06 Aug 2012: Adieu to Europe

06 Aug 2012:

Adieu to Europe

Freiburg am Breisgau, Baden-Württemburg, Germany/Saint-Louis, Alsace, France/Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands/Detroit, Michigan, USA/Lansing, Michigan, USA

H: 19/20/19/27/29 L: 16/16/16/14/12 Weather: Showers/Showers/Rain/Clear/Clear

I couldn't believe that I was leaving Europe already, but, unfortunately, it was the case.  Chris and I set off fairly early in the morning so I could see more of Freiburg than I had already.  We tried to budget ourselves some time, but, of course, given that it was a morning, both of us were moving pretty slowly.  We were also stymied by the ridiculous hours kept by some of the stores of Freiburg.  I wanted to get my brother an official U. Freiburg t-shirt, and their official store was open for about three hours in the early afternoon of Tuesdays and Thursdays...?!  I did get to see the city center in the day, though, which was nice.  What a lovely town.

Chris looking super sexy.  I have no idea why I'm so shiny.

Chris is pretty much the best tour guide in the whole world, besides being a fantastic person in general.  Hooray and schwa for Chris!

By this time, it was time for us to head back to his dorm to pick up my stuff.  Once we got there, though, I realized how close I was cutting it.  It would not be good for me to start my trip back to the US by missing the bus that would get me to my plane to get to my plane to get to my plane to get to Lansing.  No sirree.  We ended up sprinting through Freiburg, and I felt so rushed that I ended up having him take my money and run to the bus stop ahead of me and my luggage to pay for my ticket.  Luckily, desperate measures were not needed, and I made it on the bus with just about exactly a minute to spare.  Whew!  I said my goodbyes to Chris, then headed to the EuroAirport.

The EuroAirport, despite being, officially, the "EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg", is actually a ways outside Freiburg, 70km away.  So I had about an hour bus ride to get there.  After a bit of a struggle to actually get my tickets, I passed through security fine. (I did almost lose half of my identification documents in the scanner, but luckily some unknown force made me look back and see that they had fallen out of my travel belt.)  Then I had an agenda: I needed an Orangina.

Orangina is one of my fondest memories from my first trip to Europe.  Every restaurant we went to, it seemed, offered the deliciousness that is Orangina.  (For those who don't know, Orangina is an orange pop that has 1) real orange juice, 2) some pulp, and 3) probably crack or something in it.  Seriously, give it a try.)  And I hadn't seen it at all on my second trip to Europe.  If I had seen it, I would've had one, trust me.

But, finally, in EuroAirport, I sighted my prey in a vending machine.  I paid however much it cost, then quaffed it almost immediately.

Sweet orangey goodness.  The only drawback was the plastic bottle that it came in, rather than the original funny-shaped glass one :(

My flight from EuroAirport to Amsterdam was uneventful, besides learning that I could apparently gate-check my carry-on that was too large for European standards.  In Schiphol, I realized I had only gotten my first ticket in EuroAirport, not my other two, so I had to print off my next two tickets at a KLM counter.  This probably makes me one of the few people in the world to have a KLM-branded Detroit to Lansing ticket.  Once more, I went through the at-gate security too early and ended up waiting around to no good end, though at least this time my layover was shorter than my previous one to Glasgow.  (I'm not sure why everyone is so obsessed with Schiphol.  Maybe others have longer layovers that make it seem like they don't have to get to the gate so early.)

My flight from Amsterdam to Detroit was fairly similar to mine in the reverse direction. My seatmate was not as awesome as mine on the way over, but he was still pretty cool; he was a professor of marketing from Wayne State returning from a conference in India.  He said he had taken an extra day in Amsterdam on the way back just because he could, and was as disappointed as I was by the prices of Amsterdam museums. (He seemed to like the Van Gogh one better than me, though.)  We had a friendly chat for a while, then I turned my attentions to the entertainment console, identical to the one on the flight over.

Going east to west, you're supposed to stay up rather than sleeping.  Thus, in quick succession, I watched the Hunger Games (good!  followed the book very closely, which I was impressed with), The Ides of March (good, if depressing), and Captain America (alright, but by this time I probably would've thought that YouTube video of the panda cub sneezing looped a bunch of times would've been quality entertainment).  And finished it up with an episode of Parks and Recreation for good measure.  Alright.

The plane landed in Detroit, and then the wonderful process that is "US Customs" began.  I think I was there for about an hour and a quarter, or something like that, which was not fun.  In line, I chatted with my seatmate and a woman returning to the US from a week in Vienna, where her son and his girlfriend were staying.  One of the wonderful things about not having a checked bag was how much easier it was to stroll through security after the initial check, but, of course, I had to wait in line behind everyone who had like five checked bags.

Oddly, though, after going through customs, I had to leave security entirely and then go back in again.  To make matters worse, I thought I had misplaced my Detroit to Lansing ticket.  (At this point, I was having a very hard time braining.)  So, I went and printed a ticket at one of the check-in booths, only to find that it was proudly branded "DTW-->LAN".  So, obviously, the security guards would conclude that I was flying just from Detroit to Lansing!  How embarrassing!  (Like I said, I was having problems braining.)  Luckily, though, I somehow re-found my KLM-branded ticket to Lansing, and proudly showed it off at security.  They seemed unimpressed by my awesomeness.

My first dinner back on US soil was a cheeseburger at Fuddrucker's, because, for serious, Fuddrucker's.  Then I got on board the flight to Lansing.  I was picked up there by my soul sister, Jessica, and my friend Jaya, who I'm quite grateful to for doing that for me, because I'm not exactly sure what happened the rest of the night except for realizing when I got to my apartment that the trash can had disappeared from my kitchen.

As it should be clear—at the very least, from my going back to complete this even more than a month after I actually got back—I had a fantastic time in Europe.  Thanks to everyone who made it possible, from the funding for the travel to the people who made staying in hostels and seeing the sites wonderful!  Lessons learned:

• No matter how well-planned your itinerary is, things will still fail.
• That said, a well-planned itinerary can still be a wonderful thing.
• Make sure to have a cell phone that works in the countries you're visiting.
• Trust the sites that have crowdsourced reviews—they know what they're talking about.
• Muesli is delicious in yogurt.
• Croissants are a wonderful breakfast food.
• The best way to make friends is to mention food.
• Europeans don't believe in "fast casual" dining, so, either get take-out or realize you'll be there forever.
• When in doubt, public transit workers are often kind or helpful if you're lost.  Sometimes even both!
• Minnesotans sound like gay Germans to Europeans.  (Possibly even gay Jewish Germans.)

Thanks for sticking through with my blog.  I loved writing it!  As should be clear from my Facebook status updates, I'm having a fantastic time at grad school.  I hope your fall is off to a great start!  Thanks for helping make my life absolutely wonderful!  :)

Flails,

Chris

05 Aug 2012: Catwoman and Friends

05 Aug 2012:

Catwoman and Friends

Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemburg, Germany

H: 26 L: 16 Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain Late

On my penultimate day in Europe, I got to sleep in.  In a real bed.  And it felt good.  It was a lazy day, mostly because Chris, who I was staying with, and his BFF, who slept over in his room, slept in.  A lot.  After they woke up, I got the story from them: Chris's BFF had been hoping to seduce a lady the day before.  But then he ended up having an utterly wretched night that involved him being accused of theft, among other things.  So he ended up having an awful night, and Chris, being the wonderful person that he is, stayed up for him and talked to him some before they went to bed, thus meaning they were both up till like 5am.  I, meanwhile, got to read another couple of chapters of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" while waiting for them to wake up.

After everyone was awake, I demanded food.  ("Demand" is not much of an exaggeration.  Breakfast is srs bsnss for me.)  We journeyed to get a croissant from one of the stores by the railroad station, which was one of the few places that was actually open on a Sunday early afternoon.  I got a plum croissant, which was delicious.  One of the many things I'll credit to Europe was the deep love of European breakfast pastries it imbued in me.

After getting food, I wandered around Freiburg with Chris.  Freiburg is an adorable little down.  One of its cutest features are the Bächle, the tiny canals on the side of the street that used to be used to fight fires in Medieval times.  Nowadays, they are mostly used for the entertainment of tourists.   And they are, indeed, adorable.  My favorite kind of water source is the river, and so with bächle everywhere I felt like the whole town was full of little rivers.

Bächle!

Chris, being the good ex-linguist he is, was sure to give me a crash course in Alemannic German, which refers to the variety of German spoken in southwest Germany.  Many German dialects are on the brink of extinction due to encroachment from the standard dialect, but not Alemannic, which Chris claims is at least not completely dying.  In fact, you've seen some Alemannic already in this post; "-le" is a diminutive suffix in Alemannic (like "-y" in English used to be and still kind of is; "dog"-->"doggie", "Tom"-->"Tommy", etc.).

