From Amsterdam with love..

"I want to buy some fruits". Declared Ugur. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and we had just lapped up a good Spanish lunch.
"Oh well, I shall just walk along". Myself.
"Cool, lets just walk". Sascha joined.

None of us had thought in our wildest dreams that a simple walk to buy some fruits would be the start of one of the craziest weekends we have had in a looong time.

It was planned to be a quite day on Saturday, with all of us going to witness the Hafengeburtstag, or the harbour birthday in Hamburg.

-- Hafengeburtstag (Harbour Birthday):Hamburg --

Sascha had rented a car for the weekend, and we drove to the harbour to witness the birthday celebrations. The rain,however, wasnt the only thing that dampened our spirits . The birthday celebrations were quite not-as-exciting-as-we-expected, which really pulled us down. Above you see a couple of planes doing some stunts on the harbour. And thats me having a beer with Ruth .

-- German Beer --

Next stop was Sternschanze, in Hamburg. This place has a lot of nice cafes and restaurants, and probably had the weather been better(read sunnier), it wud have been the ideal place to come . (or visit, if you prefer. ;-) ) I actually took a liking to the palce. Hopped into a Spanish place, and ate to our heart's content. Thanks to Ruth, who showed us this place. I definitely would come here again.(no pun intended.)

After the nice lunch, we all said our departing greetings and were about to leave for home when Ugr spoke the ominous words which start this story : "I want to buy some fruits". Sascha and myself joined him, and we were just walking about the place while Ugr looked for some fruits. Later Sascha took out the car , and we thought , well lets just drive around. Nobody wanted to go home so soon.

And we started driving.

First around hamburg,going around the town..then when it started getting boring, we took the autobahn towards Flensburg, a town near the Baltic coast., just to make it more exciting. (The autobahn is the german name for the highways. AND, There are no speed limits, so ..)

Now Flensburg is 160 km from Hamburg, and nobody in their sane minds , who went just driving around hamburg, would have the crazy idea to go to Flensburg.For no apparent reason. But hey, we know what it takes to be a tiger, and Sascha just pressed on the gas. ;-) We were cruising towards Flensburg and sooner than we realised , we were there. The good thing about Flensburg is that it is situated on the Baltic coast.When we reached , we got off at the coast, and spent quite some time, making good use of Sascha's NIKON D70. Nice place, nevertheless. All worth the effort. The picture below is one from the baltic coast. Told ya, it was worth the effort.

:-)

-- Baltic Coast --

But wait, this was just the beginning . It was only 8:30 pm in the evening. And abhi to shaam jawaan hui thee. (translated, it means: the night was still young) Flensburg is a small town known for many nice things. Of all the things it is known for, the most important thing that came to our minds at that time was its proximity to Denmark. Hell, we drove all this way, might as well drive into Denmark.

-- Entering Denmark --

And the gas was on. 10:00 pm : We were sipping cappuccino in a town in Denmark. And while we were busy doing that ,we had a brilliant idea.

We should go to Amsterdam. NOW.

There are some people who are born crazy, some who get crazy, and some who have craziness thrust upon them, while having coffee. At this moment, we were undoubtedly in the third category. -- Should we , Shouldn't we? --

It was 10:00 pm , we would need to drive back to hamburg, get fresh and drive to Amsterdam. Approximately the entire nights drive. Spend a Sunday there, come back to Hamburg and go to office on Monday. Rats. Or, as my German friends would have said at this moment: “Scheiße”.

Anyways, the decision was taken. It was a long drive and we finally reached Amsterdam at 6:00 am Sunday . Tired and exhausted , we went to a coffee shop to eat something. Now, I know what u are thinking, you dopers!!! “He reaches Amsterdam and the first thing he does is go to a coffee shop to have some dope”
-- Amsterdam. We Made It. --

. No, It was a place which sells proper coffee and nothing else but coffee..and some sandwiches..and some croissants , if you please, but no dope. For the rest of the junta who doesn’t have a clue abt what Im talking abt, dope is legal in Amsterdam , and there are several “Coffee shops” where you can hang out, have some dope , get stoned, attain nirvana etc etc.(I sometimes do get carried away , don’t I)
-- 'Caught in the act' --

Now continuing from where I left, we went to a coffee shop to have some breakfast . (yeah right) Since it was a Sunday morning and the town was still going to sleep after partying all night, we got a chance to look around the town and check out the charming buildings, the canals et al(something Amsterdam is famous for too , apart from the dope and the women)

-- Coffee Shop ;-) --

As you walk around the town, it gives you a feeling that you are living a Harry Potter movie, straight out of a fairy tale or sumthing. There are some real narrow alleys and paths (diagonalley if u prefer)You see nice cottage like houses lined together giving the fairy tale world a very authentic look. Sign Boards with signs in a very Old , curvy script, as if some witch flying on a broom wrote the name down on the board, just in case she misses a turn

-- Dancing Houses --

. Some of the houses are uniquely tilted , and very haphazard in construction. They look like some kid has hurriedly built them, and forgot to straighten them up. They are called the Dancing houses, and form an integral part of the tourist attraction in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is a harbour city lined with numerous small canals, which give it a very picturesque , Venice like look(heh, I have never been to Venice, but it ought to look like this, hehe). A ferry ride later in the evening across the harbour was very fulfilling. Captained by a dutch guy who spoke English with a strict British accent, the ferry took us through very interesting parts of Amsterdam. Its interesting but people across Europe speak English with an American rather than a British accent. Its easier, they tell me. Probably this captain thought otherwise.

-- Ferry Ride --

Coming back to the ferry ride, we saw a couple of things which are worth mentioning here. We saw some of the narrowest houses I have seen in Europe here.Back in those days, the government used to tax people based on the width of their houses. So it was wiser to have a multistorey narrow house rather than a wider single storey one. Housing problems were so high that people started living in boats on the canal. Yeah living, like reading newspapers, watching TV, fighting with ur wife , etc etc. The whole schmere man: all on a boat. If u turn on the wrong side while sleeping, u end up in water. -- Horse Carriages --

Dad: “Hey where is Dojkajk?” (Dunno where I thot of this name, but nevertheless)
Mum:“Must have fallen off in the water in his sleep again. What shall I do with him!!! He needs to learn some sleeping manners”

Done with the boat trip, we spent the rest of the evening looking around town, checking out the loads of “coffee shops” that line the vicinity. There was this particular one, called BABA, which is worth mentioning. It had idols of all Hindu Gods you can think of , with a statue of Ganpati which stands out prominently. Everybody inside , of course was on dope. There was this firang sadhu who came up to us and offered us some hash brownies “ This is prasada from Lord Ganesha. Enjoy.” I managed to take a photo of the place. You can see Lord Siva in blue color. And on the left are the hands of the Ganpati statue . Oh yes, the sadhuish looking guy on the right, he is the "prasada" guy. hehe
-- BABA: The Coffee Shop --

Done with coffee shops, we realized that we had been walking all day, and all our legs needed a break. Tired and exhausted , we had our energies sapped by now. Thus came to an end an absolutely crazy weekend. All I can say about this trip was that it was spontaneous, it was crazy, but it was one of the greatest times we could have had. All in all , one more feather in my cap of memories.

Hehehe.. I know what u guys are thinking. But since this is a family blog, most of the fun part is censored here . For the uncensored account of the trip, please buy the book “From Amsterdam with luv ”.
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