My cousin Raymi

So, I finally went to Amsterdam. Second time meow.

There is no way to get a photo with this iconic thing alone. We made it werk though.

Nice red hair, I’ll do that next thanks.

I can see sis walking away between the m and s. We went with dutch mum and her sister met up with us too, then later mom dutch ditched us. Lol.

I took many pictures, naturally. I only uploaded a smaller-ish amount because I still have loads of other things previously uploaded and I don’t intend to move forward until I go back, as annoying and as over it as I am. The blog must go on. Fourteen years strong. Yeezus.

Had a groovy time at Rijksmuseum. Posing in front of many historical, ancient, big deal paintings before many tourists with varying degrees of reaction to their encounter with World Class Canadian ambassador to The Netherlands Super star RTM esquire.

Yes I read up on the things I exploited. Happy there was English to be read at all.

Hugh Lumberjackman ponders chopping down that tree…

Yo relax.

I get you.

Concentration camp jacket. I’ll show you the photo of the girl it belonged to next Raymsterdam post.

Sister “the artist” (of all things) blew me away with how bored she became quickly. I was digging it but I did enjoy how ADD like me she was and we breezed right on through that place. It was like the ROM but, Euro.

Hallo.

We met up with a friend of hers who gave us a cool insider tour of the “real” artisty shit. The insider peek. And I’ll be sure to show you when I have some GODDAMN TIME!

Like this adorabs place.

Orange is their colour.

Should have bought. Am 30 years old. Should have bought.

Not suppose to take pics in here. Try and stop me. I was like you should not have brought me in here. I was coasting on shopohol from the previous day. I bought pearl earrings, a sweater, gloves, some souvenirs for peeps, and fudge for bf. I still have more damage to do before leaving in a week. The countdown is on. I should have bought a troll.

Hashtag brutal.

Classic. I bought wine/booze box replicas of these houses. They lay flat so I can travel with them. Lighter than all the porcelain I plan to purchase. I’m just going to put a TAKE ONE box in the lunch space at work.

See those red lights… Sister’s friend made us go haha. I was so paranoid and shy I guess but you MUST GO if you go to Amsterdam. If you take pictures which I recommend not doing, their pimps will beat you. All the girls are plastic so it’s just like basically walking through a strip club, replete with dudes in jogging pants.

And behind me is a café. Yes, that kind of café. Also a must. Those are my house boxes on the table.

And my new best friend called mustard hat. I got tired of seeing pictures of myself in my roots knit beret beanie.

I know I will lose weight when I get home, don’t care. Yolo. Enjoy your life.

I don’t know why this got all distorted, thanks instagram. I realized there was free wifi halfway through combing the museum and the ONE thing I uploaded (to facebook) roaming on my own data skyrocketed my data usage to 1.52MB ughhh. BTW that’s a selfie of Van Gogh.

Bicycle heaven. If I lived here I would have a crazy decked out bike. Well, I do kind of live here and I do have a bike but it’s just practical. And awesome. I wish I could fly home with it but you have to have a bike here and shipping one would be economically insane.

I spent 72 Euros on shirts and got 12 of them. Thanks H&M discounts. My boots were 89 euros, ha, “boots”. I wanted black ankle motorcycleish ones but everything I liked they didn’t have in my size. These are winterized in the soles and I can actually walk nicely in them, so lets do this!

Ready for the lamest fashion show evs?

This will be a work shirt.

My damage. Cheapskate forevs. The Euro symbol is pretty crazy, I always confuse it for the pound which is very similar.

Ha ha Canadian tuxedo time. This shirt will so be going to Hailey.

Sis bought this dress too.

I wasn’t sure if I could make this work but why not?

Of course the one pair of shoes I like are this number in price, which is MORE considering the exchange. Every time I take out money and check my account I see how much it is getting raped. But I haven’t done any shopping yet so, I deal.

Les original.

Nice sky.

Not many change rooms to go around.

This feels like last week it was just two days ago.

Yay! And that’s all I have to say about that. Bye!

Raymlland

Instagram party time. Holy smokes, what is going on with that hair? Europe that’s what.

