Take them to The Hague
Noz and I were relieved upon learning that some of the girls at the Red light district are cross dressers (Please don’t kill me if I used this word incorrectly). We were secretly jealous when we saw their thighs and well-toned bodies. Those bodies are the reason we seldom eat pasta and we squat until profanity escapes our lips. Ok you get where I’m going with this.
Rewind….
Spring in Europe 2017: Trench coats; gloves and boots
Destination: Netherlands and Greece
Agenda: A chance to escape all the professional and personal titles
and be a random human being with no responsibilities apart from being alive and
have a credit card and passport?
YES PLEASE!!!
Destination1: Amsterdam.
The land of tulips; beautiful architecture; canals; bicycles; legal weed
smoking and prostitution. As amaXhosa would say: KwaJuliwe.
AMSTERDAM ARE YOU READY?!
We bought a street map on arrival at the airport; tickets
for the tram and we were sorted. Navigating
European countries is usually easy. Efficient Transport system, all one
needs is a street map and voila!!! I refuse tour guides, I’m not a child. If I
can spot it on a street map and it’s within a 10km radius uhm… I’m gonna walk.
Lucky for me, Noz doesn’t mind walking as well. Why would she? That btch runs
the Comrades Marathon.
I hear there are over 800,000 bicycles in Amsterdam. That’s
more bikes than people! Cycling is a way of life, made easier by the city’s excellent network of cycle routes and flat landscape no wonder people there
look so good.
Every day was typical: 5km jog; breakfast and hit the
streets. 5km to not lose rhythm, it’s not easy maintaining these bodies, we’re
not so young.
We fell in love with De Kroon restaurant/cafe at Rembrandt Square/RembrandtPlein.
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| De Kroon |
It became our most favourite chill spot. Good food and drinks; beautiful people,
most of them high from availability of drugs in every square metre, it’s crazy.
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| Cannabis Chocolate |
Rembrandtplein is one of the busiest squares in the city mainly for nightlife
and clubbing. It is named after the famous Dutch master painter,
Rembrandt van Rijn. You probably remember that name from your uncle’s cigarette
pack huh?
Rembrandt is where everything happens; easy access to most tourist
attractions like the Ice Bar; Heineken Museum (Are you thirsty?) We mostly
strolled everywhere. We were on holiday man, days were long and well not so
warm but we made the best of it.
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| Heineken |
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| Ice Bar |
We made a conscious decision to not get inside museums but
marvel the architecture from outside. What more would we learn beyond what Europeans are most
known for: Colonialism
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| Rijks Museum |
I TAKE STUNNING PICTURES
International Criminals Court in the Hague, Netherlands.
The one court that prosecutes African leaders and only African? Yes that
one, it resides in Netherlands. This is
the court that has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the
international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Uhm
George W Bush; Barrack Obama? Wait that’s right they’re (USA) not parties to
the statute of the court. Surprise surprise!!!
TRAIN TRIP TO THE HAGUE #HOTGIRLSINEU
I had to see it for myself; walk the corridors and hopefully
walk out in one piece. This is the court that wants to prosecute South Africa
for not ratting on Omar Bashir when he visited our country few years ago.
Blacks ain’t snitches yo. Forget it.
I DARE YOU TO VISIT THE WEBSITE RIGHT NOW AND CLICK ON
SITUATIONS AND CASES TAB. I was tempted to chant Umshini Wam right there like I
did at the cinema the day I watched Kalushi. I chanted one man, I seldom need an
audience for such things LOL! I was not gonna take chances in a foreign country though, I behaved.
EYE FILM MUSEUM
Amsterdam was exactly as I had imagined from my first visit. I was much younger then. From architecture to debauchery. The less said about debauchery the better
Destination 2: Athens, Greece
We boarded the flight out of Amsterdam heading for Athens on
7 April a day that also happened to be the day of #ZumaMustFall. I had planned
to wave the South African flag at the airport in support of the hardship that
my country is currently going through. On second thought I stopped myself in fear
of being associated with individuals that marched for the democratically
elected and deployed President Zuma to step down because they say so. I know my
ancestors did not take all those lashes and got paid in salt and sugar working hard in farms for me to abuse the right to cast my vote. So I
canned the flag and supported my country by observing a moment of silence.
A few hours later we landed in Athens Greece.
Why Athens? Mostly because…. The gods: Zeus; Athena; Hermes… and of course all this
sht Mr Nagan, my mathematics teacher drilled into my head all those years ago
Ok let’s go back to immigration in Athens. There was an overzealous
American family that seemed of Indian origin. They were rather rude to a point
of telling Immigration what to do cos “We’re in a hurry”
It looked like they were a family on holiday so I fail to
understand what the rush was. I don’t know the full story so let me go back to
what I witnessed
Indian lady: Excuse excuse me, may you please be quick.
We’ve been waiting here a while and you’ve just allowed that gentleman to go to
that short queue. Why?
Greek Official: Because he’s European
I almost peed myself with laughter. That squashed the whole
discussion. Beesh stay in your lane. This is Europe, He’s European with a
European passport. That comes with innate privileges. Whatchu gon do? LOL!!!
There was a particular gay Indian gentleman at our hotel that made my every day.
He’s probably in his early 60s; wears shorts and shirt and looks absolutely
amazing. He is not apologetic for being who he is, he’s fabulous and fck
errbhadi.
