More than a worthwhile trip and a successful mission!

Wow, this was a trip wasn't it?:P

Having reflected all the outstanding days in Amsterdam, I have to say that this journey was one of the best ones or may be THE best one:)

We had a quite varied program: witty- interesting- enlightening!

Thankfully all the horror scenarios about upcoming "Gruppenkoller- like" cat fights didn't come true..merely some "softer" hamster- dissensions activated the different opinions of the Amsterdam Mission members:D

We learned not only facts about the city and its mentality, we also learned personal traits of every member and their quirks.

How had I got to know about Carola's hidden "Promoting talent", Andreas' animal noises or Franz' and Maren's "gull- phobia" if we had not made this mission?- Unimaginable!

By posting some litzig and gheck statements of some mission members, you might imagine how much fun this trip was:

- "Your hair is kratzing my soft skin!"(Franz to Johannes)
- " The bikers and car drivers would have ran over me for 12 times, if I hadn't been so careful (öhö,öhö^^) and you would be dead for 3 times!(me to Franz^^;-))

- "Oh, there's an other Esperanza!!"

- "Grass is everywhere!OMNISCIENT GRASS!"

- "Ettich?!"

- "It's quite marvellous , isn't it?- Indeed!

But this Mission would not have come true if some of us hadn't carried about thinks like the accomodation, the journey by train, the planned activities in the city or the first Amsterdam meetings, where we became quite often desperate...actually a few days before we decided to book a hostel, some mission members tinkered with the idea of going to France or Portugal:D However no one of us 12 people regret this final collective decission, as you can imagine from our witty texts;-)

So, thanks to everybody!

But one thing has to be changed when we travel to Amsterdam the next time: We will look for a hostel with a kitchen:D!

Andreas thinks that he has never spend so much money for food and drinks , and I am pretty optimistic that all the others can agree with
him. ^^ Certainly no other hostel is able to hold the candle to Bull Dog Hostel, but we are poor non- students and due to this fact a kitchen would have ameliorated our money situation:P

I am confident of finding such an accomodation the next time whenever it will be, cause I am sure: Amsterhamster, We'll Be Back!:)

Zaterdag 25.04.2009

And here it was...the morning...the doom morning. It has broken sinisterly. Just like I'm used to say "You can make it happen", I wished we could have avert THIS happening. But what worth are words of mourning and sorrow.

Anyway we had to..had to pack all our belongings, belongings of physical manner and all the unforgettable, stunning memories as well, in our fictive suitcase of enormous size, roughly the height of the Empire State Building, the width of the pacific ocean and the spiritual significance of Uluru.

Last day, last adventures - splitting up into groups sprawling out to the heart of AmsterHamster.

Suddenly just walking unawarely through tiny little streets there appeared a hilarious little street, the famous Blumenstraße, which certainly is known by anyone on Earth. Really marvellous, we could not even have estimated what hidden treasure waited for us yonder.
Firstly beholded accurately, we decided to enter, enter a store with a big hole in its entrance door, which yawned misteriously but temptingly.

Inside the wall was plastered with Didgeridoos and Aborigine stuff, which was natural familiar to us as experts of Aborigine culture espescially of Koori traditions and pecularities.
Anyway we walked unerringly in. Then we discovered a chunk of sweeping artefacts and immerging into the vibe of the store we started to play on a Xylophon-like instrument a really inspiring duett.

By this we called the attention of the saleslady, who was a really witty, nice and eagerly interested person concerning Aborigine issues. After a short chitchat I asked her if we could try our luck with one of the wooden instruments. She consented to it and at a stroke we found ourselves in a personal workshop with "Lies" our proficient teacher. She told us about the circle of breathing and techniques for proper use of the versatile instrument. Afterwards we recommended her our wiki for further information about Aborigine life and we talked a lot about the manifold pecularities of the native inhabitants and about her numerous trips to Australia. Really an enriching conversation!

