laser. More like a fucking Jeep Grand Cherokee or something. Amazing. There is a giant magnet hanging from a crane which pulls the whole box out of the trash cave, and dumps it into the back of the truck! Small things I guess... That I was excited by this feat of civil engineering is a window into my mind. I'll endeavour to take some better photos on next week's rubbish day.

Amazing

So Matt and Pat, in Amsterdam.

Day one! We hang out for a bit, go and get some free coffee from Santina. She works in a coffee shop called The Coffee Company which is kind of like Starbucks but with good coffee and less assholes. It snows briefly. We buy some cheap German beers from the poor man's supermarket LIDL, where Matt gets hassled by a homeless guy who parrots everything after Matt says it. We come home and cook some pasta, watch a Kevin Smith spoken word DVD and then go to De Zotte.

Koala sausages

Pepsi bullet

De Zotte is a Belgian beer bar where one of Gijs' friends named Joep works. You might have heard me tell a story about a Belgian beer called Brigand which is 10%, and how I drank six of them when you really should stop after two, and I couldn't talk and almost shit my pants... If not, then you've missed out on a great story about a night which lead to one of my top three hangovers. Anyway, De Zotte is a cosy little non-tourist bar where a group of Gijs' mates go each Friday night to drink beers and be all Dutch and shit. We hang for a few hours and switch beers after a couple of Brigands.

De Zotte Bar

Neils!

A few of us go to the Paradiso to watch a band from Brooklyn called Gang Gang Dance. My friend Neils here vouches for them and so we each pay our €11. If only you could test drive a live show of a band you've never heard. Like you get to watch the first song from the stairs and if you don't like it, you can fuck off and get your €11 back. Alas, not the case. The band is complete horse shit. Just because you've got a girl singer and a dude with more keyboards than the bald asshole from the Letterman Show doesn't mean you are as good as The Knife or Portishead. The band had potential, and Neils assures us that the first album was great but the new stuff they're playing live is lacking. Pity.

Condom vending machine..."Don't open this vending machine by force. It's pointless." Smug fucking Dutch

Day two! Late wake up, subtle hangovers, free coffee and Internet from Santina, I book flights to and from London to stay for a week, we walk to the Anne Frank House and the queue is really big. (I could be uncouth here and say that the line of people looked as long as people waiting to get on a train for a ride to a special camp in Germany...uncouth though, so I won't). We decide to postpone the Anne Frank experience until Monday and instead walk to the Museum Square. We hit up the Rijksmuseum which although is partly out of order due to refurbishments, is still a pretty interesting few rooms. The Van Gough Museum has another one of those 1940s style line ups, so we skip that and Matt goes ice skating while Pat and I take photos of him, laugh as a child kicks his mother with his skate blade after she has fallen onto the ice, and wonder who the guy taking photos of kids next to us is actually related to... Hhmmmm.....

Matt on ice

Matt had a blast

It means "You Can..."

This guy thought it would be a good idea to stand in our photo, and smile at my camera. Asshole.

Home time for a brief sit down and some quick duty free Jack Daniels, then it is off to Maoz (felafel joint) for dinner, and onto the Melkweg (Pointless fact #217: Melkweg is Dutch for Milky Way) to watch Rise Against and Strike Anywhere play. Matt, Pat, Santina and I get pretty drank. Mum and a few of my aunties read this blog, so this is edited version of our night.

Dat three! It is Sunday and I have a pretty gnarly hangover. We get bagels and coffee for breakfast/lunch, Gijs bought another Kevin Smith DVD so we stay in and watch that tonight. We get fast food Mexican for dinner from a place called Taco Mundo up the road. Complete horse shit. Never again. We were going to do one of the touristy things tonight and go watch a live sex show, but everyone is too tired so we might hit that up tomorrow night.

