Return to A-dam

Day 136
Once again the Esperanto bitches (I can´t be nice anymore) woke me up at 5 am by talking. I really don´t understand this. I´ve stayed at notorious party hostels and gotten better nights sleep. I would think that by the time you reach 110 you would learn to respectful of the others sleeping around you. I had had 4 nights now where I hardly got any sleep. It was just frustrating and I was exhausted.

The original plan was to leave my stuff at the hostel and go check out the museum in The Hague. I was just too freaking tired for anything like that. As it was it took just about all of my effort to get my bags packed up and get to the train station. I was headed to Amsterdam, party central, and I was so tired that all is wanted to do was sleep for 6 days straight. Thanks Esperanto.

I did managed to get a bit of fitful sleep on the train, but as the train didn´t terminate in Amsterdam I didn´t want to miss the stop and in up in, well, I don´t remember so we will just say Djibouti. It took me some effort to find my hostel, mostly because I wasn´t paying attention and walked the wrong way down the street. I was staying at the legendary Flying Pig, one of the best hostels in all of Europe. Actually, I don´t know if it was really the best, or perhaps just the most notorious. Rumor has it that they used to have a coffee shop inside of the hostel, but if this was true, it wasn´t there any longer. It was still morning and I had a few hours before I could get into my bed and take a nap. I ended up wandering around and reading in squares, really wherever I could find some shade. It was a bit hot out. Bill Bryson really is a good way to ward off a nap. By the time I had finished the book I was able to go to the hostel and move into my space for the next two nights. I took a little nap and then a shower. I felt much better at this point and went looking for dinner.

One of my thoughts with coming to Amsterdam again was to do the whole legal weed thing here. Then I realized that I had absolutely no idea of what to do. I mean, I could walk into a coffeshop, but by myself? That just seemed a bit sad. And really, what do I do when I get there? What did I want? All those years of just saying no were catching up to me. I decided to consult my guidebook. Let´s Go had a few pages on the legal drug scene in Holland. When I got through reading it suddenly stuck me how silly it seemed to be reading about how to get high. Who reads about these things in a book? I decided to give up the whole idea, smoking just isn´t for me and I think that shooms would be even less so. I went to the bar and got a beer, it´s best to stick to what I know.

I ended up meeting another American at the hostel bar. He hadn´t seen the red light district yet and wanted to check it out. I tagged along. In some respects it was the same as it was 6 years ago. There were still women in their underwear hanging out in window´s with a bed in the back. The whole thing seems way more tame then it was my first time there. It also seems to have gotten smaller. We stopped in a bar for a minute and the bartender told me that every year the red light just gets smaller and smaller. It´s both good and bad I suppose.

I was still pretty tired and headed back to the hostel before midnight. I knew that if I was going to get anything accomplished the next day that I would have to get myself a good night sleep.

Like A Local

Day 135
At 5:30 in the morning one of the ancient Esperanto women felt the need to turn on the light. I couldn´t seem to find the switch myself to turn it off, but managed to get her to do it. About ten minutes later she turned it back on again and when I gave her a dirty look she motioned to one other person in the room who was up. That meant that 2 people out of 26 were awake. I found the switch this time and turned it off myself. She didn´t speak any English so I pointed to the light and said no! She didn´t turn it back on so I think that she got the point. I, however, couldn´t fall back to sleep. Eventually I just gave up trying and got my act together. I was once again headed to Utrecht.

I ended up there hour early and I didn´t want to do too much exploring before I saw Anke. I figured that I would take full advantage to having a local to show me around. Instead I spent the morning reading my book over tea, in a park, and by a canal. Of course, I did manage to forget where I was meeting Anke and had to find the internet cafe again. It opened late and I almost didn´t make it to the square. When I got to the Neude I had no problems spotting Anke. I was exceedingly nice not to just have a local to show me around, but to see someone I already knew.

Anke took me to a rather generic looking sandwich shop that only the locals knew how good they were. She was right too, I had a really good, and very cheap sandwich. After wandering the canals for a bit we stopped by the tiny Grocery Store museum. This basically had an assortment of food and soap packaging from the 1950´s.

After some more chatting and wandering (Utrecht isn´t very big) Anke invited me back to her place so that I could update blog. Anke lives in university housing that is really different from the dormitories that I lived in. There are eight people that each have their own room but share a kitchen and a bathroom. They had the cleanest college kitchen that I have ever seen. It was really something. In fact, I don´t think that my kitchen in NYC was ever that clean (except for when I first moved in and my Mom cleaned it) and I never even used it!

I didn´t want to overstay my welcome and I knew that Anke had dinner plans with a friend. I told her to kick me out whenever and tried to work quickly. I was really surprised and happy when Anke invited me to join them for dinner. She then left me to update while she met Suzanne at the supermarket to pick up dinner. Apparently we were cooking. Now this is a way that I can loose either fingers or friends really quickly.

By the time they returned I had gotten as much updated as possible. We headed to the kitchen and I tried to be as helpful as possible. I even cut an entire cucumber (one of the biggest I´ve ever seen) without loosing a finger or bleeding every where. I know what a shock this will be to my parents, that´s why there is a picture of bloodless chopped cucumber!

Dinner was a really good salad. I really loved being able to spend the evening talking with Anke and Suzanne. Travel isn´t just the museums you see, but really the people you meet. They both really made me feel that I was at home and welcome. They were both psych majors and it was interesting to hear about how different Dutch schools are from American one´s.