After that inspiring experience we wanted to explore further features of this beautiful neighbourhood:

Enlightening deco-shops with witty salesmen...who were acting somehow a bit confusingly. Stoned? Or why should people giggle constantly and scribbeling coconut creme on their skin.:D

Special and unique bookshops with magazins headed by crazy people over here and with antique Jazz magazines over there. What a variety of matchless odds and ends. Really gheck:)

Just a few steps onwards a group of children performed just for us, in keepsake of our departure, high school musical, amidst of a square next to us. Unbelievable, really! A fireworks of wit and artistic dance performance. The kids seem to be so happy and we were wondering whether kids in Germany are able to look like that, too.^^

United again, we looked for something edible and the Chinese food at Leidseplein, our beloved Leidseplein, casted a spell over us so we could not resist its tastiness. On our way back to the hostel we tried to absorb everything of the scenic beauty:

The Reguliersdwarsstraat of course, the wonderful streetsigns, which we felt worth photographing and finally our dearly beloved Grachten, which apparently bowed out in sorrow about our early departure.
Last attempts of cheerfulness by singing funny songcovers like "If you wanna be a monkey.."(spice girls) helped Julia and me to withstand our immanent sadness. But this caused much confusion in Johannes head..understanding his thoughts was nearly impossible at that moment.

With royal wavering and plans of a dutch-learning-trip in our minds we began to select a magnificant house directly next to the Grachten in which we would spend a wonderful time learning about "de eigenaardigheid" of this witty language.

Before our departure we had to cope with the ...originality of some unknown persons who still had to give their door-entrance-card back; the receptionist was just commenting this with "The next time you will not make this!^^"



Moving on from Amsterdam we had a really cheerful return journey. Julia and me e.g. tinkered with a humorous song for guitar "Das Dackellied" or "The wiener-dog-song"...or "De Dashond Lid"

D/G/E_/A A9/://G/E_/C/D//

"Dackel geht essen Ameisen- Meise". Among other silly sentences I almost died laughing and had to break out in tears. Really funny :D

Short stop in Cologne, but wait..where are our precious Grachten? And why do they use a language I am able to understand??? Where are the marvellous signs??? We hit the panic button and it was really a kind of a shock being back in Germany. As if this wasn't enough we felt confronted with awful shocks of culture and architecture in "Kölle"...



The return journey by the S- Bahn turned out to be quite mystery..0.0!

An "encounter" with an absent- minded and confused lady who sit next to some mission members caused some strange feelings.

She had an Shaman- like conspiratorial cane with her and was maundering pretty weird stuff like:"In Skandinavien..Vögel...Schlangen!"

yeah...that also happened...but I'm not quite sure how it is possible that I write something without knowing about it...quite spoky isn't it?

Anyway we had much fun on our way back home, but maybe another person should write about this too. Then he or she...but I have the feeling that she is better here...should also mention then the wonderful mental trip which led us through the streets of AmsterHamster across Koningsplein and our beloved Leidseplein and several other places of personal importance. It was totally like being there for real again. Like one could feel the breeze coming from the Grachten, smell the scent of the flowers of the Vondelpark and taste walk-to-walk-food again:D

After this great but long return we really felt tired but instead of sitting to "gracht" a bit we finally had to say goodbye...one of the hardest moments in my life, I'd say..because this finally marked the end of this marvellous journey. Its ups and downs it pros and cons its beauties and its beasts. Everything remains in our minds locked in a golden jar or you could say casket as well.:) On its top written in golden letters decorated with little golden angels (golden is ment metaphorically in this case) a tiny inscription : "Who are we? " An eternal question of the human species..but now I know its answer...because I, you and everyone of us knows now :

I AMSTERDAM!

Vrijdag 24.04.2009

Idyllic, Royal, Jumpy - These words clearly express the Friday morning.

Having provided us with some food and drinks from a store I mentioned quite often, Franz, Maren and me took a seat at one of the many "Grachten" in Ad and had an amusing "Breakfast at the Gracht"...sounds really romatantic, doesn't it?:P

We felt like natives ..no, not only natives...special people, royals;-)Constantly some steamboats , especially with some older guests called seniors, were passing us. They waved to us and we beckoned to them, of course in an quite majestic way..., yeah, I guess , we were pretty authentic in that moment..IF the cunning gulls hadn't been there -.-!