Eventually, we made our way to a part of town and ate at an Italian restaurant called "Bella Italia".  It was delicious.  I had some sort of wonderful salmon pasta (another theme!), and all things told, when I paid the tab for the both of us, the total was about €16, which is exceptionally cheap for Europe and includes service charge.

After Bella Italia, we headed to see The Dark Knight Rises (in English) with some of his German friends.  They were all pretty awesome—I can see why Chris has essentially converted into being a German national now!  The movie was absolutely fantastic.  I particularly enjoyed Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Catwoman, which was spot on in combining ridiculousness with badassery.  It was pretty fantastic to actually see a female on screen actually demonstrating competence and agency, unlike a lot of media.  However, I practically started screaming at the TV when there was NO TSUNAMI AT ALL after a bomb was detonated offshore just over water.  wtf.

After the movie, we all headed back to our respective domiciles; it had started to rain, and I don't think anyone was eager to loiter around.  Chris, his friend, and I stayed up chatting for a while longer, then I went to sleep for the last time in Europe.

(Well, last time this year!)

04 Aug 2012: The Twilight Zone

04 Aug 2012:

The Twilight Zone

Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany/Freiburg, Baden-Württemburg, Germany

H: 27/28 L: 13/15 Weather: Clear/Light Showers

He was just a normal, American twenty-one year old on a normal trip to Europe.  He woke up.  He headed to breakfast.  He was told by the hostel staff that he had to pay for a breakfast pass to eat in the hostel dining room.  But little did he know that, when he stepped downstairs to pay for the pass, he would be leaving Frankfurt, and entering... THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

The conversation went a little something like this.

• Me: Hi, I want to buy a breakfast voucher.
• Her: What room number are you?
• Me: 25.
• Her: What's your name?
• Me: Chris Heffner.
• Her: ...Chris Heffner checked out already.

I wasn't quite sure what to say to this.

• Me: ...no I didn't?
• Her: Yeah, it says here that Chris Heffner checked out already.
• Me: I don't think so.
• Her: Uh.
• Me: Hrm.

At this point, we're clearly both extremely confused.

• Her: Yeah, someone came down, and said they were Chris Heffner and that they were checking out.
• Me: Well, it wasn't me. (takes out ID) I mean, I'm Chris Heffner...
• Her: Yeah, I believe you.  I just... I don't know how this happened.
• Me: Me neither.
• Her: Is there anyone else under your reservation?
• Me: No...
• Her: So no reason for someone to have the same name as you here?
• Me: No... not unless there's a big coincidence...
• Her: Er, yeah.  Let me just... sell you a breakfast voucher.
• Me: Oh, okay.

So, yeah, I have no idea what happened.  Nor did she.  ... yeah.

I went up and had breakfast, then came down again, prepared for the receptionist to declare me Wilhelm X, Margrave of Hesse-Kassel.  Instead, she informed me that I had bought the towel that I had paid for the night before.  Uh, oops?  Apparently, when I thought I had been borrowing a towel (which is a thing that often costs money in hostels), I had actually been purchasing one.  For what it's worth, it was a nice and fluffy white one, much better than I would've expected out a hostel.  However, it also made my carry-on bag improbably large.

I met up with Martin again, and we decided to go off to see Frankfurt's cemetery.  At first, I was a bit worried about whether this was a sensible place to go touristing in, but I found myself much more interested than I thought I would be at first.  European cemeteries (I can generalize from an n of 1) are quite different from American ones.  They're not wastelands of perfectly-manicured green lawns.  They actually, like, have trees.  Trees everywhere.  And nature and shade and light and flowers and plants.  And tombstones that are individualized and have every member of the family who's died since like 1850 all on one tombstone because they're all buried next to each other.  It was actually quite nice!  Martin and I's favorite game was to try to determine who was married to who and who was who's child, because in-laws often shared the same tombstone.

After a while, we tired of that, and we stopped at a coffee shop to get some food.  I got a bagel with some random toppings on it—I don't remember what they were, but I do remember the bagel dripping orange something all over the place.  I also had a smoothie.  Martin complained about the encroachment of American food on European cuisine, but I munched away happily.

He headed back to his apartment, while I looked for something to keep me occupied for an hour or so before I left for Freiburg.  Martin had mentioned that one of the best international bookstores was across the street from my trippy hostel, so I headed there to see whether I could replicate my Amsterdam bookstore experience.  I was sorely disappointed.  None of the books were old, for one, and there were no maps at all.  wtf?

I made my way to the train station.  There, unfortunately, one of my least favorite things about European trains showed up: a passenger alert not in English.

I can't even attempt to break this apart into morphemes.  Linguist fail!

The white bar indicates the passenger warning, "umgekehrte Wagenreinhung".  Sometimes you can get cognates.  Dutch sometimes looks surprisingly like English.  French looks like English or Spanish but very rarely neither.  German... look like "umgekehrte Wagenreinhung".  I think "Wagen" is the start of the word for "train car" in German.  Or it is the word for the car of a train.  Or something.  But I really had no idea what it was saying.

Whatever it did say, it didn't affect my commute, as I made it to Freiburg without incident but with another fantastic German train ride.  There I met up with my very good friend who is also named Chris.  Chris and I share a long history of being mostly functionally equivalent.  So it was wonderful being able to see him again—by this point he had been in Freiburg for A WHOLE YEAR and it was aaaaagonyyyyy :( :( :(—and to meet his awesome Freiburg friends, who are pretty amazing.

We stopped for döner on the way to the train station.  Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a chance to try out my Turkish skills, as Chris had warned me beforehand that one of his favorite workers at the döner place was Kurdish and hated using Turkish.  After dropping off my stuff at his dorm, we made our way to a biergarten and had a bier or two with some of his friends.  (The stuff was good!)  It started to rain, but it was such a lovely evening that it hardly fazed us; the rain was pretty slow, anyway!

Chris was nice enough to let me use his bed for the night, which also felt pretty darn good.  I went right to sleep once we got back.

03 Aug 2012: Frankfurters

03 Aug 2012:

Frankfurters

Brussels, Brussels-Capital, Belgium/Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany

H: 23/27 L: 13/16 Weather: Partly Cloudy/Clear 

Karel, the dude at the Stayhere hostel in Belgium, is the nicest guy ever.  Have I mentioned that?  He was actually off for a vacation in Italy with his family, starting on the morning of August 3rd.  But, before he left, he made sure I knew how to get to the Brussels train station and set me on my way.  Hooray for Stayhere!

I made it fine to the train station, in the end.  The German train experience absolutely lived up to the hype.  The train was clean, spacious, and almost rumble-free.  Each seat came equipped with an in-flight magazine, like those on planes, except for being like five times bigger.  I couldn't decipher any of it, of course, so it wasn't at all useful to me, but I was still shocked at the size.  The worst thing about it was the fact that there were no plugs on the train, which was pretty much the number one way that the British trains were better than their Continental equivalents.  If you're going to be as awesome as the German trains were, you should really have places for customers to plug in their electronics!

When I arrived in Frankfurt, I had a place picked right out for lunch.  But I decided to be lazy.  Rather than, you know, walking to the place, and ordering food, I decided to get lunch from one of the many restaurants scattered around Frankfurt's truly massive train station.  And, trying to stick to local delicacies, I decided to get some schnitzel.  Oh goodness.  This was a good plan.  I didn't care that it was clearly crappy generic mystery meat, the German equivalent of getting a McDonald's hamburger.  It was still absolutely delicious!

Almost immediately after stepping outside the train station, I nearly had a heart attack.  Of joy.

STREET SIGNS.

I MISSED YOU SO MUCH

STREET SIGNS STREET SIGNS STREET SIGNS

Gone were the days of roads changing every five seconds without any warning at all.  Gone were the days of signs being in tiny font on the top of a single corner on the block without any other hint to where they were.  Instead, real, actual, street signs adorned almost every corner.  Or, if they weren't right on the corner, they were actually in places where real, actual humans would think to look for the name(s) of the street(s) that one would want to walk down.  It felt good.

Empowered by the ability to actually navigate around a city, I made my way to my hostel, which ended up having weird, multicolored, color-changing LED lights all over the lobby.  To make matters weirder, even though I had signed up for a four-bed dorm room, said room was only separated by a partial wall from a 10-bed room just next door.  Well, nice way to false advertise, hostel.  After dumping off my clothes and such at the hostel, I decided to see the city.