Piper champagne, fancy. Here’s a link to it in Russian it’s the first thing I found also the price. Kind of ridiculously awesome. When I first ever came here in the spring he got me a bottle of moet and 80 white tulips. Maybe 90. He brought a lone one to the airport as a psyche-out and I was like oh thanks (sarcastically in my head) then saw the rest of the bouqet on the couch. This time however, no flower at the airport and I thought okay, now that you have the cow and the milk… lol. I think romance is key and should remain a constant throughout and if it’s not there then why are you? Seen. Maybe I should write a guide to romance. Lance Romance – Raymi’s romantical guide to life. It involves farting. BOOM.

Speaking of cow. It moos in the parking lot at the airport so you remember where you parked. OKAAAAAAAAAAAY?

That guy looks almost as floored as me.

I remembered I spoke to Papa from this bar in the spring. Thinking about you often.

I look like a tool. I try to look as toolishly as possible when traveling, as a decoy means as I suffer travel anxiety of epic proportions. I am superstitious too. I wore one of those angel things you stick in your lapel, from my Nana. Someone always gives me one of those, someone religious and I always wear it and pretend it is out of respect but truly it’s cos I’m superstitious but 1. took all the sacraments and adequate blessings there are from birth to confirmation so my ass is covered just in case and 2. it’s a gift from someone to my Nana for my grandfather’s funeral, something that was sent… flowers, some sort of food? nana loves me, I’m traveling – it’s a travel custom. I bet you have some of these things as gifts too. It makes me feel closer to my nana and papa PLUS it goes with my whole dweeb thing and you guys should be writing these notes down. Sidenote: that’s the one picture I uploaded since arriving then realized Ipads don’t have right click paste html function ability here, so I didn’t blog for ten days.

And in that time we painted/renovated the stairway walls on all levels of the house etc with our friend, and ate a lot of brie, baguettes and garlic sauce.

There’s a bag of more ornaments at his mom’s house but I think we are good.

It looks less shitty IRL. The tree itself is amazing, nothing like at back home. Very fresh as there’s so many lots to buy from – from the entire landscape of where we’re situated having scores of farms of tree fields. It’s a nordman tree btw. If it’s in Canada, forgive me. Normally it’s all pine trees and super dry needles. I paid ten euros for it. Same for the lights and we got one box too many so woulda been cheaper.

Shoarma. Yes, shawarma. Good thing you need garlic sauce for this. Dutch staple.

Dutch subtitles for everything we watch.

Driving from Amsterdam. Tired but wired!

I made my way to the front of the plane once we were free to leave our seats when we landed, near business class, where the exit was planted firmly between the two classes. And a flight attendant SHOVED ME out of the way of the stairwell I was already nowhere near, because business class from up there were to exit before me. But no one was there. I said DON’T TOUCH ME when she was done barking at me. Then she, and everyone who saw knew I meant business and she stepped back, said desperately “But I don’t want to touch you!” the second the door opened I bolted, just wanting to get the fuck out of there. Another flight attendant dished up some passive aggression to me as well for no reason. I just don’t get it. Did I pay $1555 for that? Our televisions didn’t work when we flew back in the spring on the same airline. They told me to make a formal complaint. Maybe I will, and throw these new circumstances into the mix. You know there’s half the population out there you just know are basically, assholes? You see their trainwreck treatment coming too. That was who served me on a 7 hour flight. Then I was shoved by another one. COOL! ps. Write a formal complaint? I ain’t got time for that. I wrote about it already on my blog and here again now, Jesus.

More brie. This one was great. Oozy.

Thank god I’m not lactose intolerant. Knock on wood. I think it’s a crime for British people to be unable to eat cheese. Although it is super fattening.

Luckily I do not crave sugar at all. Sorry I don’t want your dessert don’t take it so personally. I would be ten times fatter if I ate chocolate considering all the stuff and style in which I consume. There was a time I think I was dating a lot then and I craved sugar with all those meals and drinks, it was out of control and I wondered what the hell was wrong with me. But it has been awhile now that I don’t feel the urge to eat sweet, except whenever something weird or normal crosses my path. My bf however is a massive diabetic in training with the truckloads of #crapheeats.

