Kanal Tripping mit mein 2 favöurite Älließ

A special guest entry by Thorsten Folsche, under the aegis, guidance and strict quality control of the original blog author. It is the yellow from the egg, and it goes!

Being one of the true appreciators of this blog, it was an tremendous honour to be able to write a guest entry like this!

On Saturday May 15th, Don, my German friend Mugu and I seized the day by spending two great hours by exploring Leiden via boat. Mugu is obviously not a very Aryan name,the reason for him being born in Germany is that his parents emigrated from Sri Lanka. Now this wunderkind is a medical student in Gießen, a true role model for successful integration.:)

After renting a rowing boat closely to Rembrandt's birthplace, we started our tour heading to the heart of Leiden situated around the gracht Nieuwe Rijn. Mugu as the first one to row was experiencing the first difficulties having to avoid crashing into boats of experienced Dutch people who secretly surely were making fun of us. We passed the Einstein with hundreds of people sitting outside in cafes watching us rowing by. Going west, we finally arrived at the Singel, a gracht that divides the inner city centre of Leiden from the suburban areas. Our dear Australian compagnion [sic] was strongly reminded of the movie "Waterworld" when we passed a run-down fabric with an apocalyptic interieur. Another absurd moment was watching a men in a strange costume being chased by ten kids in a park, sadly we were not able to take a picture!

The rowing Don shipped us safely to the [Oude Singel], where we stepped out next to his appartment to get a missing item: Don's awesome Dutch flag that he bought in Enschede! With it on board, the rest of our trip back to the rent station was a triumph... Loads of Dutch were waving to us, some even applauding in recognition of our apparent patriotism!

When we arrived back at the rent station (yes, i rowed for the last 20 minutes!), being back on solid ground, everyone contemplated for a while over the awesome time we had on the trip. Then, we headed back to the city, introducing Mugu to further secrets of Don's and mine contemporate home town: the city of keys, Leiden!