Category: travel

A couple days ago I finished captioning the photos of Amsterdam from my recent European trip. The original plan was for Dominic and I to meet up with Sarah and Danielle on the morning of Saturday, April 17^th, but due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and subsequent closing of European airspace they didn’t arrive until Tuesday morning. This left us with only roughly 18 hours to spend in Amsterdam together before we went our separate ways. (Dominic and I on to Germany; Sarah and Danielle on to Brussels then France then Spain.) Because of both this and Dominic’s damaged feet^† this we ended up not doing that much, instead spending lots of time just hanging out in the apartment that we rented and wandering around the center of the city.

Before you ask, no, we didn’t go to any coffee shops as neither of us were particularly interested. We did have some very good coffee and cake, but that was just in a place called Coffee Connection which we happened by while wandering after visiting the Anne Frank House.

Here’s a few of the more interesting photos:

· Fields of flowers as seen from the train between Brussels and Amsterdam.
· German-style toilet. Yes, the shelf is unpleasant to use.
· Looking out the window of Floor 1 of Bed And Net. It’s very well located with great food and such right near by.
· The second building from the right is Bed And Net, the guesthouse where Dominic, Danielle, Sarah and I stayed.
· This boat on a canal was full of people from the US and/or Canada who were stuck in Amsterdam by the volcano. They were enjoying their time drinking and cheering about wanting to go home.
· It seems that 9/11 Truthers / Alex Jones fans can be found anywhere.
· Jamon Iberico hanging in the window of a pork shop.
· Cheese and tomato sandwich which Dominic picked up for me from Bakkerij v Eijk, across the street from where we stayed.
· Looking down a canal roughly across the street from the Anne Frank House.
· Carrot cake and a latte in a coffee house (Coffee Company) after visiting the Anne Frank House.
· Sarah and Dominic the morning that Sarah and Danielle finally made it to Europe. We were all sitting in a cafe eating breakfast.
· Glasses of La Chouffe with breakfast.
· Danielle’s breakfast was fried eggs, cheese, and ham on toast.
· Very large cone of frites with garlic mayo, which Sarah, Danielle, and I shared.
· FEBO, an automat-like place in the Netherlands which sells food from vending machines.
· Looking down a canal at a bridge around sunset.
· Standing outside of the train station, passing time, as my coffee cup drips on the sidewalk. It was poorly made.

Yes, I do have video of the failings of the German-style toilet, but I have yet to post it. The issue is not so much with the insult being exposed and sitting on a shelf, but that the water frequently fails to wash it off of the shelf, necessitating a brushing. As such its apparently common to have a toilet brush by every toilet.

One nifty thing that I hadn’t expected is that most people in The Netherlands, or at least Amsterdam itself, seem to speak English with a US accent. They also seem to know English very well, so I never had a language problem ordering food or generally going about things there. I definitely would like to go back there, and perhaps Danielle and I will on a better-scheduled trip. Maybe this next time we’ll rent a houseboat as well, staying on a canal somewhere and spending a bunch of time traveling out of the city and possibly over to other countries (Belgium, Germany?) as well.

^† Note to the world: Do not wear Chuck Taylor All-Stars when spending a few days walking around London. They are not good shoes for walking long distances in, especially if they don’t fit well and/or are worn with inappropriate socks. Doing this will seriously damage your feet.

Continuing with presenting photos out of sequence of events, here’s the gallery of images from when Dominic and I were in Germany, visiting Dusseldörf, Aachen, and Ralitza / bumblebee (from the #llamasoft IRC channel) / inkscar.

We started off by taking the train from Amsterdam, then met up with Ralitza who showed us around Dusseldörf after we checked into our room at A.O. Hotel (also a hostel)^†. After wandering and eating some outstanding pizza in the Altstadt (old town), and wandering some more she took us back to her apartment where she made us pancakes for dinner, which we ate with jam while sitting around and talking and drinking tea. The following day we went and visited Aachen, then once again met up with Ralitza to walk around more of the city, eat at Curry, and see all sorts of nifty things while walking along the Rhine after dark.

On this last night we also happened to walk past a building which I was told was the center of Nazi steel production during World War II. In my life I’ve seen and touched a number of old Nazi items, from flags to coins to busts of Hitler himself (some bearing bullet marks) and visited holocaust museums and the Anne Frank house, but seeing this foreboding building in person had a completely different, disturbing feeling to it. It was almost as if the interesting, curious, fascinating bits of the story were removed and replaced with the frightening reality which can only be detailed by seeing part of the bureaucracy and mechanisms which allowed such a system to function.

