Hash Adam & Jesus (complete with poseable arms and gliding action)

Midway through their time in Amsterdam, they received a package from Edinburgh with winter clothes which they were very chuffed with.  It had been getting considerably colder all the time and they still only had summer clothes and jackets.

On their way back from buying train tickets for Hamburg (their next destination), they collected the package from the agency, and then in a gift shop nearby Anne Frank's house, they found a friend in Jesus.  He ended up leaving with them and so that day they arrived for a coffee and smoke at La Terturia with their winter clothes and Jesus alongside them.

There was a young guy just leaving at the table next to them but he spent a few moments staring at them before he got up and left.

The next day they returned there - this time without Jesus and clothes - but the young guy was there.  He soon introduced himself as Hash Adam, a young Dutch/English outlaw, his weapon of choice being a camera.  He was a freelance photographer apparently.  He didn't appear to recognise them from the day before although they recognised him.  Instead after asking to borrow the Bob lighter, he got straight down to the benefits of hash, which he was smoking, and spent the first 20 mins telling Dave & Kate in great detail all about hash and how to make it. 

He offered them a toke of his joint and was determined to find out if they enjoyed it as much as he did.  They were neither this way or that about it.  It was nice, but so was the weed they were smoking.  They continued chatting, mainly about the system, and when Dave & Kate explained their situation and what they were doing, and how much money they had left.  He looked on in wonder.  Then a long pause....

His face suddenly creased up and he burst out laughing with the phrase "have you guys ever thought about getting jobs?!"  They all cracked up at this but as he left it looked like a guy who had contemplated some of what was spoken.

Meanwhile, Jesus remained with them.  He was supposed to depart and head to Edinburgh from Amsterdam but the bastard wouldn't leave and ended up following them on to Hamburg.

Got To Have Kaya Now

The whole 11 nights spent in Amsterdam was a very relaxing and rejuvenating time.  They hadn't known what to expect and this was a very different Amsterdam experience from their last one.  A lazy, hazy atmosphere pervaded each day and so Dave & Kate went with it.  They didn't really need to go out much, had no reason to, and so found other than supermarket trips they'd find themselves heading to Yo-Yo's or La Terturia, having a smoke, and then wandering wherever or heading back to the apartment. 

After the manic time in Paris this was exactly what they needed.  Amsterdam also seemed the perfect place for Dave to dispose of his rasta trainers (in a park bin) which had been falling apart for some time.

From Atlantis To Yo-Yo's

On the 4th night Dave & Kate felt the time was right to revisit an old friend, Kaya.  It was pouring down and as they walked the streets in the area not too far from their apartment they spotted a coffeeshop called Atlantis.  It seemed apt that they try and find Kaya in there.  They did and left, heading back to the apartment for a pleasant night.

Amsterdam with all its canals was also continuing this strange water-related theme that seemed to be significant.  Pretty soon they discovered their luxury bathroom with its two sinks only had one in working order - the other was leaking water at the base.  Chris and his Dutch friend Ron arrived but couldn't fix it so one sink it was.

As Dave & Kate walked into Atlantis the girl at the counter misheard Dave and thought he was asking for "Jamaican", a strain of their friend Kaya.  Bob was certainly around.  The next day in a headshop for papers and any old lighter, the middle-aged lady specifically pulled one with Bob Marley on it from the shelf for them.  They would find him looking down on them from above in La Terturia, the only coffeeshop they sat in at other than Yo-Yo's.

They had heard Yo-Yo's produce was organically grown and since it was out of the city centre, was much more relaxed, for the locals rather than tourists.  It sounded like their kind of place.  La Terturia was more well-known, but still relaxed, run by two elderly women, a mother and daughter team.

Hazy Days

Arriving in Amsterdam around 11am and with little sleep, they made their way to the apartment they'd booked from Paris - an upmarket townhouse flat not too far from the Van Gogh museum.  It was bigger than they needed but the only option with a few days to spare.  This time they were glad not to be right in the heart of the city centre.

They met the guy from the agency at check-in, Chris, who had cycled to the apartment to meet them and then had to cycle back and return with the right set of keys.  Nice start but it gave Dave & Kate a chance to pick up some groceries while he was gone.

Chris was a full-on, enthusiastic English guy who had been on his way travelling elsewhere 20 years earlier, arrived in Amsterdam and decided to remain there and live on a houseboat.  Kate was touched when he came round one day with some of his own teabags he'd been sent from England.

