Day 2 - Best city ever!

My eyes open. I regard the unfamiliar ceiling with curiosity. As I sit up to check the time a sharp pain shoots through my head. I lie there for a while as some memories come flooding back while others are lost in the vast cosmos of my subconscious. Looking round I notice a 3 legged chair with a splintered leg lying beside it. I somehow have a strange feeling that the current state of this chair had something to do with me. I look around further and there is Lenny with a smug German grin on his face. He remembers! Bastad. The next while is spent filling in the gaps. Lenny reminds me of the breaking the chair incident. The chair, he tells me, was one given to Joris by his Grandfather. As Lenny himself put it: "Monetary value - €20. Sentimental value - Priceless!" I felt like shit. I was also reminded of my incessant Dutch accent. While Lenny's advice to cut out the Dutch accent while we are here was harsh, I definitely agreed I should cut back. At least for 5 minutes. Pleesh! Joris had long since left the gaff to go to the University to organise the party tonight. We all got up, showered and headed out to marvel at the beautiful sights of Tilburg. The arguing began as soon as we left Joris' place. Lenny, despite never having been here before, insisted that he was 100% sure of the way to town and that there was no need to get a bus. I have to admit that after much grumbling along the way we did arrive at the town after not too long a walk. The plan was to find an eatery ASAP. Easier said than done! Some of us (mainly me) were happy with eating in literally the first place available. Others wanted to look for the most suitable place available. It was then that we stumbled upon a lovely little place called Havana. True to it's name the bar/restaurant was a Cuban style establishment. We noted its attractiveness on the way in and yet again after we had consumed food. Although we required something substantial, it was difficult to look at a menu in Holland and not order Toasties! Lenny and I solved this problem by ordering a burger each with all the trimmings and a minitosti to share. This caused much amusement when the small table we were sitting at was full with our respective dishes and Lenny was forced to hold the plate of tosti in his hand while eating it. After the food and about 6 cokes we moved on to next door. This was a pleasant bar in which I got a beer while the others drank coffee. We didn't stay for long though as people were eager to scout out the coffee shops. We asked directions to a coffee shop in Havana and although they seemed simple enough we still managed to get lost. We did however know the name of the establishment to which we were headed and Fi asked a couple of young girls where The Grass Company was. They looked terrified and replied "We wouldn't know where that is!" before running away down the flat Dutch street. Perplexed we decided to look for the place a bit more before finally deciding the best thing would be to head back to Havana and reinforce the directions in our mind. After following them again we finally managed to find the place. It was great! Very mellow and chilled out and the music was spot on. On entry we were given a drinks menu, food menu and Marijuana menu. After sampling some of the products that the coffee shop had on offer we headed back to Joris' to freshen up for the party that night but not before stopping off at the local Jumbo. Here we stocked up on Tosti ingredients, snacks and 4 crates of beer. Joris' eyes nearly popped out of his head when we arrived back with all that. A quick freshen up later we were on our way down to the restaurant for dinner with about 30 other guys that Joris works with. Upon arriving there we realised it was the same establishment we visited straight after Havana earlier. We were served a 3 course meal for only ten bucks. Tomato soup, followed by Schnitzel followed by Gemischtes Eis. The final bill was split evenly which came to only €17 each! We felt kind of bad since we had probably drank 3 times as much beer ass everyone else but we weren't complaining. In any case, we were on holildays!

After the dinner we trekked on over to the party venue. It wasn't open yet and Joris had to go in to get set up so we mozied over to the Irish bar across the road for a quick one. After a rather not nice guinness we headed over to the venue. Since the first 500 beers were free we were eager to get in early. We strolled straight up to the bar and ordered a round. We met many people that night. Of note were Joris' girlfriend who was lovely and a guy who when wearing his dreadlock wig looked like Drexel from True Romance. We danced to trance, drank, danced to R&b and drank some more. When the 500 free beers ran out we had to buy tokens from a machine and exchange them for beers for the rest of the night. You never exchange money with the bartender. The party was beach themed and had sand on the floor and everyone was wearing shorts, tank tops, bikinis and garlands (Thanks Emsy!). At one stage during the night I saw a guy fall and hit his face off the bar. When he got up, he was missing a tooth and there was blood pouring out of his mouth! OUCH! Around 3.30 am we headed back to Joris' apartment sans Joris. We were all in good spirits but Max was in expecially good form. At Joris' Fi instantly collapsed on the pile of matresses. Max felt it necessary to jump on top of Fi and Lenny and I were not about to argue and so jumped on too. After squishing Fi so flat that you would need a vernier callipers to measure her width, we decided that tostis and a viewing of Kingdom of Heaven was in order. I began to prepare the tosti ingredients and Max in his high spirited state insisted on helping. I repeatedly told him to sit down and that I would make the tostis and bring one to him when they were ready. He still insisted on helping so I reluctantly put him in charge of cutting the cheese. I busied myself with the ham and bread and when I looked back several minutes later Max had cut almost the entire block of Gouda! This time I banished him to the couch and told him to sit still. When the Tostis were ready we sat down to watch the film. Unfortunately the Tostis were not enought to fill Max's rumbling stomach and he proceeded to eat every other piece of food in the gaff including Fi's precious bugles. The film wasn't great although the main female character was hot. Half way through the film, Lenny got up to go to the jacks. Upon his arrival, he sat down on the couch, looked at me and declared in the best German accent ever "I've been sick." Hilarious! After the terrible film ended, we hit the sack. Fi by this stage was unconscious on Joris' bed and since we didn't know if he would return tonight, we thought it best to remove her from the bed. This proved to be more easily said than done and Fi was not happy about being moved. Still we managed it eventually and we all slipped into alcohol induced unconsciousness for the second time this holiday.

Now away with ye...