They attacked us from all the sides and built a "barrier", which made it difficult for us to eat, drink and breathe:D Nevertheless we learned some features of these kind of animals: insidious- predacious- egoistic.^^

Then we decided to make a nice paddleboat tour as a marvellous ending for our great trip:( So we had the chance to discover Amsterdam from an other perspective. However some candidates of mission Amsterdam had some problems to handle the control system of the boat..yes, and this fact was not really helpful in moments of brisk traffic in the Gracht:D

Having succeeded in avoiding to hit some other steamboats, we made a little shopping tour, which was also quite fun. At H&M we had a witty photo session^^. Sunglasses advertising as well as Micky Mouse- pictures are the result of this shopping period.

At Leidseplein we saw first a ridiculous breakdance crew..a dancing crew, that didn't make anything after their few stunts, except of trying hopelessly to "rock the house".Breakdance crew:" We'll cancel the show...too less people..too less, but thanks for the support."tzzzz...

Whereas the puppet player was really good!You could see that it was so much fun for him to move his coconut- puppet. He constantly smiled, was happy about every pedestrian, who liked his performance and delighted quite a few people with his "I feel good"- singing or Salsa dancing marionette.

Well, then we decided to chill at an other Park, namely Wertheim Park..it was also a pretty idyllic one in an for us unknown area up to that moment.

The "journey" to this Park was quite nice too. While we listened to music by Esperanza and co. and got lost in Ad for several times ^^, we saw some really marvellous places, for example the waterfront with some cosy houseboats.

Having arrived at our destination, we played cards, ate something, played music, took some fanatstic photos, stalked a married couple:D...yeah, and I had to decide whether I prefered to go to a concert of Candy Dulfer without the group or hanging out together with mission Amsterdam..yes, as solidary I am, I prefered the whole group:)

A few minutes later Franz and me chlinched to look for some toilets..this apparently easy manner turned out to be our most difficult "barrier":D

After an encounter with a really cute puppy-dog that obviously prefered me than Franz ,whereupon Franz was a bit "depressed", we went straight on to some cafes. In front of the first one we may be stood about ten minutes..we didn't know whether we could only go inside because of the toilets and without ordering something. Furthermore we weren't sure whether this cafe actually had some toilets and there weren't any free places to sit outside..you can see, problems and problems:D

Finally we decided to look for an other possibility and found a cafe- bar. Unerringly we went inside...well, actually Franz was the one who headed self- confidendly for the toilets, I was busy with inspecting the nice bar including some cool pics at the wall...well, this was my failure.

Unlike Franz, I didn't win the challenge to reach the fucking toilets..aaarrrgghh.:D:D

A Dutch lady prevented me from my aim:

Lady:blabla..(in Dutch)

Julia: "Sorry, I cannot speak Dutch."

Lady:"Oh, that's a private party! Sorry, you have to leave."

Julia:"Ah, okay."

Lady: "And where is the gentleman?"^.^

Having explained to the lady that Franz "managed " to find the thing he intended to find the whole afternoon, I had to report Franz from our intrusion to a private party.;-) However it was quite "litzig", and the most "fet" incident was that all the Dutch guests actually considered us as Dutch natives..wasn't it great success?-Indeed!:)

Okay, however I hadn't had the possibility to find "the thing I intended to find the whole afternoon" and due to this fact the second challenge started. "Soon" (öhöhö^^) we found a authentic and cosy "leisure- time- bar", where I reached my aim;) After having observed some Dutchmen, who calmly played cards, Franz drank up his "Amstel" beer and we joined again mission Amsterdam:)

On the way back to our hostel we had the great idea to barbecue on the "Bull dog roof -deck". Again we went to our friend "Albert"and bought salads, baguettes, meat, maize, other vegetables and some juices.

Having solved the problem with the bigger amount of money, we couldn't wait to enjoy the dinner at the nice roof- deck. Thankfully they allowed us to fulfil our plan:)

The barbecue was delicious, the ambience was excellent ..you couln't have a better final evening together in Amsterdam:)

The stoned Britains on the roof- deck were also "responisible" for the funny atmosphere.They entertained us by playing guitar, singing and spilling severall glasses of beer because of their "unsoundness of mind".