I stayed as late as I could, and decided to walk back to train station instead of taking a bus. I got a bit lost and ended up just making the last train back. By the time I got back to the hostel it was almost 1 am and I was exhausted. It had been a full day and I hadn´t gotten a good night sleep in a while. I briefly said goodbye to Sam and we decided to try and meet up some where in Asia. I headed straight up to bed and had no problems falling asleep.

All About Nothing

Day 134
The rude awakening I got this morning was the same two women talking loudly. I would have thought that consideration came with age! I was able to fall asleep a bit this time. Over breakfast I said goodbye to Richard. I didn´t run into Malahat though, we had exchanged info the day before and she told me to drop her a line when I get to Istanbul.

When I left I headed to the tourist office where I could check my email for free. Anke, who I had met in Antwerp and lives in Utrecht, had emailed me. I wrote her back asking if she would like to meet for lunch the next day. I headed to Utrecht anyway though. I wasn´t sure if she would be free and I didn´t want to miss out. Once I had gotten to Utrecht I spent some time wandering the very pretty old town before I stumbled on an internet cafe. Anke had confirmed plans for the next day. I was a bit at a loss of what to do with myself now. I didn´t want to see Utrecht as I knew that I would be coming back. I decided to go back to The Hague and see the museum that I had missed. Somehow I got side tracked though. Utrecht has a huge mall attached to its train station. After browsing through the things that I not only can´t afford I would not want to carry I ended up at the movie theater. This time I saw Hancock. It was ok, definitely not Will Smiths best.

When I got back to Rotterdam I spent a while looking for a phantom internet cafe before I gave up and simply went to the supermarket. Back at the hostel I had dinner with Sam. We decided to go to the movies for the evening. I´m such a bum sometimes. Someone please light a fire under my butt! After the movie it was late and we headed back to the hostel.

I Could be a TV

Day 133
I was woken up by two 110 year old women who were talking very loudly. I couldn´t get back to sleep and ended up just reading in various spots around the hostel waiting for Sam and Richard to wake up. Our plan was to go to The Hague whenever. I hate whenever, I want a plan! Those boys took forever to wake up and I was getting a bit frustrated. Eventually Sam woke up. It turns out that Richard was a bit pissed the night before and after I went to sleep he told Sam several times that he could be a tv. We decided to say that whenever there was a lull in the conversation.

The train to The Hague was only about 15 minutes. For the first while Sam and I forgot that we could be tv´s. When I got there I was a bit disappointed that the boys didn´t want to check out the art museum. I would have normally just met up with them later, but they were a lot of fun and I wanted to stick with them. We ended up wandering around for a bit and then grabbing a beer with a view of a sand sculpture. Eventually we moved and and checked out an iceberg floating on a pond. I have no idea, but hey, I could be a tv. After checking out some more buildings, mainly the town hall, we had some really good honey beer in another square. We talked about travel mostly. Richard was a bit upset that there weren´t more internet cafes and places to buy batteries and water in Holland. I had never really noticed the problem. Luckily Richard was being a really good sport whenever Sam or I said we could be a tv. He did tell us that we were taking it out of context. But really, in what context could I be a tv?

After watching some ducks in a park swim around in a row we headed back to Rotterdam for dinner. At the hostel we met a Turkish girl named Malahat and ended up playing Uno for most of the night. It wasn´t a very eventful day, but hey, I could be a tv!

Rotten Weather Rotterdam

Day 132
I was up early for my train. I was ready to leave Belgium. This was kinda sad though, I really enjoyed every where I went except for Brussels. Perhaps I should have started there and ended in Bruges. There is no way you can not love Bruges.

It was cloudy out when I got off the train in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. About half way to my hostel someone turned on a switch and it started to pour. It would do this for the rest of the day. Rotterdam does have a lot of things to do, but none of them are really all that exciting. In light of the terrible weather, it being a Monday and everything, and really, there wasn´t anything to do, I decided to see a movie. The next movie up was Mama Mia, so I went with that. I really liked it, but what a travel nightmare!

My hostel had a rather long lock out period and I still had about 1.5 hours to kill when the movie ended. I went to a sushi place and read Bill Bryson over some california rolls.

When I could finally go to my bed I was really shocked at the hostel demographics. There seemed to be a large Esperanto conference going on. In case you don´t know what Esperanto is, it is a language created by a Polish guy about 100 years ago that was mean to be neutral as it was not associated with any country and to be easy for everyone to learn. As far as I knew it never took off and no one spoke it. Running into this conference was odd. What was even odder was that most of the people attending the conference were over 110 years old. I´m not kidding. Most of the time in hostels I´m about the oldest person there. Here I was just about the youngest.

I quickly managed to meet the only other two people under 110 who were not there for the conference. They were both Brits. Richard was visiting his sister who lived in Holland and was traveling the country a bit. Sam was a long termer like me. He is traveling rtw on a motorcycle for 4 years. Unfortunately he had an accident a few weeks ago in Switzerland and broke his leg. After a week in the hospitable and surgery he was hobbling around on crutches and just waiting to heal. If your interested his blog can be found at www.toukakoukan.co.uk.

As Sam was explaining to Richard what Esperanto was we were both sorta making fun of it. They didn´t over hear me, but they heard Sam. We got called out on it. Total foot in mouth moment. The three of us got along pretty well and we ended up chatting for the rest of the night and making plans to visit The Hague together the next day. I called it a pretty early night and the boys stayed up talking later.