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.