Fancy Dress

Luckily I'm not playing volleyball, and I get to wake up late on Saturday. I get up and sit around with The Kiwi and recount the tales of the previous evenings adventures.

I can only presume Mowgli was lightening on the volleyball court:



New Zealand are playing rugby again today, so it's not long before, he's off to start another beer session. I have more pressing engagements. Cut myself a furry red beard and dye a pair of Y-fronts orange.

I'd like to point out at this stage that neither I nor Mowgli owned a pair of Y-Fronts and we have a Czech Tesco receipt to prove it.

By the time a very tired looking Mowgli returns from Amstelveen, I have all the preparation done and all thats left to do is to paint ourselves our respective colours. I've already tested that he paint works, and that it washes off reasonably easily once it's dry.

We quickly get a bite to eat and then stand in the kitchen and rub ourselves down. At one point while we are rubbing down each other's backs, I realise what a strange site it must be with a big yellow man rubbing down a small Indian boy. Even though this is Amsterdam, it still has to one of the stranger fetishes they've seen.

Once we're ready, we've decided too go into the centre and join The Kiwi for a post rugby drink. It will also give us a chance to wander around the centre as Willy and Mowgli. We get on the tram:





It's wonderful. If the tram had been a bus it would have been off the road, because the girl driving the tram completely lost it once she saw us. We got on and took our seats. It was like being in kilts, where some people ignored and some people laughed along with you. The woman driving even whistled through the Tannoy at us. It's looking like it's going to be a fun night.

After a quick bum flash to the driver, we get off at Dam Square and head towards Susie's where The Kiwi's drinking. It's good fun at first, but the mood isn't quite as high as ours is, so we only stay for one pint. This makes us early for the party, but we head along anyway for want of a better place to go.

The party is near the Amstel station, so it's another tram trip and then a little walk across the Amstel river. We pass the odd pedestrian, but it's later now, so people really are keeping their eyes down when they see us.

When we walk in the club, it's completely empty. There are just a few people there already - their costumes don't come close to ours, and I have to explain to everyone who groundskeeper willy is. The Simpsons doesn't seem to have very high viewing figures among students in The Netherlands.

We sit at the bar and start on drinking pitchers of beer:



It's a far stretch from the beer we were drinking last night - but this is student life now.

Mowgli is freezing as the club hasn't warmed up yet. We drink away as various arrivals come up and laugh at our costumes. My red furry beer is starting to smeel off beer, and its getting heavier and heavier and slipping off my face. I've stopped adding extra glue, as I was starting to worry I was gonna get high on the fumes.

Eventually the club has filled, and just about everyone we know is there, we are pretty well oiled, but we still can't start dancing cos the music isn't up to much. They are playing bad 80's hits interspersed with unknown(to us) Dutch music. It's a bad state of affairs, because past experience tells Mowgli and I that it has to either be extremely cheesy music or headbanging music for us to make it to a dancefloor. We need to do something about it, as the night will end quickly if we continue downing these pitchers of cheap beer without sweating some of it out.

Mowgli goes and has a word with the DJ. The DJ isn't quite convinced, but he plays the first song Mowgli suggests, and we are straight on top of the table at the side of the room. Everyone surrounds the table, and Groundskeeper WIlly and Mowgli start dancing like nutters for a while. The DJ takes his cue, and realises that it's gonna be a better night if he takes our advice.

From this point on, our beer is pretty much free. We've turned it from a mediocre club night, into one where everybody is dancing. Various other people join us on the table for songs, that mean something to them, or more to the point they know they can dance to. At one point Mowgli arranges with the dutch guys that he's going to do a stage dive and crowd surf. He always wanted to be Eddie Vedder, and his lack of musical ability, or at least a band to sing to means he lives out the fantasy at an possible convenience:



He stage dives, and then crowd surfs around the room for a while. He then encourages me to do the same. I am slightly larger than he is, so the first time I attempt it, the 8 guys buckle, and I make it back to the stage without falling off, a few more volunteers arrive and soon, the kilted yellow man is also crowd surfing.

