Sunday, December 01, 2002

 

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam

Yep. Went to Amsterdam last weekend. Becca and Shannon came down here on Friday the 22nd, and we sort of hung around London all weekend and then left for the Netherlands on Sunday the 24th. I will briefly summarize both experiences. First of all, the weekend in London:

• Yay for girly time! We all stayed at Erin's in the manner of a huge slumber party.
  
• I was within ten feet of Kenneth Branagh again. We went to see The Play What I Wrote on Saturday, which Branagh directed. Every night they have a different 'surprise celebrity guest.' Past guests have included Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Sting, etc. Saturday night? Daniel Radcliffe. Yeah, that's right. So, the kid can act. I mean, the kid is brilliant. I don't know if I should be really happy about it or wistful because I already wonder if I can be that good and he's just thirteen. Blast. Anyhow, we hung out by the stage door afterwards like obsessive freaks (plus, we wanted to obtain an autograph for Erin's host brother - he's eight and loves Harry Potter). Just across the way was the stage door for Macbeth, starring Sean Bean, who I was told had a cold that evening but never managed to wish him well in person. Hmm. Anyhow, the three main actors came out and each very quickly flashed a quick smile and darted into a pub - the only one to linger was Toby Jones, who was an adorable little man and looked very shocked and pleased when we all clapped upon his emergence from the theatre. When I read in the program that he was the voice of Dobby in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, my opinion of rehearsals being crazy amounts of fun were confirmed. You know, what with the Harry Potter connection and all... Sigh. Why can't I be the special celebrity guest? Anyway, back to the list.
  
• Becca and Shannon are oodles of fun. Oodles. :)
  
• Amsterdam - first of all, we missed our plane for departure and had to buy new one-way tickets. Many cigarettes were smoked, much chocolate was consumed, and I believe I had a giant glass of wine. But I felt it was all well-deserved. Don't ask me how much it set me back, I don't want to talk about it. Arrgh.
  
• Anyhow, we got to Amsterdam, albeit a few hours late, and had little difficulty finding our hostel. There was a brief mix-up about Shannon's hotel, but once that was sorted, we all had a good time in our respective domiciles. Kathryn and Erin and I stayed at The Flying Pig Palace, full of extremely chilled-out dirty hippies. It was awesome. (Note: Now that I think about it, all of Amsterdam is filled with extremely chilled-out dirty hippies. Hmm.)
  
• We went to many fine musems. Actually, one fine musem, a boring one and one that was just a bit dodgy. They were the Van Gogh museum, the Modern Art Musem (I know, so full of promise, yet such a disappointment) and the Sex Museum. That last one was educational but at one point Shannon and Kathryn and I accidentally got trapped in a very small booth showing an old seventies porn clip and so none of us could really look at each other afterwards.
  
• This list is no longer a 'brief summary,' is it?

Erm. Yes, well. We got back the day before Thanksgiving. The school gave us Americans a lovely dinner on Thursday, invitation only, in the Old House. A lot of people's families came to share it with us. It was gorgeous. It's funny - in America, Thanksgiving is always set up to be a big fancy thing, and then once you sit down you throw all manners to the winds and just dig in like crazed dogs. But the dinner the school gave us actually was all neat and refined, with wine and little hors d'ouvres I couldn't even identify and post-turkey coffee in tiny little doll cups. It was a very endearing English take on an American custom - very very sweet of them, really.

Oh, oh! Erin and I got our hair cut just before Thanksgiving dinner. We are now sexy rockstars. Yes we are.

I think that's all I have to report. I'm off now to...do something legitimate.

posted by humanbecoming 9:27 AM