A quiet Friday night in (the pub).

Although it's friday night, I decide to have a quiet night in. I've neglected my guitar playing and I want to relax and catch up. The Kiwi eventually comes home from work and invites me for a drink with his work mates. Maturly, I decline, but decide that I might call later and catch up with them.

After a big hearty bowl of mince and tatties, and some relaxed guitar noodling, it's 10pm and I'm ready for some company. I naively think because it's 10pm, it's only a few drinks. I meet The Kiwi, a kiwi girl, one of the Pool twins and some of their work mates at Cafe Cuba on the Nieuwmarkt:



It's quite a touristy bar, being close to the Red Light District, but it's quite lively and full of Friday night post work drinkers. I soon join in the Corona drinking. We have 2 or three and then head off to another bar cos the Antipodeans are getting cold and I've just found out that the beers are 4 euros a bottle(Scottish tightness habits die hard.) I am learning more and more about Kiwi's. In my studies of the two I've met, it would appear that they like a drink. They also have a strange grammar to their language, in that instead of using full stops. They use he word "Bro", even when it's a woman. On leaving Cafe Cuba, we pay the drinks and The Kiwi has this exchange with the barman:

K: Dank u wel(Thank you in dutch) bro.
B: Alsjeblieft,(Please - but used differently) bro.
K: Tot ziens(Cheerio) bro

The bar man had even picked up this new form of closing a sentance.

We head along to some small, lively, but empty bar and take a few tables. The kiwi girl is about 5'6" yet she is keeping up with the boys beer for beer and showing no sign of drunkenness. We have some good conversations about comedy and films. The Kiwi's rave about a film called "Once were Warriors". It seem's to be the Kiwi equivalent of trainspotting.

Before long(i.e. about 3am), we are off home. A pretty good night of nothing conversations, hilarity and beer.