Bagels and Beans - Every Sunday

Day four! Monday...Anne Frank House. I've visited it before but it is still really interesting. Pat and Matt thought the Frank family and co. were hiding in a box under the floor boards and not in an actual house...
We went for a walk through the red light district. Always amusing. There is a kindergarden next to some ladies in some windows... oh you crazy Dutch.

Matt, Pat & Gijs on a canal

Niiiiiiiiiice

Pigeons in this country are fucking huge

Peacing out

It is 7am on Monday morning here in Amsterdam. I can't sleep and Gijs and Santina don't have an Internet connection in their new flat yet, so I am typing this out in TextEdit, and will hopefully upload it today at some point.

Jetlag wins.

Gijs & Santina's new flat - living room/my temporary bedroom.

Here is a catch up of the past week of my life.

Last Tuesday I went to the doctor on the Gold Coast and got some more asthma medicine. Turns out I have a bronchial problem as well as a sinus problem, so I got some more puffers and nasal sprays. Enough to last me for several months. If the cough hasn't gone by then, then mum has to buy some more shit for me and send it over.

Wednesday I went to the dentist and was lucky enough to score four fillings on the left side of my mouth - two on top, two on the bottom. Needles don't feel great when they are being inserted into your mouth. Obviously needles suck, but I think one of the worst I have ever had was in my gum. With your tongue, feel the hard fleshy part of your mouth at the back above the bottom row of your teeth (your gum)...She put a needle straight into that part. It felt like she pushed it about three inches deep. Anyway - I had a numb mouth all day. I drove to Brisbane and met up with Stevie and Scarlet and Stevie's sisters Rachel and Louise who are visiting from Scotland at the moment. We went for lunch at the place down on the river in the city next to the City Cat stop (I think it is called Groove). It was pretty rad. I'd got the feeling back in my face by that time, so I could chew my food... After that, we went for a drive up to Redcliffe and got some ice-cream and went for a walk out on the pier. Stevie was pretty stoked on the ginger bread flavour he got. Then I drove them all back up to Stevie and Scarlet's place in Scarborough, we hung out for a bit and then I drove back to Brisbane. I went and picked up Ryan and we drove to the UQ to watch Misery Signals and The Amity Affliction play the first show of their tour. The sound was fucking horrible from the back of the room, and I was fucked if I was going up the front with 600 sweaty and disgusting children. Apparently the sound at the front was amazing...too bad. Hung out and said goodbye to a heap of people which was kind of sad, but still kind of unreal - didn't really register that I was leaving in a day.

Thursday morning I woke up in a spare room at Ryan's house and remembered some gnarly dream that I had that night in which I think my mum punched in me in the face...hhmmm... Ryan and I drove into the city to go see Wade and Stevie at Wild At Heart for a couple of farewell tattoos. Wade had an awesome flash book from a heap of different artists and we decided to do a Tupac tattoo on my leg. We had planned to do Jesus and Tupac staring at each other, but I guess we ran out of time. Pretty happy with my latest edition to the leg of lines.

Sorry mum.

Stevie was meant to do a rose on the back of my forearm, but I guess my indecisiveness and a few other factors put me off (mainly I'm a pussy and didn't want to leave mum and dad being pissed off about me having another tattoo, and I realised that for 30 hours of transit, the fresh tattoo would be on an arm rest shared with some asshole who would undoubtedly knock it every few minutes). No tattoo for me. Sorry Stevie. I'll get something that day I come home. Ryan, Anna and I then went to see Joel and Louisa for me to say a quick final goodbye. I'll miss both of those shit heads a lot. So by this time, I was feeling pretty weird because I had finally come to the realisation that this time tomorrow I wouldn't be in the country. Ryan, Anna and I went to the Alibi Room and had some lunch and then I dropped both of them home, and drove back to the Gold Coast being a sad guy listening to Jawbreaker. I saw both my pairs of grandparents and said goodbye to them. That's some sad shit right there. Went and changed some cash into Euros and got completely raped by the exchange rate. $1 AUS buys 50 cents EURO. Goodbye half my savings. I then went home and hung out with the cat for a while, mum came home and we went and picked dad up from the airport and had some dinner. Then mum and I packed up all my shit. I think I packed pretty lightly this time. Everything fit in two bags and then I had a backpack as carry on. What did I take with me to last a year overseas? A sleeping bag (in case I end up doing tours again), one pair of jeans, one pair of shoes, two thermal tshirts, boxer briefs, an assortment of socks (regular black business socks, sports style ankle socks and thick, warm winter socks), a shit tonne of tshirts, two hoodies, a few long sleeve button up shirts, a few short sleeve button up shirts, my Kill The Music baseball tee which I intend to wear in front of touristy landmarks and send photos of back to Paul and Dan so I can feature in all their advertisements, laptop, ipod, ipod speaker dock, camera, two books (The Incredible Lightness of Being and The Picture of Dorian Grey), a bag of toiletries and a bag of adaptors and cables. Went to bed at around 1 or 2am.