Frankfurt isn't a city that has many attractions in it.  It's basically a city made for commerce, not for museums or interesting historical sights.  That said, I had read online that the German Film Museum was a wonderful museum.  I crossed the Main to get there and wandered inside.  It turned out that they infamous "they" had not been lying in this case.  Artifacts were found all around: old school projectors from the very beginning of cinema, these weird optical illusion things that displayed imagines only when put around pyramidal mirrors.  There was even a little theater that showed films from the oldest days of silent movies.

But then, as I was watching one of said movies, I unfortunately noticed a small stream of adults leaving the museum in an apparently orderly manner.  It was about 16:00, and I knew the museum closed at an even-numbered time.  (Does anyone else have that problem?  Whenever I am trying to remember a number, I frequently remember whether it's even or odd but easily mix up near-contiguous numbers that are either even or odd; say, 2/4, or 7/9)  Rather than, say, looking at the documentation I had in my hands, or asking someone, I immediately assumed the museum was closing and walked calmly out of the museum.  Naturally, on the door outside, I saw the place closed at 18:00.  Whoopsies.

Well, so much for that.  I wandered up to the "historical section" of town, such as it were.  The problem with basically the entirety of Germany is that the historical sections are lies, because the Allies bombed basically everywhere in Germany during World War II.  Instead, more precisely, they're models of the original structures that existed in each location.  Frankfurt's was kind of charming, I suppose, but it was no Bruges.  I did, however, go to the best tourist shop that I saw on the trip (called Kulturothek) that had things with the name of the city I visited but that real people would actually wear.  I got my dad a shirt, which led the store owner to unleash a stream of German on me, as, just like everyone on this trip, she assumed I was German by my appearance.  As I left, she tried to tell me that I should bring it back if it doesn't fit my dad, then realized she was talking to an American.  We just kind of shrugged at each other.

After shopping, I stayed around the trippily-lit hostel a bit to catch up on emails.  After a short bit, in walked my friend Martin, also from the political forum I've been a member of since forever.  We had decided to meet up for dinner, and so off we went.  Martin is an old-school leftist, and much of our ~4km walk to Bornheim was filled with entertaining anecdotes about the rise of gentrification in the city (and, in his eyes, the sad demise of the old working-class neighborhoods of the city).  By the time we were at Bornheim, I had worked up quite an appetite.  In line with my desires to have local food, I had some sort of pork (I think?) with a green sauce Martin claimed was the local specialty, along with some apfelwein.

Drinking apfelwein in the bierhaus gave me a weird feeling, a sort of odd kinship with the people around me. (...this feeling may or may not have been influenced by the apfelwein)  Here I was in Frankfurt, drinking the traditional drink of Frankfurt, eating the traditional food of Frankfurt, while the people all around me were speaking in German.  And some of my ancestors—my Y chromosome, even, a thing that helped (just helped, mind!  gender isn't genes!) make me a Christopher and not a Christina—came from a town not too far from Frankfurt, a place close enough that for all I knew some of my cousins were sitting somewhere in the restaurant with me, enjoying their evening and drinking their apfelwein and eating their food.  It was odd.  But kind of great.

Martin was a lot of fun to talk to.  We ended up staying fairly late, and tried to take the subway back, but, oops!  We were there past when the subway shut down.  Instead, we walked the 4km back to my hostel, and I went to sleep.  I guess I had forgotten to ask for sheets or something, so I just slept under my comforter.

02 Aug 2012: I Ate Philadelphia

02 Aug 2012:

I Ate Philadelphia

Brussels, Brussels-Capital, Belgium

H: 23 L: 14 Weather: Partly Cloudy

The awesomeness of the hostel I stayed at continued on Thursday.  Breakfast was an all-you-can-eat smorgasboard of whatever was available, in stark contrast to just about every other day at a hostel.  I met one of the most interesting guys on this trip that morning.  When I asked him where he was from, he couldn't really say - he had moved around too much.  He was a tough, grizzled, older guy, with tattoos up his arms and piercings in his ears.  He wasn't an army guy, I don't think, but he sure acted like it in a lot of ways.

We got to talking, and I asked him how long he had been traveling.  He figured a couple of years.  I was a bit staggered, but he told me that he had some money saved up and was able to live super cheaply; he sold all his possessions (except for a couple of boxes that he left with his sister) and started moving around from place to place.  And, from what I hear, he pretty much did what he wanted, traveling from place-to-place, and keeping up with the young women he met along the way via Facebook.  Personally, I was most impressed by the fact that he checked weather forecasts using Weather Underground, which is my weather system of choice.

I didn't hear much about his previous life story, but he did let slip that 1) he had several huge dogs over the years and 2) he had decided to start traveling because he decided to quit the rat race and start living for himself.  I've always found the second attitude to be rather odd.  No one's a hermit.  No matter what you end up doing, you can't just "live for yourself"; your choices will always have consequences for other people.  I mean, leaving the rat race behind is different, and that's just a matter of "different strokes for different folks"; I'm happy to embrace the rat race because what I want out of life requires it, but not everyone needs to have  a tenure-track professorship at a major research institution.  But "living for yourself", to me, sounds like living some sort of Randian fantasy, where the more lasting pleasures that can be gained by being good to others are subsumed under the immediate gratification of today.  Or something.

Still, gotta credit him for getting rid of his possessions like he did!  That takes dedication.

Brussels is an interesting town; a lot of it is dedicated to international finance and government, as Brussels is the home of many of the functions of the European Union.  There are a few museums, however, and during the summer the Royal Palace is open, for free, to visitors.  I decided to check it out first.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting.  The tour they had set up led us through many of the sweeping grand rooms of the palace, where you could imagine late-1800s sons and daughters of middling German principalities dancing around and gossiping.  But there was very little in terms of "personal touches".  I certainly didn't get any feel for what the Royal Family was like, or what they did in their gigantic home.  That was rather a shame, because Albert II of Belgium is one of the few constitutional monarchs who has been asked by basically everyone in his country to please meddle in political affairs pretty pretty please.  (He did so with great distaste and then wandered back into his palaces.  Belgium is a fascinating country politically.)

What I did find fascinating about the Palace, though, was that they had set up a bunch of rooms, including the Throne Room, as an anthropology exhibit, featuring masks from all over the world.  I found the irony of African masks taking up much of the Belgian Palace to be quite wonderful given the history.  After our tour winded its way through the rooms with masks, I started hearing loud noises, and, suddenly, I found myself in a room that had been converted into a science museum.  I have no idea why they did that, but there was some sort of EEG that was always full and seemed broken (otherwise I would've tried it out, of course) and the ability for people to compose songs.  Here's the EEG thing:

The players had to compete to enhance the activity in certain frequency bands.  Alpha, I think.  It was weird, though, and I think the player at the right was always penalized due to the system's defects.

After the Palace/Anthropology/Science Museum, I made my way to the "Parliamentarium", one of the seats of the European Parliament.  (Because the European Parliament is an outgrowth of the EU, it does not have just one place to meet, because everything in the EU is required to be as complex as possible.)  I learned from the Parliamentarium that the apparatuses of the European Union have a very high opinion of themselves.  The EU was credited for... quite a bit... and the scale models of each of the EU buildings were all given slavish attention.  Still, as a Europhile, I enjoyed the museum quite a bit.  It gave a good overview of the EU's past, and gave short shrift for Euroskeptics.  (Its treatment of De Gaulle was entertaining.)  It also integrated technology into the museum much better than the Amsterdam Museum had.  I also had a lunch wrap with basically the vaguest ingredients ever:

EN Ingredients: Wraps, 'Ganda' ham, Philadelphia, curly lettuce

To this day, I'm not certain whether I ate the city of Philadelphia, the concept of brotherly love, or the critically-acclaimed 1993 movie about AIDS.  I apologize profusely to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania if the first.

After the Parliamentarium, I went back to my hostel.  The owner was there along with his two kids, playing with his dog.  (Did I mention this hostel was small and cute and awesome?  'Cuz it was.)  The two New Zealanders and Mr. Self-Sufficient were there, as well as a guy I hadn't seen before.  We got to talking; he was originally from London, and was traveling around as kind of a gap year sort of thing.  His next destinations were Copenhagen and Munich.  Eventually, we decided to head out for dinner, which I don't deny I felt a little grateful for—I didn't want to be eating alone, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be eating with the New Zealanders or this grizzled dude, either.