We are now dancing on the stage until we get knackered, and then sitting the odd song out to refresh ourselves with the free beer.

By now, I've finally succumbed to sanity and removed the red beard and bald wig. It's much more fun dancing drunk with long hair if you can swing it about a bit.

It's now well into the wee hours, and 9pm seems like not that long ago, when we had entered this cold club; Mowgli with erect nipples from the cold.

The night is not yet over however, as Mowgli has a few tricks left up his sleeve to stop the night going stale. He's asked the DJ to play "Baby take off your hat" from the Full Monty soundtrack:



Mowgli is up on the stage before I recognise the song. He's only wearing orange Y-Fronts, so he's miming taking off his clothes. There's not much I can do except join him - It's amazing what cheap beer and camaraderie will do for your bravado. I'm soon up on the stage with him. Rushing to catch up with the song. Mowgli is hopping tables trying to find a woman with a hat as a prop. He has to fight it off someone dressed as a cowboy. Luckily, I have the kilt as a prop. We strut our stuff for the song, and are eventually standing starkers looking upon the screaming audience. Mowgli poses in my sporran for a while and we get brought some pitchers of beer:



I thought i might be a wild weekend, but it surpassed even my imagination.

We've pretty much peaked, so we leave the table dancing to our proteges. I get outside for a breather and talk to The Space Cadet for a while. It's now about 5am, and people are starting to go home. Mowgli and The Space Cadet don't take much convincing that they aren't gonna be playing much volleyball tomorrow, and we head off to find a taxi back to my place.

I'm sober enough to get in a shower and waash the yellow paint off me that hasn't been sweated off. When I come out The other two are out cold in the living room. I have to almost carry Mowgli into bed, he's that tired. I think it must have been the volleyball, cos I know he can handle the drinking and the dancing.

We fall asleep to the strains of Camp Freddy radio once again, but I don't think any of us hear much of it.

Amsterdam in Kilts.

We wake up slowly and get some porridge and espresso into us. Mowgli and I are wearing kilts, and we're gonna go for a wander in the centre. Living away from home means we put our kilts when we're together. It's a lot of fun and puts you in a great mood, especially when you're just walking around the streets speaking to people.

We get on a tram in the Baarsjes, and everyone is staring. By the time we get off in Leidseplein, we are less self conscious about it. Amsterdam is a liberal city. This means two things. One is that people will holler at you even if they are not drunk, and the other is that people aren't really shocked by people who are dressed funny. This is how you can tell the Dutch/Locals from the tourists. Everyone takes a first glance, when they see two men in a kilt, but the tourists look back for a double take, and usually laugh and say hello. It feels great to be putting a smile on people's faces, adding a little joy to get them through the cold.

Apart from the casual wander, we are in town to put together some fancy dress costumes for the volleyball party tomorrow. The theme is "Cartoon Characters", so I'm going as the famous Scot Groundskeeper Willy:



And Mowgli is going as ...... well Mowgli(Hence the blog name):



I wanted to wear my kilt and I loved the simpsons, so I thought it was the perfect combination. Mowgli is a bit of an exhibitionist, so was attracted to the idea of turing up to club dressed in nothing more than orange Y-Fronts and a wig. After picking up some orange dye in a chemist, we head over to the Rosengracht to the party shop. This gives us a good walk along the Prinsengracht. It's an icey cold day. Suddenly the sweaty kilt of Bulgaria in august is a distant memory, and I'm glad of my scarf and wooly socks.

This is the first time Mowgli and I have been alone(except for a few drunken conversations last night), so it's a great walk to catch up on old times. Eventually, we arrive at the party shop on the Rozengracht. When we go in, the woman behind the counter seems pretty chuffed to have two kilted scots in the shop. It seems ironic that we are in looking for something to dress up in.

