4 September: we bid a fond farewell to Amsterdam and the, like totally, amazing Dutch people

omg. so this is it. our last day in Amsterdam and EUrope in general. The last 2 days have been awesome. Yesterday (Sunday, 9-3-06), we went and played in the Park. The Park is Vondelpark, a huge city park where you can bike around all day and go to cafe's and watch the amazing Dutch people do stuff, mostly about 5 times cooler than we do stuff. Plus Dave and Sandi went to the Boom Chicago comedy show at Leidseplein, while Tails, Kathleen, Mikey, and Chuck went to Tio Pepe's, our favourite Mexican restaurant, and it's right on Spuistraat.

Today, we went to the flower market and bought flowers for all of our friends here at the hotel. The hotel is the NH City Centre and we have been staying at the hotel for 11 years now. It's really like our 2nd home, and we have friends among the staff. For some reason, they're fond of their iconic American visitors who show up every August. In any event we just had lunch at La Place Mangerie, which is an unbelievable cafeteria of every possible food you could want. i won't bore you with the details, except to say that if you ever decide to come here sometime with us, don't worry about food. The food here is unbelievably good, and as McGyver always says "you can't find a bad meal in Amsterdam.". He's right of course.

Now -- I depart for a final bike ride in Vondelpark and to meet up with those other clowns. Before i go, two photos the accompany this rant, i mean blog: The group photo is on Saturday Night 9-2-06 when we went the the Seven Bridges Jazz Festival with the 6 of us (Americans) plus Afra and Fleur. There were some cool jazz musicians playing on a stage that had been erected on the canal itself, so a floating stage of sorts. The audience, including us, was also standing on make-shift rafts built perfectly to utilitze the canal for ground space. All in all, our admiration for the DUtch always continues when we see how they handle things so cooly.
The other photo is of our picnic food items for our picnic Saturday night. We had to cancel the ouside picnic because of rain , so we brought everything inside and had a really cool picnic in the hotel room #559 and Afra and Fleur brought a lot of cool stuff, as did we, so it was a real smorgasbord.

Tomorrow - we all fly back to America and can't wait to get back and see all of you - hey i've had enough of these clowns !

steve, dave, and chuck and also miss Sandi, Kathleen, and Michele

p.s. our bikes, as shown in the photo, went nowhere.

Lazy Hazy Daze in Amsterdam 29 Aug - 2 Sept

OMG what a great time we are having here, despite the less than optimum weather.
Well, Gina and Nicole had to leave, and then Mike had to leave also, and that was a bummer. So we miss them now.
But, in good news, we have had Michele Houston (nee Symonowicz) , Kathleen Gannon (nee Houston) , and Sandi Russell show up to chill with us ! (and we are chilling; i had to buy a new jumper the other day).

Then Anne Speijer came back to join us again, too which ruled. But let me back up -

on Thursday night, Piet Boogert and Rob Snijders and Astrid Hoogstede invited us for dinner at the Lloyd Hotel, so Dave and I and Sandi joined them, and that was alot of fun. The Lloyd Hotel is really cool, and Piet and Rob and Astrid are a lot of fun to be with. Sandi ordered the Herring, and actually it wasn't too bad.
On friday, we ALL went to Vondelpark and joined in a huge University of Amsterdam party that was going on - hey the draft beer was only 1.50 Euro each, so how could we not join in? When Anne showed up in town, Sandi and I went to the train station to pick her up, and we parked in the bicycle parking garage. hahahahah check out the photo. They actually have a parking garage for bicycles. There are millions of them here. Of course, we all have one, too. Also on Friday we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, the Casa di David, and unbelievable good Italian restaurant on the Singel Canal.
Today (Saturday, 9-2-06) Kathleen, Michele , and I went to the Rijksmuseum, and then we saw Sandi and Dave go to the Museum, too. Meanwhile, Tails (now known as McGyver) went to the Maritime Museum. So, it's a museum day here.
Anyway, here's some photos from the last few days..............

chuck (and also those other clowns)

28 August Monday in Amsterdam - Afra's Party

Last night ruled. We have a friend named Afra van der Markt who lives here, and we met her a few years ago. We decided to have a birthday party for her at the hotel. So we had a party with 12 people, it was 6 Dutch and 6 Americans, so it was great. Our hotel provided the venue - it was Gerzoni's pub in the hotel and we had drinks (byob and beer on tap) and a bunch of Dutch appetizers and also a big birthday cake, actually two of them. It was awesome. After a few hours in the pub, we moved the party to the roof of the hotel (our room #559 has a patio on the roof) and really had a chance to hang out with our Dutch friends, who are really cool.
OK, here's some photos!