We asked the hostel owner for a place to eat, and he suggested one to us that was a little bit of a walk away.  But it was so worth it!  We had been wanting to get some authentic Belgian cuisine, and this place had a completely indecipherable menu to an outsider.  My London friend (named "Alfie", which made me think of Theon Greyjoy for obvious reasons) even knew some French and he couldn't piece it together.  Regardless, though, the prices were decent, and the place seemed full of people from Brussels.  Scanning the menu, I saw the word "Waterzooi" and immediately decided that that was what my order was going to be, because, with a name like "Waterzooi"... how could it be anything but interesting?  As I learned, Waterzooi is a delicious, savory stew that, in this case, was full of chicken.  Alfie and I both ended up getting it and liking it very much.

After our dinner, it was back to the hostel for a relaxing sleep in comfortable beds.  I was ready for Germany!

01 Aug 2012: The Quest for a Good Waffle

01 Aug 2012:

The Quest for a Good Waffle

Bruges, West Flanders, Belgium/Brussels, Brussels-Capital, Belgium

H: 25/28 L: 11/12 Weather: Mostly Cloudy/Clear

The weather on the first of August was absolutely beautiful: sunny, with only a few clouds, and finally summertime temperatures rather than the fallishness of previous days.  I had to plan for the last few days of my trip, and it was hard to think how little time I had left.  In just 5 days I'd be leaving for the US.  Yikes!

I set off into town, hoping for good things.  I had found a place on TripAdvisor that had promised delicious waffles and found a brewery that gave free tours.  But neither ended up panning out very well.  By the time I actually made it to the center of the town, I wasn't able to find the waffle place very quickly, and ended up getting a waffle from a cheap tourist stand kind of thing.  I got it loaded with whipped cream and cherries, but, as I realize everytime I get real cherries, I don't actually like cherries.  I just like the fake cherry flavor.  So, I wasn't that pleased by my Belgian waffle experience.  I then set off for the brewery, but was against disappointed when I wasn't able to find it even despite the cheap tourist map I had managed to procure.

Instead, I headed for an art museum I had written down.  With only a €1 entrance fee, I was happy no matter what the actual contents of the museum were.  Unfortunately for me, though, I had only a couple of €20 notes and a €1 coin, so when I had to pay the €1 deposit for a locker I was out of coins.  I had to awkwardly ask to get my €20 broken just to pay the deposit.  The museum ended up being pretty itty-bitty as far as European museums go, and was full of Flemish artists I had never really heard of.  In fact, it was only Flemish artists, without even a Walloon to be found.  It was a good way to spend some time, I suppose, but I don't think I would've paid the €9 general entrance fee just for what was there.

Next, it was time for a tour of the city.  The tour was free, actually, or "free", to be more precise, as the tour guide asked for a "tip" at the end of the tour based on how good his guidance was.  Our tour guide was named Kai, and he was a puertorriqueño who had lived in Brooklyn for much of his youth.  He seemed surprised that I picked up on his East Coast roots, but based on the way he was saying "tour" (/tɔɹ/, how I would pronounce the non-word "tore", rhyming with "bore", "door", etc.) it was pretty obvious.

Kai was an entertaining and interesting tour guide, giving some local color and entertaining anecdotes.  However, it was clear why the tour was free: it was also an advertisement.  In the middle of the tour, he interrupted things to give us a sales pitch for a variety of stores (including the disappointing waffle shop from earlier in the day).  We also got a drink from a local pub, which was pretty good.  All in all, I was somewhat disappointed by the relative lack of historical information; Bruges is clearly a city that knows how long it's been there, but I didn't learn all that much that I didn't already know.  Still, Kai was great even despite that.  The tour also gave me a chance to chat with people, including a pair of couchsurfers who had wandered into Kai the day before named Gwen (from Miami originally) and Thomas (originally Austrian, now an Internet entrepreneur who didn't actually need a physical location anymore), who were pretty awesome to get to know.

After the tour was done and Kai was tipped, Gwen, Thomas, and I went out to a bar that Kai had pointed out during the tour.  Said bar served a type of beer that had been brewed for hundreds of years at the same location and was sold absolutely nowhere else in the entire world, and it was pretty delicious.  Feeling giddy, we decided we wanted to have waffles, but we found none at Bruges's train station, which was a bit counterintuitive and completely frustrating.  Instead, we had muffins, and what muffins they were!  Have I mentioned I love the baked goods of Europe?  Because, for serious.

I got on board the train to Brussels with Gwen.  We went our separate ways (though she was kind enough to point me in the right direction for the Metro), with me headed to my hostel to relax for the evening.  My hostel was called Stayhere, and I promise you, if you're interested in Brussels at all, follow the imperative expressed by the hostel's name.  It's a pretty marvelous place, basically a large old townhome converted into a hostel.  The place is super laid back.  I was rather concerned when I saw nowhere to lock up my valuables upon entering the hostel, but, wait a sec, the owner is clearly trusting all his patrons with his stuff, so why shouldn't we all trust each other with our stuff?

On my way in, I met a Texan, who was from the University of North Texas's geography department.  I thought we'd get along fine, so I sat out on the patio area with a pair that arrived earlier.  They were from New Zealand, and immediately started trying to guess where I was from... I think I heard California, Georgia, Canada, and New York before I decided to call a stop to it.  The Texan came down to join us, and the three of them immediately started talking guns.

Now, I know I am vocal in my dislike of goal unit acquisition activities.  This time, though, I learned that there was a topic I was even less capable of holding a conversation about than goal units.  I know nothing about guns.  In fact, I think guns are horrible and rather terrifying.  At least goal units don't often kill people, and I'm familiar with the rules and the terms of most goal unit acquisition events.  However, the people from New Zealand were clearly exceedingly impressed by the US's freewheeling attitude towards gun ownership, and the Texan was all too happy to show them YouTube videos of him shooting his guns out on some range.  When they left to go out for the night, I bid them adieu, and scooted off towards bed. (And what a bed!  Did I mention this hostel was awesome?)

31 Jul 2012: Amsterdam DNA

31 Jul 2012:

Amsterdam DNA

Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands/Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium

H: 18/17 L: 12/11 Weather: Light Rain/Mostly Cloudy

The next day, I had even more time in Amsterdam. As you should probably tell by now, this was a quite rare experience for me, to actually be able to savor a city a bit.  Speaking of savory, did you know that combining plain yogurt, muesli, and brown sugar makes deliciousness?  Omnomnom.

I headed out to the Anne Frank House right after breakfast, because I knew it was a very important thing to see when I was in Amsterdam.  It was, well, pretty much what you expect.  "Claustrophobia" is the name of the game, and it really wasn't a fun one to play.  The stairs lurched up at impossible angles, and the rooms were quite cramped.  They preserved some of the wall hangings she had put up, framing them behind some glass, and preserved some of the original pages from her diary.  It was a moving experience.  (And one I couldn't take pictures in, again.  Grr.)

My next stop was the Amsterdam Museum that I had also tried to go to the previous day.  Unfortunately for me, on the way to the Amsterdam Museum, I discovered a couple of stores, side by side, that were basically stores custom made for me.  One had a bunch of old collectibles: stamps and such.  Interesting, yeah.  But the bookstore: now that was awesome.  Rows and rows of old books were stacked side by side, haphazardly, in a store that had steps everywhere and winding spiral staircase on the side to get to rooms with even more old books.  I was basically in heaven.  This is a problem, though, because heaven is hard to leave (see also, the London Science Museum).  I basically had to handcuff myself to hustle myself out of the store having only bought a $15 map of Amsterdam that had been cut out of an old atlas.

The Amsterdam Museum had received somewhat underwhelming reviews on TripAdvisor (I mean, they were very good, but some people complained about some aspects of the museum), but I found that those reviews were not at all merited; I was very impressed.  Looking obsessively at the social history of one town was much more impressive to me than giving sweeping overviews of social history.  You got a real taste for the city that you wouldn't otherwise.  I mean, there were some aspects that were a bit distracting--the museum had an obsession with this hokey QR scanning thingy that bordered on unhealthy--but overall it was well done.  The museum offered an "Amsterdam DNA" feature that was essentially a personality test, and it told me that I my "Amsterdam DNA" was "civic virtue" and "trading strength".  Okay, I guess it understood that I'm lawful :?  Someone should probably tell my ancestors the Langestraets, who I'm descended from.  I do suppose that the Amsterdam city burgher still is pretty pimptastic.

The Museum took a while, though, and I had no time to visit the Dutch Resistance Museum before I went to Bruges.  At the Amsterdam train station, though, I had the absolute best pasta that I've ever had at a take-out place.  They made me (fresh - I saw them making it with my very own eyes!) a salmon pasta that was absolutely delicious.  Despite the fact that it was piping hot, I wolfed it down and headed for the train to Brussels, then connected to Bruges.