We start with the Mowgli wig. There are various black wigs but we settle on one called "The Sandra". It's a black bob, and Mowgli looks like transvestite, or no worse than some of the transvestites that I've seen in my time in Amsterdam. Next, we ask for body paint. Mowgli asks if there is a colour called "indian boy 5". She offers us a small water based colour tub. We tell her that it's for the whole body. She's laughing by now. She realises that we are full on nutters.

Next is Willy. We get a tub of yellow paint the same as "Indian boy 5". This one's probably called "springfield nuclear power yellow". We try for a red beard, but don't get too far. The girl suggests trying the Albert Kuijp market. We do however get some body glue for the beard. I want to make sure, that I'm not going to be covered with flecks of red fur all over my chin when I head off to conferences and meetings on wednesday. She sells us an alcohol based make up remover but tells us that we probably won't need it. Mowgli tells her it might come in useful for removing lipstick stains from his willy in the future. The woman now knows that we are her best customers of the day.

From here we need to go to the Albert Kuijp for red fur. We walk towards Dam Square to get a tram. Before I get on the tram, I need to get some strippenkart, so we head to Albert Heijn. As usual, the queue takes and ages and Mowgli(Like Nine Inch Nina), starts to talk to the people around him. It turns out the girl in the queue behind us is from The Gambia in West Africa, she is amazed that I've heard of her country, never mind been there when I was 16.

We head off to the tram, happy to have brightened yet another person's day.

The Albert Kuijp is a little more out of the centre, so as we arrive, we start to get more looks as we walk along the open market in our kilts. After trying a a few dressmaking shops, we find the livid red fur we are looking for. The shop assistant is quite impressed by the fact that we are dressing up as willy and Mowgli.

From here, we head off back towards the centre, where we are meeting the girls. We get a few dusk photos of Museumplein....





.......and make it Leidseplein in time to have a few beers before the volleyball players have to head off to Amstelveeen to drop off their bags before heading back to the centre for a friday night.

Sitting in a warm bar for a few beers in a bar leaves a few interesting designs on the stools:



I head back to the flat, shower and fill my belly with some of yesterdays leftovers before heading off to meet them on Leidseplein again. Also coming along for the ride is the girl I went to uni with who I was drinking with on Tuesday.

There's lots of options for the evening, but I decide that the best one to show my guests, is our usual haunt; The Gollem.

When we get there, The Kiwi and his dutch colleague are already sampling Belgium's finest. We settle down and make some introductions. Before long, Dagenham Dave comes along and we get started on the La Chouffes, Lucifers and Satans.

We have the usual great drunken fun. Mowgli is a good addition to our drinking crew.

The bar is so busy, that it's easier to go to the women's toilet than it is to go to the mens. We have long hair and skirts, so we're half way there anyway. At one point, Mowgli comes out of the toilet and there's a Dutch woman waiting to go in. I tell her that if there's pee on the seat, that it was Mowgli. She takes me seriously and grumpily demands that he come in and clean the seat.

After he follows her in. He sticks his kilted leg out of the door and shakes it, then his head, and shouts "I'm being violated". The Dutch woman is pretty pissed(Appropriate) off and protests her innocence. Mowgli just rants about how rough and wonderful Dutch women are.

Once our Bulgarian Beer connoisseur arrives, I get some russian prompts from the Space Cadet and her sister and shout them across the bar. I tell him he's a drunk!!!

He comes over and joins us, not before advising a few beers. Our drinking party is spreading across a few more tables, and we are gradually taking over the bar.

A few beers more and Marilyn the Argentinean Munro Bagger comes down to join the fun. She's a good addition to the table. Unlike the Dutch woman, she has a sense of humour, and is amused rather than annoyed when Mowgli continually refers to her as mexican.

He asks her where she's from; Buenos Aires. She asks if she knows where that is. He says Florida. It's a subsidiary of Disney(Buena Vista)

Eventually it's time to get the volleyball players to their game in Amstelveen. We have a hilarious drunken walk to the bus stop where I deposit them before heading off to the bar the kiwi girl works in where The Kiwi and Dagenham Dave are already drinking. Everyone is very impressed with the kilt, and I stay for a few beers before heading home after a long but wonderful day.