Ra's Life

Suffering from: jetlag, overeating, not enough sleep, too cold of weather and too light of clothing, Andy and I are in Amsterdam on first European day of our 17 day trip.

I have photos but the easynet cafe doesn't let me use the usb port, they will appear later. Why are photos necessary? Because, in our stupor, we sat for 30 minutes watching a 20 year old art student making a film of pigeons picking clean a roasted chicken.

The 'artist' laid down 2 large white blank posters and attached them to the brick surface with bolts. She then used packing tape to secure the edges of the white mat. I had been feeding the pigeons cheese from 2 packets from the BusinessFirst lounge in Newark, and while the video camera was bein set up, one of the pigeons walked over and crapped on the fresh white mat.

Undaughnted, our budding filmmaker then bolted a fully cooked chicken to the mat. She then baited the trap - tossing breadcrumbs around to to entice the suspicious (and cheese-stuffed pigeons) to eat the bird. Once the bravest had a peck, a frenzy not seen except during blue light special at KFC ensued. There was one pigeon tking the low road eating from low on the carcass while another sat on its head. Otherjust pecked as chicken bits went into, onto and over the shoulders (do pigeons have shoulders) on the feating mob.

We are heading out tonight to Copenhagen and hoping to catch the Hash Monday night. The other sufferings started with the overnight flight from Newark in "BusinessFirst" class which is not quite First class but still included sterling service and ... 4 knives with dinner. Forget 9/11 precautions anymore. We had 8 pieces of deadly silverware which would have no doubt been confiscated at security screening at the airport. We were told that only "certain flights" into Europe are allowed to use silverware and 'never in coach class'. Aren't we special?

Perhaps having 3rds of crab and shrimp appetizer wasn't the best idea.

Getting only 2 hours of sleep didn't really help, either. Photos (of pigeons) will follow, I promise!