a fabulous weekend

Yesterday most of my friends hoped on a plane to Istanbul for the week, but before they left we had a fun weekend together. My friend Scott (who actually doesn't leave for Istanbul until Thursday) had two friends visiting, one of them is studying in Barcelona and the other in Vienna, and since it was Scott's birthday this weekend they decided to come visit. Scott's birthday was on friday and my other friend Owen's birthday was on Monday, so we spent the whole weekend partying in celebration of them both being one year older. On friday night we went out to dinner at this awesome chinese restaurant which Scott's parents were nice enough to treat us to (via their credit card) and then we hung out at Scott and Owen's apartment for a while before going out dancing at You II which is a mixed gay and lesbian club. As Yitka mentioned in her blog, they (unlike most clubs in Amsterdam) actually had a DJ who was playing some really good music and not just mundane techno, and we all enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed there dancing until 3am.

On Saturday I went to the Albert Cuyp market again with Mike and Natalie. None of us bought anything, but I took some pictures that I wanted to share with you all. This first one is an in motion shot taken while riding down Kerkstraat (I was pretty impressed with myself for the accomplishment of pulling my camera out of my pocket, turning it on, taking this picture, turning it off, and putting it back into my zipped up pocket). We didn't actually end up getting to the market until about 4:30 and they pack up and close most of the stalls around 5, so we weren't there for too long, but we looked at a bunch of things and decided that we would come back when they return from Istanbul and do some real shopping.

After the market we ate at Maoz, which I don't think I've mentioned yet, and therefore I will tell you all about it. Maoz is a vegetarian falafel restaurant chain that was started here in Amsterdam but now has locations in cities all over Europe and also in New York. The way it works is, you get a falafel sandwhich with just the falafel and the pita bread, and then you can go to their salad bar that has numerous toppings and delicious sauces. The best part is, you can go back to the salad bar as many times as you want! I don't even think I want to mention how many times I've been to Maoz in the past week, but it really is wonderful, and also wonderfully cheap!

Yesterday after writing my paper and seeing my friends off to the airport, Scott and I (the only two of our group who are around right now) decided to make ourselves a feast in my kitchen. We headed over to Albert Heijn to pick up all our ingredients and then back to my place to start the preparations. We made a delicious meal of chicken fajitas, with onions and peppers and garlic, and we also had some beans to put inside them, as well as cheese and salsa. Then lit candles and drank pineapple juice out of wine glasses and had a very romantic candle lit dinner. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we watched a movie in my room before calling it a night.

In about twenty minutes I'm heading over to meet Scott at the Jewish Historical Museum which is just a few blocks away from my dorm. And after that I'm getting on a train out to Schiphol to go meet Rachel!

Hmm... I was going to upload lots of pictures right now, but it's being particularly slow at the moment, so I'll just do a big picture update next time I've got some time to spare.