Enjoying freedom

The period between yesterday evening and today lunch time deserves a post by itself.

A colleague lives in Utrecht. That's because he met a girl, 2 years ago, who studies there. So, when he joined our company and moved to Holland, a few months ago, the choice of the city was natural.

So, he invited some of the few people who haven't left for Christmas holiday. Those were me and 2 more colleagues living in Amsterdam.

The party went to a Greek restaurant (pretty good, not cheap and not expensive).

Then, Stairway To Heaven, a bar where rock music from 60s to 90s was played, and there was also a dance floor. The walls were covered with guitars, that they claimed had been played by famous rockers. There was also a shirt worn by Kurt Cobain, enclosed in a glass box and venerated as a relic.
Unusual things happened when asking for beer. Once, we got 2 bottles of champagne of beer. This means that we got 2 bottles of beer, but they were 75cl each (!), and they looked like bottles of champagne. Then we asked for 1 beer and we got 8. After telling the waiter we needed 1, he told us to pay 1 and keep the others.
The music was good, and it was also funny to look at the drunken people. A girl with no mobile phone started dancing with us, and later she told us that there is no reality and everything is an impression. Or maybe that didn't happen, it was just an impression.

After the closure, we walked towards the station. The train was leaving in 1 minute, and we needed no less than 10 to get to the platform. And the following train was 1:01 hours later. What now? The guy living in Utrecht offered us to sleep at his place. Good!
We walked for a long way in -2°C and got there. He had the Digitenne TV service, so we told him there was a TV channel he didn't know about. What happened next, in a men-only party, can offend older people, moralists and children, so I won't tell.

I will tell what happened after that. He slept on the sofa, while I and the other 2 shared a double bed. 1 of the other 2 didn't realize he was not sleeping under the duvet, and we were...

Time to wake up. We walked to the Wilhelminapark, see previous post. Then we had a nice breakfast at the Park Café Buiten. Even too much: chocolate pie with whipped cream, apple pie with whipped cream (again), croissant, tea, coffee, wrong coffee.

And eventually we got to Amsterdam again. Time to relax. Or not? No. Some Christmas shopping (not enough), and a visit to the Anne Frank house. First time, after more than 2 years here. Why did I wait for so long? (Because the queue was always terrible, and today it was reasonable, that's why) Really moving, chilling. People who only wanted to live a normal life, and tried in all ways possible to do it. Anne Frank wrote that, after the war, she wanted to become a journalist She did not survive the war, but she did become a writer. Or, simply, she didn't realize what a great writer she already was.