My Mates for the Night

On Wednesday night I hung out with these Australians for the night. Originaly they had 4 in their group, but two of them went home early.

I met them at this music club after they asked me to take pictures of them, and then pictures of me with them. It was silly fun.

They were super nice and a lot of fun. We got along like we were old friends.

At 1 pm when the bar closed we headed to a Blues Bar called Mello Mello. We're all standing outside and I asked the Dutch dude what time does the tram (public trans) end? He said midnight. I thought Oh, s***. I have no way home! I don't have the address to my apartment and I have no idea how to pronounce it or spell it. Normally while traveling I always keep an address in my wallet for these situations. The Aussies said I could crash at their place. So I did. Now, if I wasn't completely comfortable with them and needed to get home, I could have found a map somewhere and looked up the street.

When Mello Mello closed we headed to another bar and then finally headed home around 4 am. I was surprised to find not many 4 am, 5 am or 6 am bars in this town. Some have said they're available you just have to find them, meaning, they're not common.

Then we bike home in the desolate streets of Amsterdam. It was cool.

And guess where their apartment was located? The Red Light District, on the outskirts. Where hooker windows were visible down the block. Now, I knew this prior to heading there and was OK with it. Plus I was with gigantic Aussies, so I felt safe.

Then we arrived in their apartment. Wuf. It was dingy, a flea bag kind of room. There were two beds. A girl and guy were in one. John Paul gave his space to me, next to the other Aussie. They had no blankets, no pillows. John Paul gave me two clean towels to use as a pillow, which I ended up using as blankets.

I laid there thinking Jesus Brooke! You're 29-years-old, not 19! You have a wonderful bed you could be sleeping in! What the f***! I looked at my phone and thought OK, 3 hours until I can catch a tram, forget about it. The real problem was that I wasn't wasted! If I was, I could've just passed out.

Regardless of the sleeping arrangements, I had a blast and would have done it over again.

Those guys were super cool and complete gentlemen the entire evening. They looked out for me like real friends.

---In pics from right to left: John Paul, me, Sebastian (a German), JP or JB (a Dutch guy), and the other Australian who's name I can't remember. Sorry dude.---