Friday morning, mum, dad and I woke up at 5am and left for the airport. My body clock was already fucked from having such a hectic day on Thursday and then only getting three hours sleep that night... So began the hours of transit... I checked in for my flight and managed to score an emergency exit seat so I would have a bit more leg room. Sat with mum and dad for a bit and then said goodbye. Saying goodbye to people you love is fucked. That's life though I guess.

Gate 84 - Brisbane International.

I sat around in the familiar departure lounge of Brisbane International for the next few hours. I bought Gijs and Santina a kangaroo oven mit for their new flat, and I bought myself a jar of vegemite. I now realise I should have bought three of them. My flight left at 9.30am Eastern Standard Time. I had been awake for 4.5 hours. I then had a ten(?) hour flight to Singapore which was surprisingly boring. Normally I like flying, but this was kind of shitty. There was a dude sat next to me at the emergency exit who had found his seat before me and had claimed the arm rest that we were supposed to share (automatically glad I didn't get tattooed). After take off I tried to pull my TV up out of the seat, but it was stuck. The flight was pretty empty so the stewardess (who wasn't very nice) moved me over to the next row and pulled the TV out there as if I was a retard. My luck...of course the piece of shit doesn't show the image properly. She pretty much says that it's too bad and I have to put up with it. So I watch Burn After Reading with the screen flashing and static lines running through the feed. After a while I ditch it in favour of my laptop and watch the first three episodes of LOST Season 5. This makes me feel a lot better about my unsavoury surroundings. Hey friends reading this who don't like LOST; you're idiots. Shit has gotten so real. So, so real. So after some average airline food, we arrive into Singapore Changi International Airport Terminal 2 at around 2pm local time (by this time I have been awake for around 15 hours).

This is where time starts to blur for me.

I didn't sleep at all on the flight to Singapore, and I now have a ten hour stop over. I get the monorail from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 and soon realise exactly how huge this airport is. I spend the next ten hours doing the following: Free Internet, walk though the terminal to the restaurants, eat a curry and drink a beer, go to the free cinema and watch Oceans 13, go and pay $8 for a shower, shower, change clothes, go to the butterfly enclosure, go and watch Willy Wonka at the free cinema, go and get a burger and chips from an "American Diner", walk around the terminal, free Internet, talk shit to the girl in the Apple shop and pretend like I am going to buy a heap of accessories for my MacBook but then don't, go and watch Music & Lyrics (Hugh Grant, if you're reading this you're a complete prick), buy a giant bottle of Jack Daniels, go to a little restaurant called Toast Box(?) and get a big slice of peanut butter toast and lime juice, walk from one end of the terminal to the other which takes around 40 minutes and then sit at my departure gate for an hour and get some more free internet in. (I've now been awake for around 25 hours).

Butterfly enclosure...why bother?

Singapore Changi International - Huge.

A garden inside an airport.

