What is your profession? OHW OHW OHW.

Waking up as the sun rises curled up on a sofa with my partner in crime (read 'bad influence') by my side, hidden away upstairs in the bar where I work with the start of my next shift less than 8 hours away, is becoming a worryingly regular part of my life now that I'm employed.
Coco's Outback, the new and exciting, rebellious phase of my love affair with Amsterdam. The bad-boy you convince yourself you'll never go back to but one glance and the butterflies in your stomach carry you straight back into his Aussie arms. The bar where every hour we drop the customers and gather for staff shots; where my initiation was eating a grass hopper followed by copious Stroh 80% shots; and where baggy t-shirts are banned for female staff members unless significant side boob is offered. The bar responsible for the fact that I haven't had a single hangover since January 1st, namely because I've been consistently and irrevocably drunk since the 2nd. My second home.

With this in mind, in a brief window of Sunday sobriety, I decided to reflect upon the things I've learnt both of life and of the outside world after inducting myself into the alcoholic, nocturnal, but bloody gezellig, spiral of barwork in an Aussie bar in Amsterdam.

• All the lyrics to Men at Work - A Land Down Under. Romeo Done.
  
• Why we call it going Dutch. Those guys will not spare a cent other than for anything other than what they have eaten/drank.
  
• A guy in a Coco's t-shirt will get overwhelmed with beer mats on a nightly basis covered in scribbled down numbers from girls eagerly leaning over the bar drooling into their vodkas. Beer mats thrown at them from all angles, hell, even slipped into their pockets as they walk around collecting glasses.
  A girl in a Coco's tshirt? Innappropriate and unappreciated gropes from way outside the niche market. Oh, and dirty looks from said girls throwing their digits at the fellas.
• After 10pm on a work night, I am dependent upon alcohol.

•  I'm growing a Jäger baby belly, his name is Macklemore.

• Never leaving the place sober made the demise of bike number five inevitable. But don't worry, despite the bumps and bashes, It has certainly seen superb things in it's final few weeks. The bike doctors diagnosis should come in over the next few days. Spokes crossed.

• Disco pants are the ideal work pants. Comfy as hell, easy to run up and down stairs in, and the tips? They speak for themselves.

• As long as I live/work in Amsterdam, my hair will always smell of smoke. Always.

• British tourists are an embarrassment. Whether they be being carried out spewing on a Saturday night or huddled over a burger and a Pepsi on a Sunday afternoon. C'mon guys.

• Stag do's with strippers are the MOST fun. And these strippers definitely warm-up to a circa late 1990s/early 2000s playlist of Destiny's Child, Pink and the like, as they are sassy as hell.

• My gag reflex and I can't handle anymore Pink Troyka.

• THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JUST ONE DRINK.

Does it matter that our anchor couldn't even reach the bottom of a bathtub?

Quietly sitting trying to blag my way through a Masters thesis proposal on the computers at my Uni last week and eight Dutch folk legit surround me in order to have the most excessively loud and annoying conversation. My bad, forgot I'd put my invisibility cloak on that day. Sorry guys, but it's time to let it rip on Dutch people. The people of Amsterdam. Don't take it personally, in fact, refer back to the old Paris blog and see that in comparison to those losers, I freaking adore you all.

 Or just stop reading now.

Close your browser.

Let's stay friends.

• Let's start with the Dutch customers that come into the bar where I work. The rude, annoying customers. The ones that dine 'n' dash, or when they do pay, chose to do it separately and without a cent to spare. Also those inappropriate customers, the ones that on Australia Day seriously violated me. When what started as playfully putting dollar bills in my pocket quickly escalated to pulling my ponytail to hail my attention only to go on to make me the filling of some un-namely human sandwiches. ONGEZELLIG. 
• My Dutch lecturers enjoy penalising me for my use of language and grammar in my assignments. My assignments written in English. That language, the one which is my mother tongue. C'mon guys.
• They STILL can't spell my name.
• What Maddy dotingly coined as 'the prawn cocktail curl', the small flick of hair a Dutch man has behind each ear as a result of obsessively slicking it back is starting to weird me out.
• CHOOSE BETWEEN A HUG, ONE KISS, OR THREE KISSES. You can't have all three, it's greedy. And you can't interchange them, it stresses awkward English girls out.
• The Dutchies have no qualms about getting up in your personal space. Particularly in supermarket lines and elevators. Again, you're stressing out the inventor of the queue.
• Their stock of Indie music stops circa 'The Coral - Dreaming of You'.
• They are annoyingly in shape for all the deep fried foods they munch.
• Dutch people laugh at me when I tell them of my biking woes, or even worse give me that endearing-borderline-patronising look you give a child as you praise the illegible scribble they just handed you claiming it a story about you.
  Aww you're such a tourist, aren't you adorable.
• And finally, I'm excessively jealous of anyone who can naturally speak more than one language. If that's not reason enough to get antsy, I don't know what is.

However, ranting aside, I have also in recent weather came to feel sorry for Dutch folk as there is one thing they will never know the true joys of. Sledging. The rush of grabbing a dustbin lid, an old scrap of carpet, hell, even a carrier bag and throwing yourself down the side of a hill. The kids here are dragged in their sledges along the never-ending flatness by exhausted parents, or if they're lucky, a friends bike.
And for that, plus how delightfully short they all make me feel, I'll let them off.
Well, most of you.