Here’s some of the more notable photos, although as with the Brussels photos you’ll need to look at the Germany album itself to see all the photos:

· The toilet at A&O Hotel Düsseldorf is a modern style and does not have a shelf. This is good.
· The soap / shower gel provided by the hotel is Tricky Ricky scent.
· A man making pizza at Colopic, a very tasty pizza place in the old town part of Düsseldorf.
· Pizza from Colopic in Düsseldorf. I had an Artischoken, Dominic had an Italia, and Ralitza had a Napoli mit Oliven.
· Füchschen Alt with Ralitza peeking over the glass.
· Apparantly one’s coaster is marked with the number of beers consumed, then the individual or table is charged for these.
· For dinner Ralitza made us pancakes. We ate them with jam and they were very, very tasty.
· Non-blurry image of Ralitza in her kitchen cooking the last of the tasty, tasty pancakes.
· Looking back at A&O Hotel Düsseldorf.
· This airplane contrail is the one of the first obvious signs we had of normal flights resuming in Europe.
· Wandering around a nice looking neighborhood in Aachen.
· 20*C+M+B+10 decal on the door to a shrine. This appears to be a way of blessing those who pass through the doorway.
· A DB train coming into station, taking power from the high voltage lines.
· Going up the side of a wall I think this hopscotch playfield is a bit ineffective.
· Somewhere in Aachen someone has lost their pineapple. Beneath a bicycle.
· Bicycle lane stencils laying on the sidewalk.
· This political sign confuses me. I think it is trying to promote a German politican based on the behaviors of a US LaRouche Democrat. I think.
· Another view of Rhine Tower.
· Another view of the red Gehry building in Düsseldorf, with the moon.
· Currywurst and frites, with mayo! I’d ordered aioli (garlic mayo) but received plain. That’s all right, though.
· Looking over at the table next to my bed, with the Vodafone Nokia 1661, earplugs, bottle of Tom’s of Maine Mint Soap, Nalgene bottle, and Ikea lamp.

After this nice trip I want to return to Germany, both with more time to spend exploring and a better command of the language. Despite my four years of German classes in high school I’ve forgotten most of what I’d learned, and generally seem to lack the ability to do much besides order beer and a bit of food, find the toilet, and apologize for not speaking German.

^† I would definitely recommend trying A.O. Hotel / A.O. Hostel if you are looking for a clean, nice, basic room for cheap in most major German cities. Our room was €92 for two people, for two nights, with a private bathroom. And it was in a nice neighborhood, within walking distance of the train station (Hauptbahnhof / Hbf).

After taking a 2.5 week trip to various bits of Europe and returning a week ago I’ve begun uploading and captioning photos. Hitting the low-hanging fruit I decided to caption the Brussels photos first, so here they are: Brussels.

We (my friend Dominic and I) traveled to Brussels on the way back from Düsseldorf, planning to spend eight (or so) hours there before catching a Eurostar train back to the UK. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not researching Brussels at all, presuming that we could just wander away from the train station (Bruxelles Midi-Brussel Zuid) and find interesting things to do. We found interesting things, but nothing great. The city around the train station had much more in common with the populated parts of Detroit than any other European city I’d been in thus far.

After ruling the train station out as a good place to wander from we hopped on the Metro and went over to Atomium, which was originally built for the 1958 World’s Fair. Wandering up inside of this was quite nifty, even though we weren’t able to reach the top node/sphere, which would have offered a panoramic video of the city. Still, there was quite a bit to see with both the internal exhibits detailing modern design and the World’s Fair and the windows offering a nice, high-up view of the surrounding area.

Once we were done looking around Atomium we wandered in the local park for a bit, then headed back to the train station and eating at a very tasty cafe next door. I had mushrooms in a cream sauce over toast with a salad and a nice glass of Westmalle Triple while Dominic had the same beer and eggs and salmon over toast. After this wonderful lunch we headed back to the train station and passed a couple hours in Sam’s Cafe using appropriated internet access (via the Philip’s WiFi AP, I believe) while I sipped a Rodenbach and then a Leffe Brun, both of which I managed to order myself using what was probably a terrible bastardization of French.

Anyway, if you’d like to see photos from the time spent in Brussles, take a look here: Europe (April 2010) – Brussels. Or, here’s some of the more-notable photos:

· Looking out of Atomium over Brussels, #4.
· Self-photo of standing under Atomium, taken with fill flash.
· Me standing in front of Atomium, taken by Dominic.
· My lunch in the foreground, with Dominic’s in the background. He had salmon and eggs on toast with salad.
· Empty Westmalle glass.

If you’re interested in some of the things we could have done, take a look at this article at Wikitravel about Brussels. I really should have read this before heading there. Oh well, next time I’ll know better.

There are worse things for breakfast than (very, very tasty) pumpkin pie the morning after returning from the other side of the country. Thanks to some great friends this was a outstanding trip for both Danielle and I, and there’s still a few days left. Today should mostly consist of running errands, prepping the Mac Pro for sale, collecting queued mail at the post office, and maybe (hopefully) a bike ride.