We enyojed their music and they really liked our music, especially Maren's Red Hot Chilli Peppers Song for which she got a kiss by one of the Britains and the "Ab in den Süden" piece;-)

Well at about 11 pm we went to "bamboobar", a quite nice Brasil bar with latinamerican music. The band which consisted of several drummers, singers and one guitar and bass player was good, unfortunately the music was really loud and I think it had been better if the band would have played a bit more discreetly;)

Neverthess they didn't "avoid" us to take some marvellous pictures with our brand new cool sunglasses:)

Not everybody liked the music and so there was just Johannes, Miriam, Alex, Franzi, Franz and me left. The others went to the Bull Dog lounge and had there also a great time.

Having danced and "admired" some brasil dancers for a while, the bamboobar- group decided to go back to Bull Dog. On our way back home Franz and me had the chance to go "Grachten at night" for the last time and we reflected everything we sampled on our trip, which was quite sentimental^^.

Having arrived at the lounge of the hostel I played billard with Alex..aaaaaaaaaand: I won!What a triumph!!!:D

Apart from that it was quite gheck and litzig in equal meassure to observe some stoned Americans who were watching some hoover and barbecue- pan advertising on tv :D:D That was so funny to see, believe me:)

After this nice incident, I also decided to go upstairs to our room...may be I was influenced by the witty stoned Americans, I don't know..anyway I was in rather funny mood and due to this fact I "grant" the others some laughs by making jokes or having soliloquys. Especially Franzi and Carola were really amused about it, they almost had to break out in tears:P However some other candidates like Tobi said something like:" Can't you continue tomorrow with your funny mood?"^^:D

Well, again a very eventful day:)

Donderdag 23.04.2009

Donderdag was our relaxing day..it rippled like tiny rain drops because of the long night the day before^^. Anyhow Mission Amsterdam was quite lethargic on this day, maybe the cloudy and muddy weather was a reason for it...who knows:P?

In the morning we decided to have a breakfast in Vondelpark, since the majority of our group missed breakfast at the hostel. Due to this fact we did our supermarket Albertheijn a big favour by buying almost the whole sortiment of food..okay,not all the food but it definetely benefited from our shoppings of some fruits,cookies, baguettes, vegetables, smoothies, salads etc.^^

Well, the ambience in the park was pretty nice and the omnipresent twittering of some birds and a great group of some oriental musicians, who took the pitch of their instruments unfortunately not so in their consideration;), sweetened the start of the day.

Okay, after a really looooooong and expaaaanded discussion- Cafe?Film museum? Cafe? Van Gogh museum? Film museum? Cafe?-

We landed in the famous Van Gogh museum ..yeah and over night we all became over 17 years old:D Thankfully the "ruthless lady" at the counter was not there anymore :P^^.

Van Gogh Museum is placed in the district Oud- Zuid in Amsterdam.

Apart from the biggest collection of Vincent Van Gogh's works it shows further paintings by Paul Gauguin, Toulouse- Lautrec, Claude Monet or Edouard Manet...just to mention a few of them..actually it was quite hard for me to assimilate all the impressions. I was a bit tired and the exhibition was distributed on three floors, I think. However that was worth it!:)

In the so- called "Night- exhibition" I found one of my favourite paintings by Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhône".

I was so fascinated by this marvellous picture and when you directly stand in front of it, it seems to be so real and peaceful...I cannot describe it^^.

Yeah, maybe I stood there for 12 minutes..and that's not a joke, I swear:D

The watchman next to the painting probably thought I hypnotized it:D:D

Then Franco joined my walk through the "Night area" and so we could continue our brisk interpreations and analysis about some works..and we "battled" us by telling to each other some distinctive stations of Van Gogh's life we learned and linked them with his developement of painting, hehe^^. It was quite fun:)

After that we sat on the meadow and we wrote some witty post cards or played "Studenten mau- mau" by replacing the "knocking" in the case of a "King" with some strange animal like noises..oh my goodness, these kind of noises accompanied us the whole journey..weird?-Indeed!:P

Our way back to Bull Dog by the tramway was filled with some feelings of high adrenalin, because 2 of the passengers were without any ticket o.o!