Once all checked in and sorted, Dave & Kate slept for a good chunk of the day... and for a good part of their first 4 days in Amsterdam.  They had immediately felt a very different kind of energy here than in Paris and it seemed to be making them very spaced out and hazy.  And that was before anything was smoked.

Yet again, they were thankful for the apartment that had come their way.  There was an Albert Heijn supermarket 5 mins down the road, Vondelpark was 2 mins away, a tram stop right outside the flat (they only used it on arrival and departure) and everything else they needed was close by.

In the apartment they found various Buddha statues, photos of elephants and some spiritual books, including 'A Course In Miracles'.  They never read any but this type of thing would repeat itself and indicate something was going on.

From Paris To The Amsterdam Hilton...

Not quite but close enough.

It became clear with a few days left that Amsterdam was the next place to be.  They had no reason to go there and in fact, again, didn't really want to.  Their last visit to Amsterdam several years earlier had not been so great and although they didn't dislike the city, they had memories of a hard time in a bustling, slightly crazy place to burn.  Maybe that was as good a reason as any to go.

The signs had been presented... they stayed TWICE in the same hotel on Rue d'Amsterdam and while they were there, Dave remembered hearing the Lloyd Cole song "Lost Weekend" and feeling it was significant somehow - "I spent a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam..."

When they arrived at the Truffaut apartment what did he find in the small CD collection but a Lloyd Cole album.  And then one day Kate put on a Beatles album from the collection and they heard John Lennon sing the lines "from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton..."

With a day or two to go, Kate managed to find and secure an apartment there for 11 nights.

During this period they were also feeling it was time to shed their shells (backpacks).  They were slowing them down and too inefficient for all this moving.  Nearby the apartment they would find a lot of luggage shops, looking in, knowing suitcases were the way.

They bought a train ticket the day before they checked out and said goodbye to Paris in the early hours of the morning.

The Wise Frying Pan

Sometime in the middle of their time in the Truffaut apartment, while making tea one night, a wise frying pan had an announcement to make to Dave...  "Berlin Go".  So they did.  But not yet.

The Truffaut Days

Dave & Kate arrived at the apartment on Rue Truffaut on Saturday afternoon and were soon met by David and his little boy, who they learnt had never heard his dad speaking English before and had never been to the apartment before, hence his shyness.

After showing them around he surprised them by saying he had decided he didn't need a desposit from them as he trusted them and wouldn't be around on the Thursday when they checked out anyway.  They recognised this as another little bit of help coming their way and were able to use that cash now for groceries for the week.

The apartment itself was great, with everything they needed, but at this stage they would have felt grateful for pretty much any apartment.  The fact it had a PC with internet, was close to the Europe area they had been in, and had all amenities close by was amazing.  Still they were faced with returning to Edinburgh on the Thursday if money didn't arrive from somewhere.

They weren't even sure where they'd go after this if it did come.  Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands seemed the most likely destinations, although they had no reason to go to any of them.

The weather responded to their movements too.  The previous 2 weeks in Paris it had remained dry, while they were in hotels and out for much of the day.  The day they moved into the apartment it began raining heavily and did so for most of the days they were there.  They had seen most of Paris anyway and didn't need to go too far. 

Instead a lot of time was spent utilising the free internet and writing emails.

During this time help now came in the form of Will & Georgie, who kindly stepped in and provided new funds for them to remain in Europe.  Dave & Kate had been more more confident it would come this time than the previous week but they didn't know from where.  They felt blessed yet again still not really knowing what the hell was going on.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

On Friday 5th November 2010, Dave & Kate stepped out of their hotel with the task of finding themselves a room for that night and some kind of accomodation which offered them a few days of stability.  An apartment was the preferred choice but its not easy to book an apartment a day in advance.

Nothing much was showing up and so they'd take breaks from the internet cafe, going out for walks to give the mind a rest, and then coming back.  Sometime in the afternoon Dave came across an apartment not too far from the area they were in and as a bonus it had a PC with internet connection.  This would be a massive help in saving internet costs.  They emailed the owners, David & Elizabeth, about checking in the next day.

Luckily, they were able to email back quickly and put things into action - 5 days in this apartment sounded good and after that they felt sure they would leave Paris one way or another.  David & Elizabeth wanted a 100 Euro deposit before arrival and accepted paypal which suited Dave & Kate perfectly.  The remainder was to be paid in cash on arrival.