Day 1 We started the tour at the temple of Olympian Zeus (6th c.
B.C.) and Hadrian’s Arch (131 A.D.), which forms the symbolic entrance to the
city.
We continued along
Dionysou Areopaghitou passing the ancient Theatre of Dionysos.
We reached the ruins of the Asklepieion and the Stoa of Eumenes then the Odeion of
Herodes Atticus.
Look at this. Ruins covered in glass for preservation
We then climbed up to the sacred rock of the Acropolis, the
site of some of the most important masterpieces of worldwide architecture and
art, the most renowned of which is the Parthenon temple.
This is the skyline of Athens. The home of Mathematics. I
stood here and breathed lambda. Listen the air smells like theta ok?
Only 300m away from the sacred rock of Acropolis stands the
impressive Acropolis Museum, one of the most important contemporary works of
architecture in Athens. It is made of steel, glass and concrete and it houses
4,000 priceless finds from the Acropolis monuments that represent its history
and function as the most important religious centre of ancient Athens. I had no
interest in glass and steel, I did not cross oceans to see that.
We walked the streets of
Plaka. Scouting the hood for nice things …and people. Judge us unamarights.
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| Local Beer in every country |
PLAKA
The Plaka is the old historical neighborhood of Athens built
on top of the residential areas of the ancient town of Athens. It is known as
the "Neighborhood of the Gods" due to its proximity to the Acropolis
and its many archaeological sites. It right there is under the Acropolis and
stretches almost to Syntagma Square where we were based.
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| Morning March. Parliament |
We walked the streets spotting Monastiraki flea market and Hadrian’s Library. The Plaka is full of restaurants
with tables on the street (My absolute favourite); street musicians, flower
sellers, photographers and people who sell beads or will write your name on a
grain of rice.
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| Breastases |
Downtown is a stream
of shops mostly with stuff that you find on Instagram boutiques. We found a
shop that sells Zara current merchandise at almost half the price. Stravadius. We were not in Europe to shop unfortunately. All money we had finished on flights and accommodation. We were broke.
What’s new?
Forgive me I love food. Pity I was
too full to even think of having these.
Hard Rock Café Athens was our spot for the day.
Souvenirs LOL
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| Revolutionary Krom leg |
HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS/OBSERVATIONS
1.
Travelling with #TheNoz again. 7 countries with her
in 2 years. I can never express enough appreciation. Ey yo Noz, if you
reading this, I love you dawg. Here's a soundtrack for you. Travelling over God's country
2. Finally learning what Red Light
District means. Essentially what happens is ladies flash their goods through a
window. The girls that’s available keeps the red light on. Rooms with no red
light mean she’s busy or she’s not there.
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| Red Light District |
3.
Visiting Bull Dog in Amsterdam. I first saw the
venue in Mariah Carey’s reality show. They serve the best muffins in the world
THAT’S ALL
4.
What came as a pleasant surprise was not once not twice, people recognised our language. Even security at ICC. The gentleman Congolese, said “You ladies are Xhosa?” We looked at each other and smiled. A few moments earlier a white lady at the busstop had recognised the language as well. Man even in Greece, a lady from Armenia stopped and asked whether we speak isiXhosa. Outchea making IsiXhosa fashionable
5.
Visiting the Acropolis. My father taught me a
lot of European history. I’ve always dreamed of visiting the places he used to
tell me about. Rest in peace Daddy
6.
Drama at the airport. Soooooooooooooo we checked
in as per usual and waited for flight time. We proceeded to boarding gates and
waited. 30mins before the flight, it was cancelled. 10pm flight Uhm….
That would mean we had been up at least 16 hours by then. They offloaded our
luggage and may I mention that we all had different destinations. In a long
queue we all stood while airline staff tried to find alternative flights for all passengers. We were in Greece, fckn Greece at 10pm. We stood patiently in this queue
and started making friends, we chose to move airport furniture to make
ourselves comfortable. We are South African AND black. Bad combination that. We don't care about rules. Man it took at least 30mins to sort out each passenger.
This was 3am, even Jesus made an
appearance fresh from the garden tomb.
We were there until morning staff reported
for duty the next day. They finally put us on a flight to Serbia, Belgrade… 1hr
to connect to a flight to Amsterdam and another 30mins to a flight to
Johannesburg. We ran like headless chickens in both those airports. Lucky for
us we are fit, we moved at the speed of light. Team work, one would run to
the next destination as soon as they were done with security checks to avoid
delays and also to delay departure somewhat while the other was still getting
profiled.
7.
Stealing sweets and food at the conference
centre. So lark, hotels have a bad tendency of rationing us on coffee and milk.
Those sachets are never enough and you don’t want to be known for always asking
for more. If it’s not milk it’s the ice bucket cos your broke a*s brought own
wine instead of buying at the hotel restaurant. This one time we took stairs
instead of the lift. In truth we were trying to sidestep the lady from the spa
LOL! She talked too much and always stood by the lift. How many times can one
say “Ok thanks I’ll make a booking, I’m free on Saturday” knowing very well
you’d be long gone by then? We ran to the stairs, first floor we were met by
open conference rooms… with sweets & other stuff on tables I MEAN.
What were we to do Bazalwane? Yup we were sober when this took place. See why I travel with this ninja
To the people of Netherlands and Greece: Dank je & Efcharisto and thank YOU for reading
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