the bus blog

The weekend of the 16th through 19th March saw me visiting Amsterdam, it was a fun visit but I felt something was missing. Maybe it was me being totally preoccupied with my college work and not being able to properly relax but the whole place seemed even more tacky and shameless than I remember. If you go to the right areas the streets really are lined with whores and there are more offers of drugs than the London underground, not that that’s a bad thing! The big downer for me was that I really felt like a yobby Brit, everyone looked at me with a certain look of disdain, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. However, when I accepted its a tacky tourist town, and I am a British 22 year old visiting for the weekend, things perked up.

I went there with a few ‘old timers’ who have regularly been going once a year for the last 5 or so years, and of all the places we visited a small coffee shop / brassier / weed shop was the best, they are apparently working on their website , if anyone visits the city I highly recommend at least a drink there - the food is pretty good too. For hostels I’m certain we had the best, the Flying Pig - we stayed in the uptown one, right opposite, the being renovated, Vondelpark - its got an amazing relaxed atmosphere, a bar with its own cat and is close to the action but not right in the middle of it.

Other than one guy passing out on a stool, falling about a meter and landing on his head the trip was pretty good, plenty off all the right things you expect in a city like Amsterdam. All in, it was a cool weekend and a nice break from the usual, I even got a chance to finish Dubliners on the plane.

I’m off to Key Largo next week for a fishing trip so I’m having to work overtime on my college work (due in on the 27th April - Eek!), there will be a update on the bus soon - some good progress has been made!

Well, its been a rather long time again, but I have been busy! Anyway - its all changed again, a new site - this time built around MODx. Its taken a bit of customising, and there’s sure to be more on the way, but I rather like it and its nice having the same look and feel for the blog as the rest of the site. Thanks to Si for all the help! In other news I managed to actually pass both the exams - 73% in C3T and 71% in A3E - leaving me rather pleased! All I’ve got to do now is crack on with the dissertation and my other modules.

DubFreeze was pretty cool, I managed to pick up some barrels for the sliding doors on the bus, now all of the locks are with Robin at C&C being re-worked to operate off the same key. I’ve taken the opportunity to take out the engine and install the heater flaps - this was a proper pain-in-the-ass but the whole contraptions seems to be operating smoothly now. I might try to get some photos showing the setup as its pretty badly covered by the Haynes manual. Before anyone starts claiming they are unimportant the reason I’ve fitted them is the same reason VW fitted them in the first place, I just don’t know what that is.