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.