But all of us arrived happily at our destination;)

Anyhow there was a little "collective low" when we looked for some food in the evening...the majority decided to go to "wok to walk", a chinese as you can imagine:P

Then I took some "Grachtenbilder at night" (maybe the aftermaths of the "night- exhibition"^^).At the first picture you can see a witty attempt of kicking Alex into the Gracht :D The second one shows some similarities with a famous painting I mentioned a few lines ago..hmm^^, okay that's a "triple 2":P

Well, then we intended to discover again Amsterdam's night life..however this turned out to be very hard. Our chronical indecison, some disagreements and some drunk people, who weren't the optimal guideposts at all complicated our mission to find a club.

Finally we found the "mp3", unfortunately a teenie lounge and not that "fet", you know?:P But for some people in our circle it offered the opportunity to make some extraordinary experiences..knick knack:P

Later on Maren, Anne, Andreas and me found a really nice, authentic, trendy Dutch club bar:D Not everybody liked it there, however Franzi, Alexis, Franz and me were pretty amused about "bicycle- songs" like "Klingelingeling, klingelingeling- huhu"!;)

Admittedly we weren't enthusiastic at all about some brash Dutch adolescents, who were sooooo annoying-.-.

One of them, the "Spatting Dutchman"made every smalk talk with him to a really wet experience:D Now, it seems to be quite amusing but at this moment it was close to a horror-.-^^

Having sampled all this our little "dutch club- group" decided to go somewhere else. First we landed in the overcrowded Jazz club "Alto", where we sat next to an Barcelonean film regisseur, who pretended to make some music videos...but anyhow after a few minutes he told us to be only an assistent..maybe he is the footboy in the end and not more than this:D

Any further attempts of finding a great location failed. Due to this fact we gave up in vain an walked back to our hostel:)

Woensdag 22.04.2009

"Hmmh..hmmh...wuff..grunz, grunz!"

Maybe this onomatopoeia expresses the best how weird and nevertheless special this Wednesday was:)

In the morning we decided to go to the famous Van Gogh- museum. Unfortunately the proud price of 15 euro for adults and our chronical indecision upset our plan. Well, the ruthless lady at the counter didn't want to believe us or especially Franz with whoom we have started a "rejuvenation mission", that all our passports were at the hostel , because bull dog need a comparable merit for the keys we had. You can guess that this was just a witty attempt of us to avoid that the lady sees on our passports that we are already about 18 years....mhh..So our "rejuvenation mission " with Franz, which consisted of taking his stylish sunglasses away and butting up his shirt, and the possibility of an entry price of 7 euro failed :(

Having provided us with some delicious sandwiches and smoothies, our principal food, we continued our walk to "Roemervischerstraat" and were grateful for the helpful explanation from a nice "green peace- lady".(Franz to Julia: "Was it okay , that we didn't talk about green peace..?Maybe she expected it..first I thought about it, but then ..hmm..")^^.

"Roemervischertstraat" is a hidden street which illustrates the history of European Architecture and is due to this fact a little journey through 7 European cities...however we just found Spain, Turkey, Russia and Germany..;-)

Well, after this outstanding location an apparently innocent traffic light implicated a fatal thing...the separation of the group, Omg!!;-)

Because Franz and me were busy with marvelling at the nice buildings, enjoying the weather and the already mentioned "twittering of the birds"..they forgot the time, got lost and the other members of "mission amsterdam" didn't recognize it^^.

However this incident gave Franz and me the chance to explore the local art scene , which was quite interesting. Next to the Grachten are many galleries with national as well as international paintings and due to this fact brisk discussions and analysis were determined:P

BUT among all this talkies one question waited to be answered:

What is the difference in pronounciation between "ei" and "ij"??