Christmas eve shopping. I nexted the bow because I had to wear a toque because it was raining. Because because because.

And dinner was eaten here. Okay, it’s movie time gotta split. (I haven’t at all edited this yet so, excuuuuuuse me).

Holland tunnel vision

Bday flower gift for mum shopping. Ready, set, go. Yee-haw. Queen’s Day is “Like some sort of colorblind St. Patrick’s Day. ” According to ol Jame-bo. He’s right. Was in Amsterdam for it one year.

To find the most perfect flower gift we had to comb through the seven layers of Christmas-not-Christmas garden heaven. I love this country because it was decorated by a five year old on LSD. I uploaded lots of photos so I hope you have your attention span pants on. I sure as hell don’t.

Smoke up baby! I requested that this be fun this time. You should see us grocery shop. Put two people together who have zero patience, it’s funny and like putting dynamite on a dynamite tree.

Xmas here must be ridonkulous.

I knew it was gonna be weird but my expectations were blown out of the water, happily.

Oh hi there.

This camera is amazing. He’s getting another one. He has a technology problem/very good at justifying it. There is one of everything in this house.

Great low maintenance seasonal flowers. Love hibiscus.

Colour is eyeball prozac.

They tried to make me believe that guy (no idea how to spell his name) with the chihuahuas was super spiritual cos he has one of these heads in his living room. My response: silent eye-blinking. This teleported foreigner cannot gauge bullshit, doesn’t have the energy plus I cannot at all picture that guy meditating like at all I don’t know if that’s insulting but it’s funny and that’s good enough for me. BTW culturally they have variations on sayings we have back home.

Witch brooms, not actually witch brooms. For little Dutch potatoes and their teeny farm cottages KaBOOM! ADORABLE.

Okay here is another one. If someone’s talking shit or nonsense they say IS THERE A CAMEL SHITTING IN THE HALLWAY? ahahhahahhaha!!!!!! Like a guy who is always bragging or one-upping, or if my bf is (constantly) talking lots of crap, not really crap but just blabbity blahhing my head off. It’s pure jokes. His dad told me Warhol was sponsored by the CIA and bf’s like omg not that one again. AAHahaha.

There are only so many things I can say about flowers in these captions jeez. Don’t worry I uploaded some of the town we went to afterward.

I feel like jamming these in my eyes though I don’t know about you. Rubbing them on my eyelids and purring like Bambi wtf is wrong with me right now.

This is what dyed carnations try to look like ahhh burn! (Ashton Kutcher voice)

While blogging I multi-task.

What kind of salad dressing should I make tonight? Not adding any more spice to anything my lips are so dry from our morning walk in the park sun + soup lip burn accident.

Diff shade of pink! Swoon.

Closed hundreds of them. Scary exhilarating.

Have video too.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

My nails are now a disaster. Doing them before cooking is pointless.

That deer moved. They have moving animals at the supermarket that make you feel like you are mega drunk still from last night when you’re looking at meats. A panda, a cheetah, slowly move back and forth it is the most confusing thing ever.

This little guy looks like he has a sneaky little secret. I am watching you!

Can’t beat em join em kinda thang. I am waving to my friends.

Who seem to be handling that suicide pretty good.

I feel like some kooky kids tv show has this tree in it, or like several of them and that’s the part when toddlers at home start crying.

No problems there.

Want.

Who even writes on paper anymore? I love paper.

And girly stuff.

And I really need these!

And that kitten brush too lets get out of here.

I love the smell of this. It makes me think someone’s eating cookies. That’s also because someone usually is. I don’t know where he puts all the crap that he eats it is unbelievable.

Guys, it’s about time I told you that this is my house.

You’re going on the internet and there’s just nothing you can do about it.

Going to have lunch here on a sunny day.

That’s right it’s Shetland horses time.

What?

Now you what?

What?

I like your hair.

You mad bro?

Okay more hi-jinx later I got tings ta do. Love Raymes.

The Holland tunnel is in NYC BTW.