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So, here I am in Amsterdam! Stop one on the world tour, and a crazy stop it is indeed. For the first time in my life I'm in a place where the world outside my head seems stranger than the one inside.

Where do I begin in describing the weirdness? Perhaps with a couple of tourist-trap points.
For example, yesterday I learnt, to my surprise, that the phrase 'Red Light District' isn't just a charming metaphor or global slang.

It was only when I saw a woman behind her glass front door supporting her breasts with a stool, that I noticed the crimson tint to all the lighting. Ho-hum, maybe I'm still too naive? But I'm learning.

Learning, indeed, that it's time for a new European contest to re-energise the spirit of EuroVision with a little Zeigeist. And so, in the spirit of the post-modern age, I offer the contest to beat them all - The Search For Europe's Friendliest Drug Dealer! At first I thought it weird, then I thought it was a cartel, but now I feel sure that in general, Amsterdam has Europe's friendliest dealers of hard drugs.

Never in my life have I been so warmly offered a date with Charlie. Truly the level of cordial and helpful service you'd normally only find at London's posher hotels, all for free and available at a canal near you. All the call-centres, hawkers, salesmen and evangelists of England could benefit from their expertise.

Speaking of canals near you, it's no mere historical curiousity when they say that the Netherlands has been largely reclaimed from the North Sea - the place has more canals, bridges and seasick-town-planning than a 8 year old's Aylesbury School Project. The place spirals around the waterways so much that you start to feel you're on a minature DiscWorld, or some kind of crazy talisman from which there is no escape, and the hapless tourist is destined to keep coming to the same square from about thirteen different paths.
Luckily for the more hapless of us travelling types, there is sweet-smoke-filled bar of Bob's Youth Hostel.

On seeing the sign, how could I not choose Bob as the patron saint of my first few nights here. The dorms are straightforward, clean, cheap and only suitable for those of us who can sleep soundly through traffic, snoring and people coming and going all night long. Happily, most of the time I'm the kind of person that will never die in his sleep, because Death would have to wake me up to get any attention from me.

And attention is exactly what you need in the waking hours in Amsterdam. For only by fierce attention and the most rugged scrutiny will one find sufficient booze in their thimble-size beer glasses to get a taste of the local beers. When you do, mind, it's truly excellent stuff that make you believe that Dover must have never dropped the British Flavour Embargo set up during the war.

And don't be optimistic travellers - the price doesn't drop along with the size. No wonder they've had to make other soft drugs legal.
But good to see that there are some standards left - many of the bars have signs on the door saying, "No Hard Drugs.

" Well, at least it's honest. You wouldn't get signs in England saying, "No Illegal Drugs," I suppose. Or better still, "Patrons Are Requested To Only Consume Drugs Bought From The Bar.

"
If they did, they'd probably win the affections of the student population. Hopefully, I won't have to, and I can inconspicuously sit here in Amsterdam University Library enjoying a drink, the view, the library and most of all the freely available electricity to power the Blogging apperatus. By the time you read this, I will have solved the uploading problem too.

..
And with thoughts of such challenges ahead, and the desire to get some food, air and culture in me, I shall leave you.

Your EverLovin' K.
P.S.

- For those of you who would worry (i.e. Mum), I did politely decline the cocaine.

Welcome, regular bloggers, to the first blog entry from outside England. Well, waaay above England to be precise - The first Mile High Blog! We are currently cruising at an altitude of er.

..lots, and we will have a flight time of fourty minutes, which is about a third of the time it takes to get to the bloomin' airport!

I must report, as an intrepid-traveller-to-be, that EasyJet, your international coach with wings, was more than a touch delayed on the old flight - an hour and a half to be exact. Had I known, I would have got some more farewell smoochin' in with Fran. As it was, I did what any man of my calibre would do with time on his hands - I had a quick shuffle.

Playing cards - don't leave your lifestyle without them. Before you know it, I was riffling away in my favouite style, and with cosmic timing, a fellow bored passenger nudged his friend, pointed at me and said, "I wouldn't like to play cards with 'im," just as I managed to splay fifty-two across the departure lounge.
My location may change quickly, but some things Kris are immutable.

..
"Hey you, what's that sound, everyone check what's going down," as my great-grandmother used to sing to me when I was young.

Today I find myself in Borders of Charing Cross, still in good ol' blighty. My room now looks like a glossy spread for 'Minimalist Homes and Dust' magazine, a very popular publication in many zen monastaries, and my rucksack is choc-a-block with the essentials of life. What a surprise - when you get down to it, the bare essentials involve a lot of pants and socks.

..
"Lay Down Sally," sings Eric Clapton on my Windows Moodia player.

And I muse on the fact that whilst every mother in the world will tell you to eat your greens and do your geography homework, good ol' Eric proves that it's still is possible to go the drop-out, take crack and shag the women of the world route, and still do pretty well for yourself...

