Carnaval's almost over...

Hey. I'm not going to post much about things that happen or things that I do here, if there are photos to go along with them, because those will be on the photo site, and if I have to reiterate stuff, I'll get bored and one of the iterations will probably suck. So check out the photos, because there are a bunch of Carnaval now! Also, this little castle that I saw. And more to come, of Carnaval in Koeln (Cologne).

Speaking of Carnaval, it's about over, which means a couple of things:
1. I can get back to eating at least somewhat normal and healthy foods. Although, man, Dutch/European carnival food >> American carnival food. Here are some things that are good:
- waffles
- herrings
- big ol' fried fish sandwiches
- sausages
- oliebollen, which are The Best, and which are fried up fresh and filled with tasty delights. Wow. Donuts usually don't do it for me, considering how they're about the least healthy thing in the world, and if I'm going to indulge, I want to indulge on something awesome. Fresh donuts, on the other hand... man. I think if you go to heaven, you get a lot of these. Or maybe that's just in Fat Heaven.
2. I might have to get back to some sort of responsibility. Like cleaning my room, for example.
3. I'm going to Switzerland tomorrow! It's a long train ride. But it will get me there, and I will ski on Thursday, and that is neat.

And this is unrelated to Carnival, but here's a question: what's the appeal of the typical bar->drink->club cycle? This seems to be the way you are supposed to have an evening. Go to a bar, get drunk (or at least get happy), and go dance in a club. I can understand how drinking is a pleasure. (it's a little less of a pleasure if you're drinking the same beer the whole time) Being in a bar, though, is not usually so good, because you can't even talk, because it's so loud. Then the dance club, the big prize at the end of the tunnel, right, is not even fun! I could understand if you, say, went salsa or swing dancing, or something with a little structure. Maybe if you went to a bocce ball club and played bocce ball. Or listened to jazz and chatted. Or went to a house and played drunk Taboo all night. (or Boggle! Now that would be fun.) But club-dancing, which seems to me like bouncing back and forth to a LOUD hip-hop/techno beat, is not fun. It's boring! You do it for 5 minutes, you've done all there is to do!

Now you will say to me "it's about the ladies; you're not just dancing by yourself, you are surrounded by attractive members of the opposite sex." Right, but so what? I'm not going to go home with someone I met in a club. Look, I'm not a non-verbal communicator here. If I find a girl attractive, I'd much rather talk to her, or play bocce ball or listen to jazz or go salsa dancing or play Boggle with her than press my body against hers, bouncing back and forth to the 4/4 beat of "SNAP YOUR FINGERS!" in the hope that she thinks "wow, I am quite attracted to this slightly-good-looking stranger. We should exchange phone numbers and go through the cliched courtship ritual based on nothing other than his hottt dance moves."

Note that this is unrelated to Carnaval. For the last few nights, just wandering the streets has been entertainment enough for me.