KZ's Amsterdam Blog

Let me tell you the story of a young man from Vancouver named Mark. He has been travelling through Europe for the past 5 months, not intending to go back until November. However, as his journey continued he encountered certain financial difficulties; once even going so far as to take part in a 16 day medical trial for a TB vaccine in England. For this he was paid the tidy sum of 1800 pounds. That sounds like a lot of money you must be thinking (esp. those from North America) and you would be right in thinking that, but we all know how quickly you can burn through money when set loose on a faraway continent with no one to stop you. At this point in our story young Mark finds himself trapped in Amsterdam; he just can't seem to leave. Each day dawns and Mark thinks that today will be the day each evening brings a new vow "to get my act together" and yet each morning at breakfast, he stumbles into the common area and pays for another night's accomodations. For a brief moment there is hope on the horizon in the form of an airline ticket from his mother to get to Prague. After many fruitless attempts at making contact he finally gets through only to have his hopes dashed as she cannot get him the ticket.