The train to Bruges was rather disorienting; the only language used for announcements and on the screens overhead was Dutch.  I practically had a panic attack when I realized I hadn't checked the monitors to confirm whether Bruges was listed as a stop on my trip; the only cities I had seen were Ghent and Ostend.  Thankfully, I had caught the right train.

Bruges is a very pretty city; it's one of the best-preserved Medieval towns in Europe, thanks to having escaped much of the destruction of World Wars I and II.  My hostel was a ways away from the train station, so it took me some time to drop off my stuff.  My roommates, unusually for the time, were all in their room after I got done with dinner, and I got to know them.  One was a Colombian woman who had been living in London for about four years, while the other two were backpackers from Perth, of all places.  They were all pretty nice, though the Perth guys had to ask what language they spoke around there.  (I heard them the next day saying that the guy working at the hostel from the US Virgin Islands didn't sound like they thought because he didn't sound Jamaican.  Uh, yeah.  The USVI are not Jamaica.)  They were pretty nice, though.

I gave them hints on what to visit in the US, as they mentioned they were interested in going there later that year.  They said they had New York City, Texas (for a music festival), and Los Angeles on their itinerary.  Okay, sure; depending on the length of your stay, you have to go to NYC.  It's not actually the US, but it's definitely important.  Texas, well, they were there for a music festival, and I hope for their sake it was in Austin or San Antonio.  Los Angeles?  Skippable, in my estimation.

My advice to them was this: Chicago should be one of their most important destinations.  Think about it.  What other place in the US offers the combination of (1) a city-sized city with tons and tons of stuff to do and (2) being in the Midwest, empirically the most US-like region of the US?  In Chicago, you can have your exciting events and your folksy Americana all in one complete package.  And it offers a good public transit system (for the US) to boot!  I also gave a shout-out to the West Coast north of Los Angeles.  They seemed like guys who'd really enjoy the San Francisco/Portland/Seattle axis, particularly because they mentioned they were hoping to go to Vancouver (which I'm also hoping to go to sometime!).

We decided to go out to "da club" later that night.  Okay, well, it wasn't a real club.  It was just a bar that had music.  But I still enjoyed being able to dance.  My dancing won several approving stares, particularly my hip gyrations.  I guess being obsessed with hula dancing as a kindergartener helped me out with that.  Some guys even came over and, having clearly been dared to do so, started dancing with me.  One of them started a dance off, but my ridiculous flailing quickly put a stop to that, as they proclaimed me the victor.  They were amused enough by my dancing that they ended up taking a couple of pictures with me.  I don't actually claim that I'm a good dancer, mind you.  But I like seeing others happy, and, based on the fact that people were entertained enough by me that they were taking pictures of my dancing, well, I guess I succeeded that night!

On the way back, I chatted with the Colombian woman about her boy troubles.  She had this Texan, you see, who had been trying to seduce her.  It sounded like he was kind of succeeding, and, from her testimony, anyway, he seemed to deserve her praise - he was quite kind to her, and her coworkers kept texting her during the evening about how he had been asking for her at the restaurant she was waitressing in.  She also kept mentioning a British guy she was also kind of flirting with, but I told her to go with the Texan.  I'm not sure if she followed my advice.  We grabbed some fries on the way home, then fell asleep pretty soon after getting in to our dorm.  Whew.

30 Jul 2012: Red Light

30 Jul 2012:

Red Light

Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands

H: 19 L: 11 Weather: Partly Cloudy, Scattered Showers

I woke up on the morning of July 30th feeling strangely refreshed.  I had set my alarm for 08:30, to make sure I'd be down for breakfast at 09:30 with time to spare.  After all, I had been starting to look like a scruffy hobo and needed to shave - false advertising in that I would of course be a suave and debonair hobo.  I took a nice shower, successfully shaved, and folded my clothes that I had laundered the night before, then headed down to breakfast.  I went down to breakfast and found the breakfast room completely empty.

I checked my watch.  10:30.  Er, what?

It turns out I had successfully changed every single one of my clocks except for the one in my luggage, which I couldn't get to.  Well, great.  I had successfully stood up the Canadians.

Feeling a bit panicky after my exploits in accidentally standing people up in London, I resolved to make sure the Canadians knew I was not standing them up.  I took a tram out to the Anne Frank House, wandered around for a bit to see if I could spot them in line, then took a seat by the exit.  And waited.  And waited some more.  And read "Lord of Chaos", the 6th book of the Wheel of Time series, because why not.  (Note that I am responsible for about half of the article text on the book's Wikipedia article.)

Meanwhile, people were leaving the House.  I had no idea how long---

Okay, so, I'm sitting in a Noodles in Silver Spring right now, typing this up, and there's a 7 year old white kid sitting at a table outside a Ben & Jerry's rapping along to his iPod, complete with motions... wtf???---

they had spent waiting in line, when exactly they had given up on me and headed to the House, or how long people usually spent in the House.  Finally, at about 12:15, I worked up the courage to ask someone exiting the House when they had gotten in line.  10:15.  Okay.  Good.  I think.  Maybe?  At about 12:30, I start thinking about heading out, but just then the Canadians step out of the House.  Obviously, they seem a bit surprised to see me, but happy (though the wife keeps making alarming references to their having thought I stood them up), and we agree to go to lunch.

Luckily for me and my obsession with breakfast, the place I had found on TripAdvisor for lunch was called "Pancakes! Amsterdam".  It served, well, pancakes.  We moseyed down there, and all of us ordered authentically Dutch pancakes.  I got pancakes with muesli and blueberries, which were odd but rather delicious, and came served with one of the most delicious yogurts I've ever tasted: it was light and creamy and so whipped it was practically mousse-like in consistency.  Mmmmmm.  We chatted a bit about Amsterdam and about plans for the rest of our journeys, and I felt immensely grateful that they hadn't just shunned me.  In fact, they had waited around for just about when I arrived at the breakfast place, then kept their eye out for me - a comparison of timing shows that I must have arrived almost literally just as they were entering the House.

They weren't much museum people, so we split ways.  We agreed that getting drinks at happy hour together that night might be a good idea, but I think I underscored the fact that I was going on a tour that evening meant I wasn't completely sure about my plans well enough that when I didn't show up that night (spoiler alert) they didn't hate me.  I hope!  While they headed off to explore more of the city, I made a beeline for the museums in the southwestern part of Amsterdam.

Unfortunately for me, though, I received a nasty surprise: the Rijksmuseum, where the "big names" in Dutch painting have many of their works, was not free to me using the pass I had bought like I thought it was.  Instead, I headed to the Van Gogh museum, which was full of Van Goghs.  Sure, I appreciate him as an artist and stuff, but I found the museum rather uncompelling.  The only painting I really recognized was "Sunflowers", the painting that in print form adorns the bathrooms of many a semi-upscale hotel bathroom.  Worse yet, I couldn't take pictures, which is half the fun of visiting anything for me.

Next, I went up to the central part of the city to see if I could go to the Amsterdam Museum, but it was closing within about an hour of when I got there.  Instead, I wandered around the most touristy part of town, which was packed with shops catering to tourists.  In Amsterdam, that means a lot of t-shirts that frat bros would probably really, really like.  I ended up getting dinner from a random shop that sold sandwiches and donuts.  Have I mentioned that Europe does pastries and baked goods so much better than the US?  Because it really, really, really does.

After dinner, I went on a tour of the red light district.  Yes, that one.  Yes, this is still me.  I have not been abducted by aliens, to my knowledge.  I have not been replaced by a simulacrum.  But I figured while I was in the area I might as well see what all the fuss is about.  YOLO or something.

The tour was being offered in English and Spanish.  Entertainingly enough, the Spanish groups were twice the size of the English one, and they had to call in for reinforcements to be able to lead them all around.  I had bought my tickets online, and, after buying, was told that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BRING A COPY OF THE RECEIPT or else I WOULD DIE.  I had been wandering around for a while unsuccessfully trying to find an Internet cafe with a working printer to no avail, and my smartphone (with receipt included) had died during the day.  My demise was imminent.  Thankfully, though, I had written down the confirmation number on paper that morning and brought it with me, and, lo and behold, that was exactly what the tour guide needed.  I was saved!  The woman taking down confirmation numbers told me I was smart for doing so.

I was shocked by the fact that most people in the tour group I was a part of were pairs in couples going together.  There were only a couple of other single guys, one of them a neuroscience major from Tufts.  We saw the major sights and all had a great time, particularly because our tour guide was clearly a proponent of some of Amsterdam's more unique activities.  It was striking how different the atmosphere was from almost anywhere in the US; Las Vegas really doesn't compare, because there's still an air of furtiveness about it in the US. (I have no idea about Boulder and its Amsterdam-like activities because I've never been there.)