chuck

Sunday in Amsterdam

Another great day in Amsterdam! The weather is OK, clouds, then sun, then a shower, then sun......
We have a small problem with the blog. We can't find a computer with a USB port that works. So, no pix. We'll keep looking.
Just biking around the city, eating, drinking, biking around the city...
I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now, having a drink,... :D and doing the blog.
It's hard to concentrate, many people, very loud, etc.....
Anyway, we'll really, really, try to keep up the blog...
Steve,
Chuck and dave

25 August, 26 August, now in Amsterdam

Friday, 25 August We flew today from Bratislava to Amsterdam and met our friend Mike Duda From Germany at Schiphol, and took the train into the city. We are finally here, and soon we have been joined by Nicole and Gina, and also two Dutch friends, Anne Speijer and her friend Mark. We also connected with Afra van der Markt and Thomas van Hout who are pictured here. So , we have been going to the big outdoor music concerts called the Uitmarkt Festival which is held in the city squares, primarily Nieumarkt. We are having a blast here. We saw this awesome African band (photo shown). The picture of me is with Anne Speijer of Leende.

chuck , in Amsterdam 26 August 11:42pm local time.

24 August We visit Bratislava, Slovakia

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. Slovakia is the country that was half of Czechoslovakia before they split in 1/2 a round 1993. They are right on the Danube River and they have this massive new bridge over the river that we visited. It was a really cool one-night visit. We are on our way to Amsterdam! chuck

23 August Performances by Chuck in Dubrovnik

Had a blast playing and singing in Dubrovnik's city squares on Wed Night . The first show was on Piano, accompanied by a stand-up bass and a drummer. I did Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock,and all the Croats were singing along !

At a nightclub later in the evening, i joined another band and sang Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode and again all of the Croats were singing along - it was awesome and the band was really good. It was a great last night in Dubrovnik! chuck

23 August Wednesday in Dubrovnik, the Pearl of the Adriatic Sea

Today we walked all around the top of the walls of this medieval city. It took 1 hour and 45 minutes to walk the entire circumference of the city, but all on top of the walls. i'll show a few photos, so you can get the idea. We also went to the beach and went for a swim today. It was about 95 degrees F. and gorgeous. i spent most of the time hiding under my hat and sunglasses and sunblock (spf30 was the highest i could find). we also visited a 15th century Franciscan Abbey and Convent. Dubrovnik is a place that you definitely want to visit. It's inconceivable to me that it was shelled during the 1991 war when Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia. They have fixed all the damage, but there are still some missle holes through some of the buildings. Tonight we went out for seafood. I had the squid, dave had mussels, and tails had some pasta and mussels. The Croats are very civilized. At the end of dinner, i had only finished 1/2 of my bottle of white wine. so they take a knife and whittle the cork down to re-fit easily into the bottle, put the bottle into a plastic bag, and hand it to me to take away. I love this country !

Chuck 23 August, 2006 in Dubrovnik, Croatia 8:24pm

22 August Korcula to Dubrovnik Croatia

omg. It's really amazing how much Croatia rules. Yesterday we took a ferry from Split, Croatia to an island called Korcula, Croatia. It's a medieval town, walled in to protect them from the Turks. Korcula is an unbelievable, fairy-tale city, something out of Lord of the Rings or something. We went for a swim yesterday in the Adriatic and, thankfully, the water is cold. Clear as glass, too. Blue as blue.

The temperature yesterday was 104 degrees F , but today was a little cooler, maybe 92 degrees or something. After one night in Korcula, we took another boat today to Dubrovnik, which is even more unreal than Korcula. If you feel like it, Google image Dubrovnik,to see a picture of this place. It's a huge walled-in city, once again to protect from Turks.

Tomorrow, 23 August, i'm planning to upload a few images from here, but i'm at an internet cafe at the moment without my USB Cable. We're going to spend a few days here. You know what's cool? The Croats. The people here are a joy to chill with, really welcoming, speaking as much English as possible, and serving ice cold beer with a smile. We're staying in a private home here. Some guy named Evo Gugic was at the ferry landing this afternoon when we arrived, and we cut a deal with him to stay at his house, with his wife (Resna)and little girl (Maria). We're paying $37 per person per night. In local currency, that's 200 Croatian Kuna per person, per night. Air conditioning is the only real requirement. We couldn't care less about the antiques, and bed linens, and doors, and other details.

All in all, Dubrovnik is where you want to be. It's Italy at less than 1/2 price.
Tomorrow, we will go to the beach, and walk the top of the walls of the city. Check back tomorrow for updated images from our Adriatic adventure.

dave, steve, and chuck tuesday, 22 august, 11pm (5pm in America)