...

Not that I'm implying I have either the opportunity or the desire - I don't - but it does make you want to question the source of your mother's wisdom. With which thought I have to realise that maybe there's some residual teenage angst left in me. Never fear, dear reader, as I shall balance this out with my sneaking desire to furnish a drawing room and buy a smoking jacket.

And so my personality stays in the tenuously-balanced bracket normally reserved for live T.V. programs featuring cats, new technology and five year olds.

Do let me know if the metaphors go too far at any point, won't you?
This blog entry may the last one for a few days, until I solve the problem of ISP's in Europe. A quick check on the web shows me that whilst it actually very easy to find a free ISP, filling in an on-line registration form in Flemmish presents more of a challenge.

I can translate, 'klik onen' okay, but then it gets a bit fuzzy. If any experienced travellers know a phone number, username and password for any ISPs local to Europe, then please email it to me! And I know what you're thinking, it's just that finding a place to read email is easier than finding a place to hook up the laptop and engage the blog.

.. Yes - I handcraft all my own HTML, using Vim, the editor of kings.

Actually, that's a lie - it's the editor of kwality engineers ...

Top quote of the day, overheard between two ladies discussing Vegitarianism, "Yes, my daughter makes this lovely aubergine stew. Georgous. You almost don't know it hasn't got any meat in it.

"
Remember kids, if it wasn't for old people, then everyone would disrespect you instead...

Oh, by the way - email me and let me know how it's going out there, that way I can begin the next blog entry with something like, "Wow, I love you guys...

" Which would be nice.
..

.The Elipsis - The Punctuation of the Beast..

.
Okay, so it's Saturday, and, "Yeah Baby!", as the man himself would say.

What has happened in the week I've been away from the blog?!?

Today I was hard at work at Hoodless Brennan, clients to my soon-to-be-no-longer-employers, SAM Business Systems. A bit of Saturday work installing an upgrade of the software, which was actually more fun than expected, and included a good amount of pizza - can't be bad, eh?
Far more importantly, I'm sitting here in Tottenham Court Road, with the lovely Fran, drinking a fine glass of Cabernet, discussing thew forthcoming travel plans and generally being mellow.

Sound plans are terrible things, but as a general rule of thumb, I think we're going to be in Crete for May 20th-24th, two weeks in Loa, two weeks in Indonesia, and then onto Sydney for the 1st of July. I have a great hope that this is when my (probably) oldest mate Pete will be there, though I have a horrible suspicion that it's June. Stay Pete, stay!

A final learning for the week, as James so rightly pointed out in an expression of arrogance that only the right can muster, that I'd 'Fallen for the oldest Sinatra gaff in the world', and wrongly accused Lennon of writing something, when it was in fact George Harrison.
"Something in the way she moves me," wrote John LennonGeorge Harrison, "attracts me like no other lover." Somehow this sentiment springs sharply to mind today, as I find myself pulled all the more to the distant beaches of Australia.

Unsurprising, given that today the gods of England have chosen to bless us with another torrential downpour, and the daemons of work have left me with a problem less soluble than your average paracetamol.
But never mind, for whilst I don't yet have that beachside apartment with pool table and mp3 jukebox (a simple, happy dream) to which I can invite you, there is at least the prospect of a lunch of Branston Pickle - not the swishest prospect, I grant you, but enough to put a small smile on my face for the course of this lunchtime.
And at least I have some fascinating articles on Occult philosophy to keep me entertained, and stretch the belief muscles of my brain.

Ho hum.
Wow, what a weekend - am I tired or has someone removed the seratonin from my brain with a Dyson Cortical Extractor?
On Friday, Fran and I met up with my old flatmate Mark (the D.

J. Doomsday to my M.C.

Hawking) and his charming other half, Rebecca. Would you believe these Price Waterhouse Coopers kids are both fully paid-up ACA members now? Mark being a lad from the North who has recently discovered that mushy peas are not the only fruit, I had to take him to Chinatown's premier Chinese restaurant, Wong Kei's.

A fine time was had, as he revealed his plan to move down to That London, soon after I leave the country. Bad timing or sound judement? I leave you, dear reader, to decide.

Saturday, apart from the usual warm and fuzzy delight of a good lie in, friendly coffee and a selection of bagels, was set apart by the jovial hospitality of the Norths. Hitching a lift with Jenny and Jim, Fran and I went to Reading for movies, fine food, good company, the tenuously named red wine, "Goats Do Roam", and a hand or three of bridge.
Though here I am on Sunday night, and though I feel a great weekend has been had, I must confess the only thing I've felt awake enough to do is drink coffee.

and set up this website. So I encourage you to have a fine week, and if you get a spare moment, to email me and tell me that it wasn't all in vain.