A woman there affirmed our assumptions:

"ei " sounds like "das Ei" in german and "ij" sounds like" EY, du kummst hier net rEIn:D Admittedly, we noticed later on that we forgot to ask about "eij"..ahhhh:P How will this sound like???:)

Well, the next funny incident followed:

Franz and me visited a gallery next to a well attended street and were marvelling at some paintings close to the showcase where pedestrians could clearly see them. Suddendly, like a bolt from the blue, I made a freeze frame in front of the showcase. Spontaneously Franz copied this sudden inspiration...so, two "gheck" people pretended to be a mannequin and obviously not so bad..because two older dutch ladies were almost passing the gallery when they suddenly stopped and starred at us!!

Both of us hoped that they will soon continue their walk but ...no..they were starring, starring and starring:D

As you can imagine, one of us had to laugh so loud and heartly that the women noticed that we were actually genuine human beings^^.

In this case it was Franz who botched it up, nevertheless this was a quite humourous mission and when we left the gallery the ladies were still laughing and one of them said something like: "Ik höb erst bezwefelt", (dass ihr echt seid!^^) I will never forget this :)

Then we went to an antique shop where we found a nice little treasure chest...maybe Franz will buy it for my 30. birthday:D After that we discovered the "Reguliersdwarsstraat":

We took a seat at a nice restaurant with a really polite Tai waitress, who taught us our first dutch words, namely dank u well, tot ziens and doeii and wrote them in our drawing block:) She couldn't guess what a high euphoria about the funny dutch language she evoked:D

While we were eating some "Bitterballen" with the so- called "Pommes Frites"^^, we "stalked" some people with their humourous quirks and helped Sophia, who felt sick at the morning and stayed at the hostel, to find the rest of Mission Amsterdam in da city.

Having prepared for the little wind storm, that was blowing through AD and which was responsible for all the napkins and menues which were flying in the wind, we hit the road, since the others waited for us at 16.00 pm at Leidseplein.

Because they weren't on time we made a little shopping excursion.

Franz found some oldstyle white shoes and I found a cool, checked cap, wow, what a alliteration!:D

But we weren't not persuaded enough and so we left the shop without these things^^.

However I discovered a pretty marvellous bag at H&M and Franz bought a chameleon- like belt ( sorry, maaan:P);-)

Having arrived at Leidseplein for the 2nd time, Mission Amsterdam was complete again.Some of us decided to go busking, that actually means making music AND earning some money.

The thing with the money was quite hard, because the local competition was really inventive. I have to admit, that we hadn't had any chance:D Performers like a brilliant Barcelonean puppet player or a "gheck"( but positive gheck^^) female hippie dog trainer were too extraordinary in contrast to us:D:D:D

But we had a nice encounter with some nurses, who liked our music...okay, at least two of them... in whole Amsterdam:D

One of them was from Lübeck, they live now in Ad and enjoy their life. Unfortunately they affirmed our assumptions concerning the high lease costs. Close to the Grachten appartements cost 1000 euro every month!!It's sheer lunacy!!!

After some further failed attempts to earn some money, we went to Vondelpark and we met some people who weren't unknown to us at all,

namely Yassi and Orestis, quite "fet" wasn't it?^^ We had a picnic, some nice conversations, suffered from sunburn and sunstroke and noticed that Franz forgot his leather jacket at Leidseplein.

Johannes and Franz went back and were looking for the jacket, but it was unfortunately gone, such a pitty:(

Then we went back to Bull dog and met the double bass player with his ill doggi on the way back home..the dog looked quite sad, I think he had to suffer a lot..hmm, poor doggi.

Having arrived at our room, Andi made some strange noises:

First he imitated the sound of a puppy- dog and then he suddenly switched to a pig!It was so funny, and the best was Annes facial expression!!!:D:D:DAfter a while of relaxing we set out for a cheap restaurant. Maren and me were again driven by animal like feelings (maybe Andi aroused this typical state of mind^^) and crossed the zebra crossing like a funny kangaroo with a touch of an Otto Waalkes Imitation:D The car driver , who had to stop because of the red traffic light were quite amused..you can imagine..hehe^^.

Well, we landed in an Italian restaurant, called "Mariah". The personal was really impolite, except of the smiling cook, and didn't appreciate our tryings to speak some dutch..hmm..and my british accent, which is omnipresent in my mind, was also rather unsuitable in this area..hehe^^.Although they forgot some reservations, I enjoyed the witty group of people sitting around my desk and..yeah..partly the food.

