Aquano's Blog: get a chain wallet or maybe not

Amsterdam ruled but it could only last so long considering we spent about 350 some dollars on Eurail passes and had about a week or so of travel left before we needed to be in Barcelona. With that in mind we planned on heading out in about 4 days. Well 4 days quickly turned into about a week but to be honest it could have been more because the days in Amsterdam just melted together and all concept of time was lost, the sun was out like 17 hours a day and sleep was no where on the schedule. The original 2 day stay in Amsterdam was lengthened to 4 as soon as we arrived to lucky lake, with euro 50 beers for sale on site, dope campers to sleep in, a barbecue, cool staff, kayaking, people giving us anything and everything for free and a quick 20 min. trip into the city for other necessary supplies there was no way we could leave that soon. So we got a little more comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable? Whether or not the following was a bad thing or not I’m still unsure, but the day we were about to head out Brett lost his bankcard, leaving him broke and having no way to access his money. Well about one day and hundreds of international calls later, which I don’t even want to know what the bill was, we final got his situation straightened out. Cool we’re on our way again, wait wait…. not so fast. Just about the time Brett gets his shit straight, Chris discovers the mysterious disappearance of his passport and other documents. BUMMER! Campers are turned inside out and steps are retraced only to discover a few items on the bike path next to the highway minus the passport. After weighing the options its decided that at sunup the next morning trains will be boarded and we will separate into 2 groups. Brett and myself will go Rotterdam and Chris and Brian will go to Den Haag, which is where the U.S. embassy is located, to get a new passport. Good plan, we will be on our way again in no time. Yeah right! Well the plan worked out great Chris and Brian made it on time to the Embassy before the 11:30 am closing time and Brett and me made it to Rotterdam. After exiting the train we were making our way to the hostel and conveniently ran into Brain, Chris who already made it to Den Haag and down to Rotterdam. Only to be delivered a blow, the place they needed to go to get a new passport was back in Amsterdam, its called the consulate office. FUCK! It’s now Friday around 2pm or so and all U.S. based offices close at 11:30am. And to add to the dilemma it was Memorial Day weekend so all U.S. offices were closed Monday. No service till Tuesday. DOUBLE FUCK! At this point there is really nothing left we can do except make the most of Rotterdam and have some fun. This is what I was talking about earlier when I said "Whether or not the following was a bad thing or not I’m still unsure". Because we had a kick ass time in Rotterdam, discovered a really cool hostel to stay at, rode really good spots, and still had all the amenities of Amsterdam with less of a tourist feel. Anyway the following are a collection of photos from this episode.

space trees in rotterdam