SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2001/AMSTERDAM -- Today I hooked up with my bud Philos & his girlfriend Paula, who is in Europe on vacation. She lives in Buenos Aires. These two sweet people met a year or two ago when Philos was working & living in that South American city.
They had arrived late Friday night from Madrid (where Philos is living these days) & were staying in the same hotel as me. We did a nice little tour of the coffeeshops this afternoon. At the Conscious Dreams Kokopelli smartshop overlooking the boat basin near Central Station, we watched the tour boats departing & returning from canal cruises. Paula got hold of a boxful of colored pens & created a psychedelic drawing inspired by a postcard she found in the shop.
Later I met up with Mike Halbert, an American Spreadhead who just moved to London. Nice guy. We hit a couple of coffeeshops, then reconvened for dinner with Paula & Philos at the Tango, an excellent Argentine restaurant recommended by Ernesto, from our hotel.
We had an after-dinner date to meet Terri & Randy, who were wrapping up their Europe tour in Amsterdam, along with Jimmy Mack at the Rokerij Leidseplein.
Marti & I had enjoyed a fun time with Terri & Randy in Paris the weekend before, so it was cool to be able to spend a little more time with them. This evening Jimmy Mack & I had hoped to catch another set or two of live jazz, this time at the Café Alto, where my NYC friend Joe Gallant often plays, but the place was packed when we got there around midnight. None of my companions wanted to hang out to see if any tables became free. Most everyone else was going museum visiting the next morning, so we had a nightcap back at the Rokerij & made loose plans to get together once more on Sunday.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2001/AMSTERDAM -- Tonight would have been the Widespread Panic Europe 2001 tour closer at the Melkweg. I chilled out all morning at the hotel.
I grabbed lunch today at a little Chinese-Indonesian place, walked around town, then met Terri & Randy in the late afternoon at the Dampkring.
We had dinner together at Ankara, a very fine Turkish establishment. I had a delicate, tasty lentil soup & scrumptious grilled lamb chops.
After dinner we walked uptown to the Rokerij near my hotel. One last nightcap for the road. In the morning Terri & Randy would be flying home to the States. I'd be on the 9:55 a.m. TGV back to Paris.
We didn't get any Widespread Panic Sunday night, but it was cool consolation to have collected a few of the unusual suspects for a stone groove of a weekend in Sin City.