My particularly favorite site to see was the street our tour guide showed us that had some of the more interesting ladies of the night alongside one of the best concert orchestra venues in the city and one of the Christian hostels in Amsterdam that are supposed to be super laid back and immaculately clean.  We also saw Princess Juliana's childcare center in the middle of the district and coffee shops next to ice cream parlors.  It was all just so... chill.  Very Dutch, from my experience.

We ended up in an ordinary bar in the district (no, not a coffee shop; sorry to disappoint), where I got to know some of the other members of the group.  Many of them were from Australia, including a pair of newlyweds from Perth.  Like I mentioned, one of my favorite things about this trip was the international connections I was able to make - such fun!  I ended up accompanying the people back to the central train station, then catching a tram back from there to my hostel and going back to bed.  Though I was going to bed way earlier than the guys doing the "real Amsterdam experience" in my room, they were totally chill and left the room to let me sleep.  Awesomeness.

29 Jul 2012: Laundry Friends

29 Jul 2012:

Laundry Friends

Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands

H: 20 L: 13 Weather: Partly Cloudy, Rain Late

After my time in London, I was ready for a quiet day in Amsterdam.  I didn't want to do nothing, but I definitely wanted to make sure I didn't have any disasters during the day.  I let the French students staying in the hostel wake me up with their noise, then went to get dressed.  Ugh.  My room was a pigsty.  Wrappers were lying around everywhere, and clothes were piled on top of each other haphazardly.  Over it all, the room smelled of products that one would typically associate with Amsterdam.  I quickly gathered stuff together and headed for breakfast.

Breakfast was pretty great, actually; the first "continental breakfast" that was actually continental in nature.  I tried swirling in muesli with the plain yogurt they offered, and it was actually pretty tasty.  (I have no idea if that's at all a normal thing to do, but it seemed like a good idea!)  After breakfast, I helped an Israeli man with tech support.  He apparently had gotten his first laptop (a fact that was painfully obvious) and needed some help connecting to the free wireless internet in the hostel.  My advice basically amounted to "have you tried turning it off and on again?", but it seemed to do the trick.  He was friendly enough, and I wished him luck in finding a job, which he was in Amsterdam to do.

After that, I was off to lunch, at a place recommended by Tripadvisor (my Bible for this trip).  It ended up being well worth it.  I had some sort of honey ham sandwich that came with a wonderful salad.  I'm not usually one for salads in the US, but salads in Europe are a completely different deal: this one had pineapples and strawberries in it, as well as what you might expect out of a salad.  This compared favorably against the American tradition of salads being lettuce topped with lettuce garnished with lettuce and additionally a bitter sort of salad dressing.

However, Europe has a way of teaching you how different it is from the US.  When the waitress asked whether she could get anything else for me when I was done, I said, "No thanks," which in the US is a sign for the bill.  In Europe, it's a sign for "no I don't need anything go away".  So, she disappeared, and I had to hunt her down to pay for my meal.  After I did so, I faced the very real situation of "omg is it polite or not to tip".  I remembered, though, that in the Netherlands tips are not expected but are only to be given if there's particularly good service.  As I didn't have extraordinary service, but was still extremely concerned that somehow I would be rude by not giving a tip, I took my change and FLED IMMEDIATELY, because when in doubt RUN AWAY.

I was off to the Tropenmuseum, a museum about the tropics, not about tropes.  It ended up being a fascinating museum.  The museum started as a way for the Dutch to show off how awesome their colonialism was, and the museum is now interesting in that some of the exhibits are basically about how exhibits about the tropics used to be exhibited, and what that could say about the society of Europe.  The museum had a rotating exhibit about death and the afterlife that I found particularly interesting.

It's a coffin with a duck.  Yep.

After navigating exhibits about just about every corner of the Earth one could think of, I came away convinced that I was looking at a certain Bailey's future workplace.  Marvelous!

On the way back from the museum, I walked through a beautiful park, where a live band was playing.  It was nice to sit down, listen to some good music, and do some people-watching.

Then, I set off for milk.  I had seen a supermarket on the way over, and decided to stop by and see whether I could get a meal to go - such things were very common in the UK, so I assumed they must have been in Europe, too.  However, as soon as I entered the grocery store in Amsterdam, I saw that things were a bit different on the Continent.  I was trapped.  When entering the supermarket, I had to go through a gate, and it was impossible for me to leave without going by a cash register.  Obviously, this wouldn't be a problem if any of the cash registers were open, but the ones that were had closed gates that prevented me from leaving.

Well, this was a problem.  Not only could I not get what I was going for, this awkward situation made it impossible for me to rely on my default "flight or even more flight" reflex; it was clear that I couldn't leave without buying anything (or going through the line with... nothing).  I became more and more alarmed, before I saw a way out: milk!  I managed to spot a little 500 mL carton, grab it, and get in line.  This led to my very first complete conversation in Dutch, at least from my end:

• Clerk: Hallo.
• Me: Hallo.
• Her: (says what the price of the milk carton was)
• Me: (gives her a Euro)
• Her: (asks me whether I want a receipt)
• Me: (extends hand)
• Her: (gives me change)
• Me: Dank u!
• Her: (puts receipt in hand, smiles)

I considered myself victorious.  She was clearly awed by my linguistic finesse.  (Actually, the Dutch were the friendliest in Europe when you spoke their language.  They're clearly used to speaking English with outsiders, so they seem to enjoy it when outsiders attempt their down language.  Also, "u" is the polite form of the second-person accusative pronoun—like many languages, it also means "y'all" or "you guys"—so perhaps they're also amused that I'm being (probably unduly) polite.

The milk tasted LIKE VICTORY.  Also, Canadian painting exhibition?!

Returning to the hostel, I made plans to have a quiet evening.  There was a school group that was pretty loud, but I had some laundry to do and dinner to eat, so I made do.  The hostel offered a pretty reasonable dinner, actually, including a delicious strawberry mousse, for an appropriate price.

Doing laundry, though, afforded me an opportunity to meet other non-school-group people in the hostel who were doing laundry.  I befriended a group of Basques (who had just graduated from high school and were headed to do medical research).  They were amused by my adoration of the Basque language and had no idea how well-loved the language is in linguistics in general.  There was also a husband-wife pair of Canadians; she was a primary school teacher (the second Toronto-area primary school teacher I met, incidentally!), and he (his name was Ransom) was in some sort of business job, though he was thinking about switching to education, too.  It was the hostel bar's happy hour, so we got some cheap drinks and sat around talking about the split between religion and science, the education systems of our countries, and various sundry matters, then planned to head to the Anne Frank House together the next day.  Trust me on this one: meeting people in hostels is a lot of fun to do!

By the end of the evening, I was pretty wiped, so I headed up to my room, dreading the mess.  Luckily, the group that had made the mess had left, so the room had been cleaned.  At first, I had assumed the messy group was the same one as the group that had made the room smell, ah, all Amsterdammy, but in fact that two people somewhat responsible for the latter were still there.  I chatted with them, and they were absolutely indignant about how messy the room had gotten thanks to the students in the room.  My roommates were British, and the students were French - need I say more?!?  We bonded over shared revulsion for the students; they ended up being pretty good roommates, and I learned a valuable life lesson about making assumptions about people based on their recreational activities (or something :P).

28 Jul 2012: Christopher and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

28 Jul 2012:

Christopher and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

London, England, UK/Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands

H: 21/22 L: 14/16 Weather: Scattered Clouds/Clear

I tried to sleep in as much as I could without missing the free continental breakfast my hostel offered, to help recover from my unwanted late night bus-hopping.  When I finally shuffled out of bed, I had been planning to do some laundry; I didn't have anything scheduled for the morning, and didn't really feel like doing anything about that, because I was terrified that somehow something bad would happen.  Instead, I decided to do laundry.  As I rummaged in my wallet, though, I came to the sobering realization that I had money for either my fares around the Underground that day or for laundry, but not both.  Well, it was a nice thought.

The plan was to meet with my cousins Chelsea and Garrett, as well as Garrett's girlfriend Suzy, at 1pm at Garrett's hotel.  He was staying at the Doubletree Westminster, which I had typed into Google Maps the night before.  I saw that it was by the Victoria station on the Victoria line, and headed in that direction, getting there with about a half an hour to spare.  Neither Garrett nor Chelsea were there, but that didn't faze me, as I was so early.  Instead, I settled down to watch Olympics coverage and read a book, though the hotel staff had unfortunately switched coverage to that of dressage.

