Freedom means sleeping on a bench undisturbed

A few words about Amsterdam...
I really didn't know much about this city before arriving this morning. All I ever heard was that pot and prostitution are legal here and that people are super liberal. I once saw a thing on TV about it and a spokesperson for the city said that Amsterdam takes pride in being the "Freest city in the world." Today, however, I discovered that Amsterdam is not so free afterall.

It was early. I got of the plane in Einhoven and took a bus to the train station, then a train to Amsterdam. After a night on a bench in the Madrid airport, and all that movement when I arrived in Holland, I was tired to say the least. On the train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam there were grass-covered fields surrounded by flower-covered pastures. I was sitting there day-dreaming of laying down in the grass, then I got to the city, and it was all cobblestone and pavement. I walked from the train station to Dam Square (you heard me - 'Dam Square') and then walked as far as I could from downtown trying to find a grassy park. The best thing I could find was a bench next to a bridge by a canal in the middle on nowhere. I layed down on a bench with a book on my chest, then drifted peacefully asleep for a couple of hours.

I would have kept sleeping had I not been interrupted by someone pulling on the towel I had laid over my eyes. I slapped the hand, then it just kept pulling at my towel, so I jumped up, pulled the towel from my eyes and as soon as I realized who I was about to scream at, I decided to sit and listen. It was two police officers looking down at me. I said, "What's the problem?"

"No sleeping." the older of the two said.

"I was reading a book, " I answered.

"You were not, you were sleeping. You may not sleep. It is illegal."

I was flabberghasted. Taken abback. I sat there with my jaw open wondering how on earth it could be illegal to fall asleep under a tree next to a canal, but legal to smoke pot and buy a prostitute. But then the officer said one last thing as he walked away.

"You're making more work for me."

Aha! The root of the "free" Dutch society. Cracking down on drugs and prostitution was just too much work. It's not worth it to put forth the effort to try and stop something, so let's make it leagal in the name of "freedom!" Well, I just wish they would have decided to make a napping under a tree legal too.

Sleeping at the airport in Madrid

Tonight I´m going to sleep in the airport. Unfortunately I wasn´t thinking when I baught a super-cheap airplane ticket from madrid to Amsterdam. My plane leaves at 6:00AM and no busses start until after 6. So I had to make a descision... do I pay for a taxi to the airport, or do I sleep at the airport and use my metro day pass, which I.ve been using since this morning. The choice was pretty obvious.

No real point to this post, but I thought you might like to know that I.m tough.

Holy Toledo!

We took a day trip out of town to a city called, you guessed it, Toledo. You may think that Toledo is a city in Ohio (you may also think that Moskow is only a city in Idaho), but Toledo is actually the ancient capital of Spain -- and it´s beautiful. The city itself is surrounded on three sides by a rolling river in a deep gorge. It is the perfect position for a fuedel fortress. It is in Toledo that Christopher Colombus came to ask Queen Isabella for the money to go to India. If he could navagate through the windy streets of Toledo, it´s no wonder he could brave the Pacific.

A catholic black market... mmm

Okay, so Syndey is a Rick Steves Nazi and rely's on his advice to get around European cities. I am more of the school fo Jack Karouac, a free bird who travels one step at a time and give no thougth to the road ahead and only blog about the road behind.

Though i am reluctant to admit it, Rick Steves did lead us to a pretty nice adventure this morning. We walked into a back alley behind the Mercado Meyor, to a convent. At the convent, we buzzed the nuns on the intercom and when they answered I said "dulces" (sweets). They rang us in and said "It's 5.50 euro." We followed some signs back through the convent that led to a room with nothing but a revolving door/lazy susan. Basically, there were nuns behind the lazy susan demanding that we buy what we have in front of us for 5.50. As we stumbled to pull out the money, they kept saying "5.50!" because they couldn't see us (I can think of about 6 better ways of running their business, but that's what makes it so fun). We put the money on the table, but because they couldn't see us, and I didn't want them yelling anymore, I said, "I left your money." Then we walked out of the convent and it turns out that the "dulces" were actually pretty good.

Only in Madrid on the 29th of April

Well, I needed to go into more detail about the actual bull fight that we saw. We just happened to be at a bull fight where the Matador not only killed the bull (turns out the bull never wins... talk about a misnomber-- they should call it a bull execution), but the Matador executed the bull with such finess that grown men were in tears because they had never seen such a fight. To us, uncultured Americans, the only difference between this particular round and the others of the night was the crowd. It was like watching raja bell hit a last minute 3-pointer to beat the Clippers in overtime. Every time the bull ran through the Matador's red cape, the crowd went wild with "Ole"s. When the Matador finally ran the bull through with his sword, the crowd erupted, and trew their hands in the air, waiving white handkerchiefs and screaming. The matador recieved the bull's ears as a prize for such a good fight and then he took a vicotory lap around the ring was people threw their hats. At the end of the night he was carried out on the shoulders of his team and the crowd was again on its feet. We definately should have brought a white handkerchief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bullfights

La Bull Fight y The poor lady's shoulder

It's crazy. Madrid is crazy. Have you ever seen a man moved to tears as he drives his sword through the trobbing heart of a full-grown bull? Quite the intense experience. When we got off the plane, we went strait to Ventas where the bull fighting arena is and since we were a half an hour early I had a chance to talk to this old spaniard about what seats are the best. It turns out that seating prices are entirely based on whether you sit in the 'sol' (sun) or 'sombra'(shade). The tickets go for as little as 4.20, but can exceed 120 euro. We chose to sit in the half sun, half shade, on the highest level. Luckily we got to sit in the very front of the highest level, from which it feels like you are floating above the bullfighters as they perform.

As we sat watching, my little sister, Sydney, needed to go to the little sinorita's room and needed her ticket from me. As I reached for my pocket, my elbow hit the whisky vendor who was passing by. My immediate reaction was to retract my arm, but in doing so I tapped the 2 litre water bottle between me and my sister. From that point, all I could do was watch as the bottle fell from the bench to our feet, then roll from our feet, through the bars in front of us and fall about 20 surprisingly graceful feet onto an unsuspectin Signora below. We all cringed, but what a scene it caused. The old man behind us yelling, but reassuring us that it was an accident, the people below us, waterlogged and looking up to see the source of all the commotion. After about 5 minutes a couple of police officers, seeing that the lady who was hit by the water bottle was clenching her arm, came and took her off (to who knows where). The noise subsided, and people continued to watch the fight, and despite the deep feeling in my stomach that we were going to get in trouble somehow, no one from below even tried to confront us and the show went on.