One more night being homeless (journey)

I contrived to get in the hostel, although I was not supposed to. I helped Lila with her luggage and she prepared a warm Wifon soup for outside the room, in a narrow hall. It was hilarious how she kneed there and waited for the water to boil. After having a warm dinner and leaving my backpack in Lila s room, I strode into the downtown with a fervent hope that I can find a place which could be open for 24/7. Unfortunately, it proved to be much more difficult than I expected. Every place in Amsterdam – every stupid restaurant, bar or fastfood is open only till 2am. It looked as if they made an agreement to close down everything so early in order to send the guest home or to nearby hotels, so they could rest and be ready to spend more money on the next day. What a vile conspiracy of them! And I was the one who loosed on that. This single fact completely messed up my plans. I wanted to find a nice, quiet place where I could buy cheap food and stay there till the morning. How naive I was, nothing like that at all! I checked at least 8 McDonalds, 4 Burger Kings and each time I got the same answer. My last hope was to go to the hotel and ask the receptionist whether I could stay there in the lounge, waiting for my friend. The guy behind the desk was very reluctant and although his co-worker tried to persuade him that it was not fair to send me away, he stayed adamant. Then she spluttered that it is freaking dangerous to walk in this night hour outside and he immediately turned her worries into a joke. When I asked her straightforwardly, she answered that it should be not bad, but I saw in her eyes that it she thought something completely different :P Yeah, she should have said right away that it is, her elusive look scared me even more. So I was kicked off on the street in the middle of night at 2am, without a clue what to do next. Thanks God that I did not smoke any weed, otherwise I would have died of fear. It was not very pleasant to walk up a dark, shabby street and act like a drunkard in order not to raise too much attention. Really, after 2am, the living city turned out from a lively touristic city to a dark inhospitable town. I decided to go to the train station, but when I came there, everything had already been closed. Just by a stroke of luck I was not robbed by weird-looking junkies and individuals whom I passed on my way there. The station had already been closed, as I supposed. Outside it wa pretty chilly and I could not stay there for a long time, but I did not have other choice. I managed to find a good spot in a huge bicycle garage (Amsterdamers must be crazy into bikes, they have them almost everywhere). Normally, you can say to a homeless person that he/she sleep under the bridge. So literally, I was sleeping above the bridge – I know, I always must be somehow special :D After 1h I felt that I cannot bear that cold anymore, so I went to the bus station. It was about 3:30, so most of troubleshooting people were already gone. I took a bus, went to the end station and came back. Nice job, I spent another hour relatively quckly. Finally I got to the railway station, opened up my netbook and started writing my experience. If I could compare my 5-day-homeless experience in Toronto with this one, the first one was much more fun for several reasons: Firstly, I had to wait for five days in Toronto and I did not do it just for fun – I was desperately waiting for my laptop repair. Secondly, the Union Station in Toronto is undoubtedly much better equipped than the Central Station in Amsterdam: free and bigger toilets, plenty of seats, waiting rooms, electricity plugs – all of that missed on the station in Amsterdam; therefore, I consider Toronto as the homeless-friendlier city. As Lila told me, she had also some difficulties at the hostel. One guest was awfully snoring and until she fell asleep, she had to keep conversation with a strange guy who constantly asked her whether she had some drugs. Yeah, I think there is some true on the saying that good guys go to Heaven, bad guys go to Amsterdam.