Oh, My Aching Feet

Listening: One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

The majority of yesterday consisted of me walking. I walked here and there and all around the Amsterdam centrum. I walked from Centraal Station to Vondel Park, from the Leidesplein to the Singel, from the Red Light District to the Museumsplein. I went all over the place. I even got lost in Jordaan and Haarlem and walked my ass back to Centraal Station from there, which took a great deal of time. From the time I landed in Schlipol until I went to sleep at around one in the morning, I was on my feet all but maybe three hours. Two hours as a nap around two in the afternoon and an hour at an internet cafe.

I really wanted to check out Melkweg or Paradiso, but by the time the clubs started hopping around one in the morning, I was in no shape for it. My legs and feet were aching and I was tired to boot. Good god, I'm getting old. Back in the day, I would have been out there in a second, but this time I just kind of wanted to go to sleep.I'm sure that there will be other clubs in other cities, so I'm not sweating it all that bad.

I just booked my first train reservation a couple of minutes ago. I'm leaving Amsterdam tomorrow at seven in the evening, arriving at eleven in the evening in Frankfurt and then am taking a night train to Prague at half past eleven that will arrive at a quarter past eight in the morning. My check out time tomorrow is eleven o'clock, but I plan to be out of the room by nine or ten so I can get myself a locker at Centraal Station and head off to some farmer's markets that the tourism lady told me about. There's gonna be some high quality self-catering for the train ride.

For the first leg of that journey, I have a reserved seat in first class. I'm wondering what kind of people will be on the train. I hope to meet other backpackers. For the second leg, I've got an upper couchette. It's kind of like a sleeper car with four or six beds in it. I wanted a lower one, but they're all out.

I also reserved my bed at Miss Sophie's in Prague for two nights. I knew before I came on my trip that Miss Sophie's is the place that I wanted to stay. I had to check several hostel booking sites before I was able to secure a room. It's strange how some bookers can get rooms and others cannot.

It's interesting being in Amsterdam for the second time. Since I did all of the touristy things last time around, I don't really feel the need to do them again. I don't need to rush to the Rijksmuseum or the Van Gogh Museum. I don't have to check out either of the sex museums or the Torture Museum. I've done it all before, so I have mostly been just walking around. I think that some might see that as kind of a travesty, but to tell you the truth, after last week, I could use the downtime. So far I have done most of the things that I had set out to do. I had my frites with Vlaamse Mayonnaise. I have had my Pannekoeken mit schpeck und pomme. I'm on my way to getting some Australian ice cream. All in all, I am perfectly happy doing nothing for these couple of days.

I think what is most entertaining about Amsterdam are the women. I'm not talking about the scantily clad ones in the kamers lit by a pink glow. I'm talking about the women on the street. There isn't thirty seconds that goes by that I don't think to myself, "Good GOD, woman." The women here have a sort of style and confidence that you don't see in the States. I think that a lot of the "beautiful" women in the States are kind of over comepensating, like a man with an expensive sports car. They try too hard to be hot that it's really just covering up insecurity. The girls I see around Amsterdam have an intelligent kind of style. Like this one girl I saw this morning. She wore an entire outfit that was this deep, rich chocolate color. Boots, skirt, shirt, and mid-length coat were all the deep, rich chocolate color and a very rich texture as well. but when you got closer, you saw that around her neck hung these metallic pink mardi gras beads. It was quite striking.

I don't know.... It's something about these women. Maybe it's the boots. They seem to be really in style right now. Boots up to their knees, and boots of all kinds. I see them on at least three out of every four girls. I know a lot of girls in the States wear boots, but they mostly have them under the leg of their pants. These girls are tucking their pants into the boots or have their pants cuffed up higher than their boots. It could also be the tight pants, but I don't get into that. Given the tightness of these pants, it would be infinitely more graphic.

Anyways, time for me to go. I have more walking to do. I don't know where I'll walk, but I'm sure it will be relaxing.