And I waited.  Fifteen minutes.  A half an hour; it was now 1, the time we were supposed to meet.  Not there.  And I kept waiting, and kept waiting.  I checked to see if the hotel offered free wifi; no dice.  But, I figured, if they walked into or out of their hotel, I would see from the place were I was sitting.  Now it was 1:30, then 1:45, then, finally, at 2, I walked up to the front desk and asked if Garrett had checked in - maybe he had gotten a different flight from the one that he was expecting, and/or Chelsea's train had gotten in early or late and they had met up there or something.  Instead, the desk clerk said, "No one by that name has checked in at our hotel."

Alllllright then.  I ask, panicked, if there's a Starbucks nearby, so that I can use their Internet.  She directs me to the nearest station.  I walk over there, check my Facebook messages, and notice my blunder: I had Google Mapped "Doubletree Westminster", and it had directed me to a Doubletree by the Victoria station on the Victoria line.  Chelsea had told me to seek out a hotel by the Pimlico station on the Victoria line.  Argh.

So I make my way back to the Doubletree desk and freak out a bit (I'm practically in tears), and eventually the desk clerk realizes a little bit of what's happening and lets me use their phone to call over to the proper Doubletree.  They tell me that Garrett, Chelsea, and Suzy have already left, but they've left me a note, and that I should take a bus to their hotel.  Given my dismal record with buses, I find this advice somewhat terrifying, but I say okay and depart immediately.  At the bus stop, they tell me it'll be super easy; I just have to get on the bus and get off at Pimlico (er, I almost spelled that "Pimplico") station and it should be right there.  Okay.

It's not that easy.  I get on the bus, get off at Pimlico, and... no hotel.  I wander around for a bit.  No hotel.  I  sidle into a spa and ask the dude at the desk if he knows where the hotel is.  He has no idea.  I ask if there's a way for him to find out.  He takes out his smartphone and Googles "Doubletree Westminster".  The first search result is the hotel I just left.  The second is an unrelated Doubletree.  The third is the right one.  I try to tell this to the guy with the smartphone to get him to press it, but instead he clicks on the link to the wrong hotel and wastes time with that.

By the time I'm actually pointed in the right direction, march up the correct street, and enter the proper Doubletree, it's 14:50.  I stagger in and make my way to the desk.  The desk attendant there gets me the envelope with Garrett's letter.  In it, he says he's going to circle back and check at 14:30 whether I showed up.  I want to scream in frustration.  Instead I ask the clerk whether he did show up, and she says no.  So I settle in to wait.

I'm there for about an hour, and the group doesn't show up.  This is fine, and totally understandable, given how long they must have waited for me in the first place.  I have to head up to St. Pancras, but before I leave I ask whether there's a post office around; I have to mail a postcard I bought in York to my mom.  They are ridiculously nice to me.  Instead of directing me to the nearest post office (it's Saturday, they remind me; post offices are only open Saturday mornings, not afternoons), they take my postcard, no questions asked, and offer to mail it for me.  I ask how much I have to pay.  They seem surprised and say, "nothing".

Again, I'd like to underscore this: people in London were generally very, very nice to me.  My London experiences were not caused by anything but unfortunate coincidences and my own stupid judgment, not by Londoners or the people I was intending to see there!  I feel absurdly grateful to them (in fact, writing this post reminds me that I want to send management there a nice email about this incident), but I don't really have the time to express proper gratitude.  I try a hearty "thank you" or two and then practically sprint out towards the Underground.  I'm ready to be out of this town.

St. Pancras reminds me a bit of an airport terminal, particularly because they built a special wing just for the Eurostar, complete with security checkpoint and airline-like tickets.  I check in and make it through security no problem, then take my seat on the Eurostar train.  It's practically empty, but I suppose people would be more likely to be coming into London rather than leaving it on the first day of Olympic competitions.  As the Eurostar makes its way through the southern English countryside and plunges below the English Channel, I am tempted to see this as a clean break from London, a chance to start anew with the same vitality I had enjoyed until I made it to the city of my nightmares.

So, I made it to the Brussels-Midi train station, where I'm told to take a train to the Brussels-Nord station and connect from there up to Amsterdam.  When I make it to Brussels-Nord, they happily inform me that by "to" they meant "towards" Brussels-Nord, and I had to get off at Brussels-Central to make it to Amsterdam. I turn around and go south a single station, then am forced to wait an extra 40 minutes to catch the last train to Amsterdam, which gets in at about 01:00.  Well, so much for a clean start.

On board the train, the booming voice from the ceiling informs us all to keep an eye on our baggage, because, quote, "there are pickpockets on this train".  Well, great.  Now I'm stuck on a late night train feeling super paranoid.  At least, for a while.  Then I manage to reassure myself that it's something like the signs on Michigan State's library saying "thefts are occurring here".  I don't think the MSU Library is saying that, 100% of the time, there are acts of thievery occurring somewhere in the building; it's just trying to say that, in general, thefts are things that happen in libraries, and occur every once and a while.  Similarly, I think the voice from the sky was just trying to tell us to be watchful rather than somewhat passive-aggressively telling us that pickpockets are on board the train but doing nothing whatsoever about them.

Finally, I get to the Amsterdam train station, where Google Maps told me to buy a train ticket to get to my hostel.  I have to buy it for a whole stop, and almost walk over a group of smokers sitting in the back of the tiny commuter train with my suitcase.  Finally, I walk my way to my hostel, up through streets named after islands formerly in the Dutch East Indies, then turn onto Timorplein.  Yes, that Timor.  Now, finally, I can take this as the sign of new beginnings.

27 Jul 2012: At Least Nothing Was Stolen?

27 Jul 2012:

At Least Nothing Was Stolen?

London, England, UK

H: 24 L: 16 Weather: Intermittently Cloudy

I bound out of bed excitedly, ready for whatever adventures await me in London, before I realize, oh wait, my glasses are broken, I need to do something about that.  I ask at the front desk, and they tell me there's a place not too far away... but the clerk also says the word "expensive" about every other sentence when directing me there.  I ask for tape instead, and tape up my glasses to make the lens stay in the frame.  Well, great.  Now I look like I've been in a fistfight.

After eating breakfast, I head down to Westminster Abbey to meet up with Bailey and her friends once more.  It's absolutely gorgeous, and I take tons of pictures.  The most amazing thing about the place, of course, is all the famous people buried there.  Pretty much anyone who is anyone in the UK gets their remains put there, or at least a memorial somewhere in the building.  Visitors are given an audio tour narrated by Jeremy Irons.  It's a fun tour, and whisks us through there pretty fast, but to do so Mr. Irons has to skip over a lot of the famous people you pass by.

For example, in the writer's section, we're rightly pointed towards the memorial to William Shakespeare (not buried there, of course), but right there just to the left of Shakespeare is the memorial to Jane Austen, who isn't even mentioned.  Towards the exit, Mr. Irons mentions the tomb of the unknown soldier, but not WINSTON CHURCHILL who is buried RIGHT THERE and OH MY GOD WINSTON CHURCHILL and like fifty other Prime Ministers, and Darwin and William Herschel and I WAS IN HEAVEN OKAY ALL THESE PEOPLE.

We then head to Regents' College London to have lunch in the school cafeteria (they had pretty good fish-and-chips) before tooling around Regents' Park for a while.  Regents' Park was gorgeous, and Bailey and her friends were delightful as always.  It was fun to hear them reminisce about their time together in London.  Then, it was time for me to be off to the museums, to spend a bit of time before the big concert.  Said "big concert" was a staging of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony—my absolute favorite song, ever—as a part of BBC's Proms series, an extended series of summer concerts that are quite famous in the classical music world.  The best part of Proms is that they sell tickets at the door for only £5 that are said to be easy to get; you may have to wait in line for a while, but they're supposed to be well-worth it.  Concerts are said to almost never sell out, unless you show up with like 15 minutes to spare.

I got to Prince Albert Hall, where Proms concerts are held, at 4pm.  The concert started at 6:30pm, though, and the lines didn't seem very bad, so I decide to come back in a half an hour, as there are some wonderful museums on Exhibition Road that are completely free.  This was a mistake.  The museum I was hoping to see was the Science Museum, and, me being me, I absolutely love science museums.  They're pretty much my favorite things in the whole world.  So of course I couldn't stay for just a half an hour.  I feel particularly guilty when I let it stretch to about 45 minutes because I discovered an exhibit they have where they have a bunch of rooms set up to show a performance of "The Planets", complete with surround sound and videos of the performers.  I was cutting down on my classical music time to listen to classical music!

