Went to see RBF again last night! It was a good show but my favourite player in the band Scott was in the hospital and so didn't play. Some songs they played were a bit werid without his backing vocals and trumpet but they still sounded really good. They have a new trumpet player as well and he was REALLY good, really made the show interesting.

After the show I waited around for ago for the band to come out, finally Aaron (leader singer) and John (new trumpet player) came out so I got their signature on my new RBF poster and also got someone else there to take a photo of me with them. Hopefully that person will now email me that photo, I gave them my email address and he gave me his mobile number. I was really stoaked, great night!

Tim

Made it home safe and sound.

I was a muppet (yet again) and didn't realise until I was on my way to Singapore that I had a 13 and a half hour stop over there. Once I realised this I decided to make the most of it, cleared Singapore customs and went to check the place out. Customs took almost an hour to clear and there was only 20 or so people in front of me, nothing seemed like too much of a rush to the customs people though. It's not like anyone was going to yell at them either while there's Police with submachine guns walking around.

Once through customs I made my way down to the trainstation and rode into central station. That's when it hit me. The heat and humidity of the place.

Here I was, in Jeans and a T-Shirt with a totally chocka backpack...

It's my last (full) day here today and it's been a pretty busy one. I woke up nice and early then talked to Sarah on Skype for a couple of hours. Then I went into town to visit the Amsterdam Zoo. When I was at the train station and asked the lady if they had a direct train to the Zoo she looked at me funny and said "Why would you want to go to the Zoo?" Prehaps she thought I should be off smoking bongs or doing something else suitabily dodgy. I said "Well I don't have much else to do and it's my last day here, why, is that not a good thing to do?" and she just blabbered something in dutch (probably "You stupid moron") and gave me my ticket.

I caught the train into town as usually and walked to the Zoo - Duh, stupid me...

As I've already posted, I had a fit of muppet mania and thought I was ment to be on my training course on Tuesday, when in fact I didn't have to be at all. So I headed back into the centre of the city and just really took it easy. I walked all over the place, finding many little back streets without tourists, just locals walking their dog or sitting outside of their house eating their breakfast on the sidewalk. It was really nice to see, certainly a change from the madhouse the centre of town is!

Of course, I went back into town and did a little bit of shopping, poking my head in the various little tourist traps and bong shops, as well as some more local type stores.

Once I'd had enough of that I thought it must be time to go visit Heineken's old factory for...

So I'm a muppet, I've also got today off as well, course doesn't start to tomorrow.
I was all dressed up ready to go when I reread the email (just to find out the street address of the course) when I realised it said 21-23. It's only the 20th today Timmy Boy, DUH!

This means I can do the Heniken Tour though! Happiness and Joy!

What a busy day it's been! After landing with little sleep I checked into my (quite nice) hotel, went and had a MASSIVE feed at breakfast and then headed into town. To get into town is a little bit of a mission, first have to catch the (Free) hotel shuttle bus back to the airport. Then from the airport you catch the train into Centraal Amsterdam station.

I arrived and walked around for ages, checking out various bits and pieces and being delighted when I remembered a few things from my visit with my Mum, Dad and Brother all those years (I think about 17) ago.



Stupid munter me forgot the digital camera so I had to buy a couple of disposable film cameras. I'm such a twit.



One thing I was just not prepared for in this city, the bikes. So many people told me "Watch out for bikes"...

Made it to Amsterdam, I'm lying on the bed in my hotel.
Just about to head down to have some breakfast, then off into town to do a bit of sightseeing.

Hello here I am at a dodgy free internet terminal in Singapore, probably having all my passwords stolen as I type this.

Made it safe n sound after 10 hours of flying, I didn't think we'd make it off the runway the wind was that bad, the plane (and passengers) were thrown from side to side as we hurtled down the runway.

After that though a fairly uninteresting flight, the food was good, they had free beer and I snoozed for quite a few hours.

That's all, I'm off to catch my flight to Amsterdam. Oh and stinko that Labour didn't win the NZ election - It's basically a draw between the major parties so now it's all down to who can suck up to who for a coelition. I know I spelt that wrong but I'm too tired to care.

Tim

It's New Zealand Election day tomorrow and I'm enrolled to vote! Yes, I've always had the opinion that "I just live here temporarily so I don't care" and while that still holds true, it turns out that if you're a resident (which I legally am it seems) then you HAVE to be enrolled to vote. It's not Nazi like Aussie is, I don't have to vote at all, I just have to be enrolled. I will vote though, every vote that can help stop the moronic National Party from getting in is worth it in my opinion.

The poor media won't know what to do when the election is over, each day they have another "shock new poll results" where they've asked like, 12 people who they're going to vote for. It's stupid. For an example look at stuff.co.nz or nzherald.co.nz.



And YES! It seems I definetly am going to...

Still not sure if I''ll be going to Saudi or not, I guess not at this stage.

My plane tickets arrived today (it's been ages since I've seen printed tickets in today's modern E-Ticket world), they were delievered to the Pharmacy up the road. The main entrance to my building is currently locked 24/7 which means people can't even get into the post boxes or the apartment buzzers. The only person who can get in is the postman, he has a key. Anyway I went and collected my tickets and wrote a letter to the building manager, having the door locked at night I don't mind but during the day is a little dumb. He agreed and it's going to be fixed next week so I'm told.

Sarah's up at her photography class and I'm sitting at home doing not much. I've just finished chopping all the vegies and herbs...