May 24, 2003 : my own eurovisie...

We went to Amsterdam to visit Eva's childhood friend Elke, picking up an additional childhood friend Ellen in Antwerp before heading out. Don't ask me how I handled the stress of going on a mini-vacation during the middle of my busy time! (I handled it ok...)

Little Debbie handled the trip very well and we arrived in Amsterdam, parked our car, and headed into town to pick up the dinner fixings.

I don't know what it is about Holland in particular, but I absolutely love it. I'm not talking about architecture or the glottal "g" I'm talking about like in general. It's beautiful there. Amsterdam has to be one of the most-alive cities I've ever been in. It's not that the city is cool, but it's the inwoners. :)

Whenever I go to Amsterdam I'm always a little overwhelmed by it. I get in the sort of mood where I feel that life is too short and that life itself is hurling at speeds I don't want to even mention. Thankfully, Eva gets that way too so it's not just me bumming our little couple out, we were both sort of bummed. It's terrible to be bummed when you are in the company of good friends. But what can I say, it's sortof Elke's fault since she lives there. :)

I'm also reminded in times such as these that Amsterdam is only a couple of hours away. (note to self, go more often and therefore either silence the bum inside of you or just make it so bad you never go back.) It's so bad that I'm close to crying most of the time when I'm there. I suppose that's a bit extreme, but it's something like crying, like my soul is completely burdened by my being there! I suppose it doesn't help that I'm on my period.

We came back to find that we were 30 minutes over on the parking space with only a couple of hours more to go before it became "free parking." Thus, we ended up with our first parking ticket. My very first EVER, and my first violation in Europe.

(this also bummed me out, as we are so short of cash we are thinking of going into counterfeiting.)

I was also sort of bummed out because whilst shopping, we realized that Elke was going to make a dish with fish. I abhor fish, and kindly requested that Eva drop the hint that I really didn't care for fish and that I was deeply sorry about it. Elke didn't seem to care and was happy to fix me a chicken alternative, since all of the dishes were per-person only and not one lump dish. Whew!

We came back home, ate dinner and then settled in for the last-half of Eurovision. I had wanted to watch the entire thing, as I think it's one of the most novel of all tv-cultural-pop-gimicks. We, however, only caught the last half and didn't realize that Belgium was sort of in-the-running.

When the votes started pouring in, we realized that Belgium was doing very well. So well in fact that we were always running neck-in-neck with Turkey. We got so animated that everyone was laughing at themselves and at the thought that Belgium might just win. We even made plans that if Belgium DID win, we were all going to go to the Eurovion festival next year.

But, our joy ran into slight depression when Turkey edged us (I'm considering myself a Belgium at this point in time) when they won by 2 points. Damn!

A little wine later and everyone was ready for bed. Eva and I got a good nights sleep on a mattress that made us promise ourselves that once we figure out our lives (ha ha ha) we too will get a good nights sleep and buy ourselves a cheap, but better than decent mattress.

IN THE NEWS:
Turkey wins the Eurovision Song Festival.