I wrote this monday, been slow in keeping up with posts....still. Better late than never:

I’ve been in Amsterdam for 9 weeks now. Boy it feels like longer. Still having fun, but I’ve learnt so much since I’ve been here, in weird odd ways too.

The girls all came for the weekend this weekend, which was fab. I really needed to see some friendly faces, people I know and love, and know and love me for who I am, and that have known me for a while, so don’t have to explain anything about what is happening for me. I suppose anna is the only one who really knows me, but the others more so than anyone else here.

I learnt that if a younger guy fancies you then it’s probably because they think ‘you can teach them a thing or too’, if you can’t then it’s best not to bother going there. Lesson learnt.
I learnt that you don’t leave your friends with people you don’t really know because you can’t trust them to take care of them, and in fact they might hurt them deeply. I suppose everyone at work seems so lovely I just trusted them like I would other friends I know better. This is too horrible to go into now, but let’s just say that I will explain further when I feel up to it, and that I feel horribly bad for Kate and don’t know how I am going to face a certain person at work tomorrow. The person in question is lucky it wasn’t me he did that to because I would’ve been straight down the police station to report him. It’s made me look at everything in a different way, and I hope that K was as ok as she seemed to be about it. God I am mad at him for doing that to her.

The girls arrived on Friday evening, after a bit of a trauma meeting them from the tram and getting them to my place, we ate pizza, caught up on the girlie gossip, and then headed out to Miika’s (he was having an impromptu bbq). To be honest, I wanted to show everyone some of my friends, and one person in particular. I knew that he wouldn’t expect me to go, and I wanted him to know how it feels to be with my friends, who knew what went on, and how uncomfortable it can be. It’s getting better, but I learnt my lesson there for sure!

Kate and Andreas hit it off, although not much happened in the end. We then headed over to the Melkweg (finally!) for some hardcore electronic music. Dom was there with Micheal, and Fabian came along too, he was hammered!! The girls loved it, weirdly enough Kate and Beth loved it more than Anna who was suffering a bit from a headache in the end and wasn’t really up for it. Afterwards, we came back here, stopping at the ‘booze kiosk’ on the way, as Carl and andreas (and his quiet mate Alex), & Miika called and came over to meet us. We sat, drank, did C, smoked. I got stoned which I haven’t been for years. It was fun, actually except I really don’t like being stoned. It makes me feel a bit like I am drowning, with paranoia while I am at it!! We played drinking games, truth or dare, and I snogged Miika. It wasn’t half bad, actually. Was in bed around half four/five. Fun.

Sat morning I took the girls to hire some bikes, we stopped for some lunch on the way, it was amazing food there actually, I must remember where it is for other visitors. Then hired the bikes, had a little cycle around Vondelpark so they could get their cycle-legs going, and then headed over to Nordermarkt for the cool market, although we got there a bit late. They got the idea though. We were all suffering a little by this point, so then came home and had a little kip before getting dressed up to go to de pijp for some dutch food and drinks (again we found a nice restaurant as the girls didn’t fancy tapas), went into Barca for one, and then we tried to go club 8, music was awwwwful, so got the same cab (remember magic FM in CDS) who gave us a free lift to Leidzeplein, where we used ‘the cliffinator’ to get into Jimmy Woo. I have to say she was on form all weekend – she blagged us in on the guest list, even though we weren’t on it, and then proceeded to chat up the guys inside of influence so we also managed to get some free champers, it was actually quite cool in there if you could get over the wannabe WAGS.
Then bumped into the guys at the Whole (or Ahole as it will become known to me!!), and decided to go back to Fabians for a bit of a carry on as they were all wired, and after threatening to leave about three times in the night, I got my second wind and wasn’t tired any more. This is the part I will leave out for now – Fabian’s flat is amaaazing in the Jordaan, the most amazing flat I have seen here so far I reckon, and I’ve seen a few. We left Kate behind as she was ‘aving it’, and she got it on with one of the guys, it then went too far and ended up with us being totally shocked at what had happened at around 9am in the morning when she finally got in.

Sunday was a bit of a shocker because of this. Kate was sleeping it off, we were all up and then went back to bed, finally getting up again around 4pm. I made all the girls get up and go to Westerpark on the bikes, Beth was really suffering. I felt better after some ice-cream and chocolate, and we then came home via a really odd rocker bar, before we had a quick change and then out again to china town (I actually found it without getting lost – shock horror!!), and on to the red light district so the ‘dam virgins’ got their taste of it, and then home for around 10pm as we were all pretty tired. China town is great for cheap, hangover food, love it.
Crashed pretty early although I had to read a while before was tired enough to snooze.
Today I got up at a reasonable hour, went and got some breaky stuff as we’d run out, did breaky and then we cycled down to get the canal tour (nl lovers), which was really relaxing – the sun came out as we got on the bikes practically and it was hot again – fab. After that, we returned the bikes, walked back via ‘bagels and beans’ for lunch, and then the girls packed the rest of their stuff up and left. Have to say it was upsetting to see them go, I hadn’t really thought about it before then, but have felt my normal self while they have been here, it makes such a difference to have some good friends around. I guess I will get that here, eventually if I stay… patience is a virtue and all that, am going to some meet-ups this week, and have steve coming this fri, so not much time to get lonely! I guess it was two months to seeing my lovely mates so it’s not surprising I was beginning to miss them.

I had to do some work today, which I knuckled down and did, bit of a bummer as it was warm and lovely outside until really late still. I hope there will be another thunderstorm like the one last night – it woke us all up at 3/4am again.

In the meantime, here’s to lovely friends, I really am lucky to have such fun, amazing mates, and really they’re only a couple of hours away travelling. I must remember that. I’m still glad I came, but I feel like I really need to make some changes in my life now – what happened to K is a bit of a wake-up call, and to be honest, I’m not even as bad as most of my friends are when it comes to partying, I have quite a lot of self-restraint when it comes to stuff, and am usually quite cautious if I feel really hammered I will go home. I just wonder what I’m supposed to get out of being here, as at the moment it’s been amazing and scary and enlightening all at the same time. I guess that is better than boredom and sameness? As long as I take heed and learn from it. Night. xx