Amsterdam: 1) Spirits Among Us

On Sunday, June 17th, I set out to visit Amsterdam once more, and once more the train journey wasn't without complications. The train supposed to go from Dusseldorf to Venlo only went to a town with the unpronounceable name of Monchengladbach, which was full of annoying German soccer fans, from where bus service was provided to the next available railroad station on the route.
As a rule, I nearly always arrive about an hour behind schedule due to some delays & stuff, and the weather was extremely cold for the season and also rainy, so the ride was a bit depressing.

But once I'd made it I found the hostel to have been newly renovated and the interior quite a bit changed, but in a nice way.

"Stupid rain..." LOL

Greetings!

After putting the sheets on my bed and storing my stuff in the box rolling out from under the bed, I walked into Vondelpark once more that night, although it was freezing. Beyond the pagoda-shaped cafe with the many colored lights, there's a sort of theater stage in the vast park. Young people had gathered there and put up colorful disco lights too and using the stage as a dance floor. I settled in the bleachers positioned around the stage, enjoying watching those lights while trying to meditate a bit and connect to my Master. I stuck around until it definitely got way too cold.

Cookie monster on a bench. LOL

My bed - top bunk (as requested), as can be seen from the angle.
I was standing upright when taking this photo.

The first night I slept until noon, and thereby through most of the rain. It was only drizzling when I eventually left the hostel and would brighten toward the afternoon. Passing by a cosmetics store, a very nice lady chatted me up, trying to sell me some products. I guess she was bored due to lack of customers, so I talked to her for a while even though I don't use such products, let alone expensive ones. I'd have bought from her if I had more money though, just for how nice she was, but I guess 40 € is to me what 400 is to most other people. But of course, the Magic Mushroom Gallery was far more interesting to me...
I was still on foot then, walking to Waterlooplein where there's the market and also a MacBike rental.

Police office #14 - formerly. Now a coffeeshop. :)

Canals with boats everywhere.

Look at my hair, my jacket, and the parasols behind -
it was very windy indeed.

Knuffels. Knuffels are what you can find at this store -
I bought my first shark there 10 years ago.
(Knuffels are plushies.)

Ducks at Vondelpark ain't shy of people - only from
dogs they'll run.

Sitting at Dam Square, eating an orange & stuff.

I rode to my favorite bridge once more to take photos, and also went to the public library. A young man of the staff who helped me find the esoteric section asked me about the skulls on my backpack - what do they mean? I was puzzled - those skulls are brightly colored, and I once saw a little boy with the very same backpack as mine, he was probably using it for school. This is a regular sort of backpack even children use, it ain't Goth or anything - you see, I was wearing my battle jacket all this time, with the metal band patches, Warlock "The Armageddon" pin, and the large Watain patch on the back on which it says "Fuck the World" - and this guy asks me about the innocent backpack? LOL
I told him I'm into metal music and that skulls are quite ubiquitous in it, and then I even told him that I'm a Satanist. In the end he gratefully told me I was the friendliest Satanist he had ever met. Which made me really wonder how many he had met already... LOL

I found a really awesome book there by an author who was presented as a very famous medium, but I hadn't heard of him before. He's American but the book was a Dutch translation, "Leven tussen geesten," which translates as "Life among spirits," but the original title was "Spirits Among Us." I found it surprisingly easy to read though. I went there once more the next day and found it back to read another chapter. I'd have bought that one, even in Dutch, but sadly it wasn't for sale, of course.

Check out this cool roller coaster...

...it's a bridge!!!

The book I read at the library.