New Amsterdam

Not a lot to say about this week. We’ve been relaxing, doing nothing and sitting around about the entire time. Things that did happen:
* On Wednesday the four-day march through town started. All sorts of groups and organisations walked miles and miles through town in colourful clothes and loud music. The goal this year was to encourage people to give blood. I don’t really feel like donating my precious blood (especially since I don’t know what conditions the needles here are in), but I do hope other people do/did.
* Wednesday evening we went out for dinner at Zus&Zo. Yummy pasta, nice company and soothing background music is all you need to have a good time!
* On Thursday Marij and I went wild and decided it was time to recolor our hair. Now we are truly redheads!
* Thursday evening Marij, Tineke and I went out to Havana lounge. After a few days of doing almost nothing, it was time to stretch our legs again. We had a great time, good music, nice atmosphere, fun people (some of the people we had met at Blanche Marie were there as well), a successful evening.
* Friday was shopping day. Bought some nice fabrics, went to the tailor and we’re now very excited about how our dresses and skirts are going to look when they’re finished!
* On Saturday we met all Blanche Marie people at Chillz, a club/pub in town. Yet again we had a good time and around 2am we decided to head to Zsa Zsa Zsu to continue the party. On arrival we saw the line at the entrance was longer than we could handle, so we all went back to our place for some drinks and some talking.
* On Monday three of our housemates left for a five-day trip to Awarradam, which means we have the house to ourselves.
* Also on Monday, Ellen, Joachim, Pia and I left on our bikes to New Amsterdam, a town across the Suriname River. An hour on a bike really gets to your ass and when we arrived at the dock where we had to take the little boat to the other side, we were thankful that we could give it a little rest.
At New Amsterdam we went to visit Fort New Amsterdam, the fortress that was put up to guard the entrance to the Suriname River from the Atlantic Ocean. A lot of canons, ammunition and buildings, quite impressive to see. After its use as a fortress, Fort New Amsterdam was transformed into a prison. Small isolation cells with only a plank for a bed, a bucket as a toilet and a tiny window, not even big enough to ventilate the room. The information board told us that people were locked in there for at least 7 days and could only come out for lunch/diner.
The other cells were a lot larger, probably a lot more people in one cell then, and they even still had pin up posters on the wall (the prison was closed in 1982)!
We went for lunch at a local pub/bar/restaurant/shop and returned home afterwards. Another half hour (which seemed like forever) and we were back in town. There we stopped at ‘t Vat for a drink and then on homewards. Marij had made us tortillas for diner (which I though was just a big omelette).
* On Tuesday we cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, cause a rat had left us some very unpleasant surprises… But a quick clean and the house smelled like Ajax again instead of rat droppings!
* We also went out for dinner with the students from the other house again and for bowling afterwards. We played in teams (our team lost :( but I did throw a spare and a strike! :p). Afterwards a few games of pool and then return home for a good sleep!