The flight from Singapore to Amsterdam is 13 of the most mundane hours of my life. The flight is completely booked out and I am given a window seat which is complete horse shit on a night time flight. Oh look! The sky is black above Asia just like it is black above Africa just like it is black above Europe. I managed to sleep during take off, but that was it for the whole flight. I was agitated and restless, so the sleeping couple next to me copped a wake up every couple of hours when I squeezed past them to go to the toilet and walk around. "Why didn't you sleep?" I hear you ask. Well thanks to huge Dutch guy sat behind me who was smart enough to take some sleeping pills, I didn't sleep a wink for thirteen hours due to his snoring. He snored for around ten hours. What could I have done? Asked for some earplugs. That is what I could have fucking done. I'm an idiot and didn't though. Hoorah! Instead, I watched Burn After Reading again, Kill Bill Vol. 1 (twice), an episode of The Simpsons, Little Britain Down Under, Back To The Future 1, Back To The Future 2 and played Super Mario for a while on the built in game console thing. To continue my run of bad luck with the TVs on these flights, only one of the ears on the head phones worked. Brilliant. More shit food and an old lady pushing in line for the toilet, and I am finally in Amsterdam! (I have now been awake for around 38 hours).

Dutch customs guy doesn't ask me any questions or look at the visa in my passport, he just stamps it and sends me on my way. I wait for around half an hour for my bags and the finally come out - my black bag sans one wheel (but still in working order). A lady with a sniffer dog walks past me as I queue up in the Nothing To Declare line. I don't know who I was more threatened by... I walk out the doors and Gijs and Santina are waiting for me! Super fucking stoked! Almost cried in relief haha. We jump the train and Gijs went to work once we got back into the city. Santina took me back to their new flat which is super nice, and I had a shower and napped for a couple of hours. Then our friend Patrick came over and we got some lunch and talked shit for a while. We walked into central and I bought a new jacket from H&M as well as a Dutch SIM card. It is around 0 degrees and I am so happy to not be sweating anymore. Of all the things I know I will miss from home, the heat is not one of them.

What is uglier than Crocs? Winter Crocs.

New jacket.

I jumped the line for a photo in the clog... These three were super pissed off.

I'm in your video game, killing your aliens.

Santina and I go past the Paradiso which is one of the two big venues in Amsterdam where international bands play, and we see hundreds of kids with stupid hair and stupider clothes. This can mean only one thing...There's a good chance I will know whoever is playing there. We go and get a street-press magazine so we don't have to talk to any of the kids, and what do you know...Mindless Self Indulgence are playing. I did a Europe tour with these guys in 2007 and though their music isn't really my cup of Earl Grey, they are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. I get in touch with their tour manager and organise to go to the show and catch up with them. Gijs comes home from work, and we go and get dinner at MAOZ (I'll be making a blog about that place soon), then go to the show and end up drinking a bottle of Jack on the bus and taking Kitty their drummer out afterwards. We get shit faced and go to a metal bar called The Cave then to The Melkweg.

Kitty & I.

Gijs partying with 2 bottles of Coke. That's 2 Utah.

Pretty intense first day in Amsterdam. Sunday's hangover is pretty epic. We go to Bagels and Beans and eat a shit load of bagels and drink a shit load of coffee. It snowed like a motherfucker for about half an hour. I wish it had have snowed for longer, and I forgot to take a photo. John and his girlfriend come along, and so does Caspar. It's rad to see these people who I haven't seen in over a year. We walk around the city, go and get more coffee and then go to Wagamama for dinner. Gijs, John and their friend Jascha go to watch Jedi Mind Tricks play at the Melkweg. I haven't heard them and I am super tired so I go home and fall asleep within 20 minutes. It is now 10am and I just made a delicious sandwich. Today I have to go to the City Hall and get the rest of my visa sorted out, then I have to go and register to live and rent in Amsterdam, maybe go to a bank and sort out an account, and then try to organise to catch up with some people to try and get some work!

Like it warns at the ABOUT ME of this blog, that story seemed pretty long winded and boring. I hope you enjoyed it.