Actually we planned to explore night life in Amsterhamster, but we hadn't had much luck..At "Bourbon Street Blues " was full house and the majority didn't feel like going there. Only Möriam and Johannes went there..then we went to Paradiso, a concert hall as well as dance club.

Candy Dulfer, a famous Saxophon player, was going to play there and I inquired myself about the upcoming concert..unfortunately it was quite expensive for some poor ex- pupils like us..hmm.Since the danceclub was also really crowded and expensive, we decided to got to an Irish Pub for a while.

Franz and me finished the day by going "grachten", lingering through the idyllic city by passing the railing with the sticker, you know?:P

In our room then we had all some witty converstions and were wondering about the staying power of Möriam and Johannes , who weren't at the hostel yet.

Step by step we fell asleep..the next day could come!:)

Dinsdag 21.04.2009

The dawn was breaking, the birds were twittering while the flowers slowly spread out their petals. Actually WE couldn't see that but I guess this kind of feeling was originated in our enthusiasm of exploring the city on our first day in AmsterHamster. Our pretty and spacious room was filled hesitantly with the first vital signs namely with nice methods of torture executed by Maren who started an insidious attack on "Antje" with a vicious hair dryer.

This was followed by some really ominous talkies of Andi and Johannes in the shared shower : "It's alright that you are showing your feminine side" and "I don't care about guys wearing women's clothes". Anyway the time had come...to breakfast. Unsurprisingly this ran obliquely just like everything we did and which made our trip so unconventional:) Apart from people using cream instead of milk for their cereals a squashed cup arrested attention or let's say it scared some people to death.

After having breakfast we decided to go to the so called "Anne frank huis" which was a great and portentious experience for all of us especially to see the conditions in which Anne and her family had to live for about 2 years because of nazi persecution. But unfortunately we didn't manage to write a guest entry which resulted from our missing spontaneous creativity, a state which is certainly nearly extinct of corse.:) But before getting in it was quite "litzig" to see how Julia and Maren cunningly planned to pass off as 16-years-old-teenies to get a discount on the entrance ticket. The "lady in black" seemed also to be quite amused about our attempt to rephrase "one adult please" always into different expressions (another one /one more..).

After this light-bulb-moments which contains the exploration of the "world of cheese",we wanted to make a trip ON the Grachten but first we thought we had to find a cheeper way to get this tour. So we spread the whole centre of Amsterdam (this might be a bit exaggerated but we were filled with enthusiasm and combative spirit:).
and tried to persuade 8 other people to come with us because that would help to enforce our endeavor. But finally we failed...but then again we found a boat directly next to the info centre which offered us a cruise for only 7, 50 euro. It lead us to all the highlights of Amsterdamean architecture and gave us an insight into the beautiful city.

In the evening we fan out to hunt down our shiftless bay..basically chinese food in a restaurant:P Despite of our search for nourishments it was quite a surprise that Julia was so much driven by animallike feelings that she began to perform the "The chicken dance" after Miriam gave a song to Alanis' Ironic. Both fit perfectly, don't they...indeed:P
But before eating the restaurant witnessed witty commercial scenes were acted out by Carolin, Julia an Maren which hyped authentically the merits of the products namely Cola and Persil:)

Destination Hardrock cafe but as usual for a group of corse (that's no irony really:P) we didn't manage to have a common afternoon. Franz and Julia were lost but to make a virtue out of necessity it gave us the chance to explore some other parts of the city or to have friendly talkies with doormans who showed us the right way:) Finally we got to the cafe and got rewarded by a special performance from "Madonna II" who friendly invited us with the words "not just looking , sitting down and buying sth."..."I'm a Virgin" became a sparkling show of elegance and daintiness:)

But the day wasn't over by that time..neij neij neij:P crisis meeting at the Grachten accompanied by an enormous emotionality which can just be characterized by the beauteous expression "Vom Regen zum Stausee" which finally resulted in a shaman's dance. This was also the date of formation of the "4 Commandments" which shape the golden way of freedom and succes. A really unforgettable night, believe me:)