I am back!

Hey..

In the last many weeks that I did not update my blog in, I have done a lot of stuff – mostly traveling around Amsterdam, and to Brussels, Italy and Paris – besides breaking up with my girlfriend, getting rejected by a few girls in Amsterdam, and having come off as a complete jerk in front of my research colleagues by drinking too much in Alex’s graduation party and every Friday night hang out (turns out I even smoked a little bit in my drunken stupor on one of those nights).

I have been on a day trip (on 2^nd week of May – perfect time to visit) to Keukenhof (translated as Kitchen Garden) – an extremely beautiful garden just outside Amsterdam, with exhibition of thousands of Tulips and unfathomable beauty (btw, who grows tulips in their kitchen garden?). I went with Yusuke (a new Japanese post-doc in the group) and got totally crazy there with my camera – took 632 photographs in 4 hours, while Yusuke took another 230. The Saturday after that, I went to Brussels (Belgium) with Yusuke again, and also my Hungarian friend from Utrecht. It was a fantastic day – covered most of Brussels (it isn’t very far and will probably go there again soon – costed only 20 Euros for return journey): Grand Square, Manneken Pis (the peeing boy, I don’t understand the fascination of some artist with the sculpture of babies peeing in public), several cathedrals and basilicas (they all looked alike and I was bored in every one of them, except in one Saint Michelle cathedral or something), had Belgian waffles, Belgian beer and bought some Belgian chocolates. Interestingly, they also had a Gay Pride Parade on, always a fun experience - whether in London or in Brussels. A fun day, indeed! :D

Interestingly, however, 2 of my friends from Germany (Prithu and his friend Shruti) who had originally planned this Brussels trip and were supposed to join us in Brussels were smart enough to miss their train to Brussels, and had to come to Amsterdam instead. Well, I suppose they had a good time in Amsterdam that day and the next – with me, i.e., when we went to Heineken museum, had free beers, saw how they were traditionally brewed and had a lot of fun. Sticking to the tradition of tourism in Amsterdam, we went to the red light district but I didn’t feel any remorse this time – I guess I was ready for the onslaught. This time, however, on the insistence of Shruti, we tried spacecake – cake with weed in it. She wanted to smoke weed but had no experience in smoking so we decided to go with something we had so much experience in – eating cakes! Anyway, she just had a little bit of it while Prithu and I stuffed ourselves with that stuff. It didn’t feel anything for some time, but after an hour or so later, the marijuana started kicking in and I don’t remember how I got home after that – but I did anyway! I do remember eating all the Belgian chocolates I had got the previous day. I assume that's wht happened, because all I saw left of it next day was the empty box. Well, maybe next time I would just give smoking weed a shot, how much worse can it get???!!!!