At this point on their travels, Dave & Kate seemed to be plagued with money issues.  They couldn't use their euro currency cards as they'd intended until a bank statement from their UK banks arrived at the family residence they had provided (since they had no permanent residence of their own now).  This was another security measure from the Babylon Shitstem which seemed intent on halting things.  They could only transfer money by direct bank transfer to their cards and this took a few days to process each time.

So they were relying on directly withdrawing money using their UK debit cards and they didn't even know if they were going to work since the bank had already froze their accounts after seeing attempted foreign withdrawals.

At 5pm they eventually found a hotel for the night... the same one they'd stayed in for 2 nights at the beginning of the week on Rue d'Amsterdam.  After nothing showing up for their budget all day, it popped up on offer late in the day and so they once again were saved at the last minute.

They moved their luggage from the previous nights hotel to this one again, checked in and then went back out to hopefully finalise the apartment for tomorrow.

The dark forces were out to stop them yet again.  When Kate attempted to make the paypal deposit payment she got a message from paypal saying they had frozen the transfer until further security checks were completed.  This was going to take 5 days - they'd be checked out by the time it went through.  No good.

Kate got in touch with David and explained and he very kindly agreed to cancel the paypal transaction and accept a cash deposit on arrival.  Only thing was, the cancellation didn't free up the money back into Kate's bank account.  So 100 Euros was unavailable to them for 5 - 7 days. 

They were left that night having agreed to this apartment and not even sure whether they could get any of the money out their banks for it.  At 11pm that night they made their way to a cash machine where Dave tried to use his UK debit card to take out a chunk of the money.  He almost expected Chris Tarrant's face to appear on the screen and ask if he wanted to phone a friend as they waited those long seconds while the transaction was being processed.

Jah didn't let them down.  The cash came out and they were able to go back the next morning and withdraw the rest.  Finally it looked like they were about to have 5 days of stability in which something could happen to keep Europe alive.

Parc Monceau

Dave & Kate had discovered a nice little park in the area during their time there called Parc Monceau.  It was probably their favourite and they preferred it over the more famous Luxembourg Parc. 

As they took a walk around it trying to understand how their head and heart could be in conflict like this they eventually sat themselves down on a rock opposite a small pyramid.  A little French boy soon appeared in front of them playing on the rocks.  He was singing to himself and kept looking up at them with a curious smile.  This made them smile.  When he eventually ran off to his mum he kept looking back at them shouting "au revoir!" and waving.  They wondered if this was an omen Paris was saying goodbye to them.

That night they took a longer route to a different internet cafe much further away from their hotel.  They were going there as one last throw of the dice, so to speak.  If something showed up (they couldn't see what) then it was still on, if there was nothing they would book a flight back to Edinburgh as they simply didn't have enough to last any longer.

They never spoke about it to each other at the time but both felt they were sure they'd be staying.  Edinburgh just wasn't an option - it was as obvious as this to them even if it made no logical sense.  They couldn't conceive that this thing was about to die.

A miracle did come.  Jah had put his troops Brian, Agnes and Brother Mark into action and there was an email waiting for Dave & Kate with an offer of financial help to sustain them a few days longer.  It had only been a few hours since Dave notified them about possibly returning.  If they had went to the usual nearer internet place they probably would have booked the flights before the emails had come through.

At the very last minute Europe was brought back to life - if only for a few days more.

Later that night as they sat eating a Subway again, the song on the radio went "I need a dollar, a dollar, a dollar is what I need...  if I share with you my story would you share your dollar with me".

3 Hotels In 3 Nights

It felt like Jah had delivered a real treat for them that night.  They were so grateful. 

Although it looked increasingly certain they'd have no choice but to book a flight back to Edinburgh the following day, it didn't matter, for now they were fine.

That night as Dave brushed his teeth he saw he was staring at a rainbow in the sink.  The light was reflecting off the running water in such a way it had created a rainbow.  He began to laugh.  They had also noticed that there were three random tiles in the bathroom each with a butterfly on them.

Yet again they checked out in the morning with nowhere to stay that night.  They managed to book a Best Western hotel on Rue de Moscou after another internet trip.  The internet rates in Paris were really swallowing up their finances.

That afternoon Dave sent an email to the folks back in Edinburgh to let them know they'd almost certainly be on a flight there in a day or two.  Dave & Kate felt they weren't to ask for money from anyone, no matter how strongly they felt about remaining in Europe.  They had to put all their trust in Jah.