Then, disaster struck.  I decided to give myself 5 more minutes (yeah right) and check out an exhibit I saw called "Who Am I?", just because the name sounded interesting.  BAD.  LIFE.  DECISIONS.  It turned out to be the best exhibit on psychology I have ever seen at any museum, hands down, full of wonderful interactive tools that actually taught kids about modern things that we think are cool in psychology: neuroscience and kin bias (without calling it that) and digit ratios and OH MY GOD IT WAS JUST THE BEST THING EVER and thinking about it on the way out of the museum I practically started tearing up because you have no idea how awesome it is to finally see your discipline respected enough that they put it in a museum, and not just any museum, but a science museum, like it's just another part of science, every bit as important and valid as geology or chemistry or physics, and they actually did it right, it wasn't just stupid Freud stupidity and Skinner boxes, but real, modern cognitive psychology that real people actually care about these days but no one knows about because we have done a bad job of advertising.

(Sorry, had to rant there a bit.  Back to regularly scheduled programming.)

Me as a young child, according to a random face technology thing they had.  I mean, obviously, my classes and facial hair were a very important part of my self-identity at that age.

I make my way back to Prince Albert Hall.  The lines had clearly gotten longer, and it takes me a bit of walking to find where they even enter the hall, let alone where I need to get in line for the end of them.  I'm looking for the Gallery seating line, but end up running into the Arena seating line; I decide, eh, good enough, and follow the line to what I think is it's back.  It turns out I accidentally wandered into the Gallery line, but, eh, that was what I meant to do in the first place, so yay.

In the Gallery line, I find myself next to Bai, Sherri, and Balazs, who are students from the University of London.  We end up chatting and getting to know each other.  Balazs served as kind of the go-between for Bai and Sherri, as he had been to several Proms already.  As we waited in line, we got issued little slips that had numbers on them denoting our place in line; I got #872.  We were a little confused about what that meant.  Were there really 872 people in our line, or 872 people in both lines, or did they just start numbering at some arbitrary number in the middle (say, 500), or what?

Eventually, after about an hour and a quarter, we started moving.  The line was long, but it was actually moving at a pretty steady clip, so that was comforting.  Eventually, it seemed like we were assured of getting tickets, as we were being led down a narrow corridor right outside Prince Albert Hall with about 10 minutes to spare before the concert.  We stopped for a bit.  People in better clothes than the Prommers were milling around us; apparently they had been shepherded over towards us to deal with problems with their tickets.

Balazs mentioned that one of his friends had been waiting in line once and was offered a ticket by someone who happened to be walking by.  I was impressed.  "That must be really rare.  No way that that would happen."  Within about a half a minute, one of the guys in suits milling around said that he had an extra ticket he couldn't do anything with, and he was willing to give it away, no strings attached.

I wish I was making up the timing, because I know it seems too perfect.  But it was that perfect.  So I looked around at the people around me, thinking they had heard him, and said, "Give me a moment," to the guy in the suit.  I asked them what they thought.  They didn't say anything very definite.  I kind of shrugged at the guy.  He moved on.

After all, I figured, we were about to head in - we were only about five minutes away in the line.  And I had gotten to know my little group, and liked them, so it would be nice to enjoy the concert with people I liked and knew already.  Plus, we had gone through the entire line together, so I felt a sense of obligation to them already; I shouldn't just split off from them for the promise of treasure, as that would be unfair.

Instead, we moved up in line.  When we were about 15 people away from the front—perhaps 3 meters away—a clamor came from the front of the line.  There was a guy with an official-looking name tag shaking his head.  You know what that means.  Sold out.  To say I was devastated would be a serious understatement; this had been the single event that I had been looking forward to most (not counting seeing people, of course; talking just in terms of activities), and now I couldn't experience it.

Looking back on this, it made me realize that I'm not a Ravenclaw, as much as I enjoy learning.  I'm a Hufflepuff.  And a Tully: "Family, Duty, Honor".  That's duty right before honor there.  So, sure, great that I was being loyal.  But this incident really made me think about a couple of things that I find really frustrating about myself.

First, of course, is my passivity.  As a good Minnesotan, I learned to not try to rock the boat too much and make unreasonable demands of others.  This is useful in many situations.  I tend to get good service from wait staff, airline employees, and others who are in positions where they're used to dealing with unreasonable, pushy individuals on a regular basis.  But it can also be bad, as it was in this case.  If I was less stupidly passive, I could've simply explicitly asked the people in my group for permission to take the ticket rather than somehow expecting them to grant it to me, especially because they obviously weren't paying attention to the unfolding situation.

More importantly, though, it really highlighted my risk-aversiveness.  A lot of the reason why I didn't take the ticket is my fear that somehow I wouldn't have a good time sitting with people I didn't already know in a situation that I hadn't planned for.  So I did absolutely everything I could to avoid this slightly negative situation, and it ended up ultimately leading to utter disaster.  I'm used to my risk-aversiveness depriving me of some mildly fun situations (a lot of the typical fond memories people have of college will never be mine... but, of course, many of the bad ones won't be, either!), and once and a while it leads me to mildly unpleasant things, like making someone feel slighted or the like.  But this made me think about how many of the really horrendous (well, horrendous for me, which is to say "kind of bad") situations I've found myself in have been the result of my risk-aversiveness.  The tally was pretty sobering.

In any case, we set off through Regents' Park towards the University of London, where the others were going to have dinner.  They apologized to me—repeatedly—for what they assured me was the awful quality of the food there.  What they should have been preemptively apologizing for, though, was the rudeness of the desk clerks there.  I had never really encountered a person in a similar job who was so outright rude.  For example, he told us that Balasz would have his University account charged to cover the meal, then once the meal pass was purchased completely changed his story and said he'd accept payment directly, then ridiculed us for being confused about the situation when he did a 180 on what he was talking about in the first place!  Grr.  We spent dinner discussing orthographies, of all things, and then I bid them adieu to hang out with Bailey to watch the opening ceremony.

Our plan had been to meet up briefly at her apartment, then go out and find a pub or a public viewing spot to watch the Olympics with Londoners.  But, as you might expect from my London adventures so far, it did not go according to plan.  I made it to her Tube stop just fine, but was immediately lost.  The problem with the Underground is that there are five hundred different exits for each stop, and the little hand-drawn map I had made for this one apparently matched a completely different stop.  Once I found my way to a different exit that had a local map by it, I had wasted important time.  Finally, though, I started walking in the right direction... but ended up getting lost again anyway, and when I finally found the street Bailey lived on I realized I hadn't written down her house number, so I walked up and down a few times before finding the right one from my fuzzy recollections of Street View.

Finally, I made it into the apartment, but by then the thing had started - no pub for you!  We settled down to watch the Opening Ceremony together.  It was pretty quiet in the apartment, and Bailey and her friend fell asleep a couple of times during the ceremony (which I don't blame them for; they had had to stay up late to work on essays and such all week!).  I suppose I enjoyed it, but it seemed kind of short in some ways.  I did appreciate the random appearance of JK Rowling, though, and the fact that NHS is so widely considered to be a national treasure that it was used in the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

When it was done, it was time for me to head back to my hostel.  I had to take the buses in London for the first time, and unfortunately my Oyster Card (used for all public transit in London) was almost out, so I had to pay quite a bit using coins.  I had a sort of weird route, where I had to transfer between two buses (the 20... something to the N28 or the N31) at a largely unmarked location, but I figured I could do it.

So I got off at the transfer point and waited, watching several N29 buses go by, waiting faithfully for an N28 bus.  Then I got on an N29 bus and headed away.  It took me a few stops before I realized, oh wait, I was on an N29 bus, not an N28 bus, and how on earth did I manage that, because I had seen several N29 buses pass me by, as they were meant to, and oh bother where am I and what am I going to do and augh.  So I doubled back and ended up getting off at the wrong stop because I got off at something-ham Road when I had to get off at something-ham Street, who even knows, and there were loud Frenchman all around me and what is even happening it's 2am and I'm really cranky right now and please just get me home.  And then I found an N31 bus and I flip out because I'm suddenly afraid I'm going in the wrong direction but finally, finally, finally, I'm actually going in the right direction, and I finally stumble into my hostel.

Even despite the awful sleep-aggravated confusion, though, there were some people who were really nice.  The bus drive on the wrong-way N29, for example, let me just pay with the single GBP I had on my Oyster Card even though that was way less than the actual fare and was very nice in redirecting me to the N28, and the lady on the wrong-stop I got off at who went off the bus at the same time made some nice small talk about the Opening Ceremony that I very much appreciated.  So there's that much, at least.

I really wanted to go to bed, but instead I looked up the "Doubletree Westminster", where my cousin Chelsea said she and her brother Garrett were going to be meeting up the next day, and tried to sketch out how to get there.  Mostly I was just exhausted.  So exhausted.  I only got to sleep at 3am.