Biking Bad

It's been almost ten days since my last blog update.  I needed it.  For one, I was working on a blog entry related to the Syria situation, which has now been submitted to the publisher for review.  I also admit to being blogged out from London.  That trip zapped a lot of the energy out of me.  Additionally, I started classes and have much more reading than I anticipated.  Now that I have things to talk about, time to get the band back together.  [Side note: the band referenced in the preceding sentence is just me.]  Since there are not many "events" in the sense that a sightseeing tour around London would be considered, I will write non-vacation blogs in a more observational style.

1) Classes: School unofficially began the day after I returned from London.  I had signed up for a conference on European Union law in the overseas territories (such as Aruba), so instead of resting and relaxing I was sitting in a classroom for two days.  Considering I came all the way here to learn about EU law, I still think it was worthwhile.  It's a cool experience to be in a room full of people that care as much as I do about the EU and have a deep knowledge of its inner-workings.  It's even cooler to learn about a topic I knew NOTHING about - for example, did you know that the EU has 34 overseas territories through its Member States?  Adding the 28 Member States of the EU to that equation, EU law covers (to varying extents) 30% of the world's countries!

Now that I have exposed my extreme nerd:having a life ratio... Classes have been good so far.  I've met some really great people from all sorts of countries.  As I mentioned above, I was taken a little off guard by the amount of reading.  In one of my classes, the professor assigned a sum total of around 200 pages for one day, not counting the 70 pages from the class earlier in the week (or reading for my other courses).  I had heard that the International and European Public Law classes (the ones I'm taking) are the most reading and time intensive, and that seems to be bearing out.

2) Things that don't make sense: At the introduction day for Erasmus, one of the presenters told us that the Dutch approach schooling as an exercise in problem solving.  I'm beginning to understand why: there are a lot of problems to solve around here.  I could go on a long rant about things that don't make sense around here, but here are the two that really stick out to me:

     a) Bikes: No sense to make here.  I refuse to get a bike, because of the lack of sense-making.  First, I don't quite understand why the bike was chosen as the national mode of transportation.  It is always raining and therefore wet, usually cold, dark, and often windy when it's raining.  Unsurprisingly, Marta and I saw a guy on a bike get hit by a car, then hop right back on like he had intended to get hit by a car.  I wonder about the conversation going on in his head at that moment: "Today seems like a fine day to get run over by a moving vehicle. Good thing I have my pick between another bike, a car, a tram, maybe even a metro or a plane.  Oh look, there's a car! He probably doesn't follow traffic laws either! No helmet? Check. Not going to look before I make that turn? Check. Riding a bike? Check. Okay, I think we're good to go!"  Dutch bike riders overall seem to have a death wish.  They ride aggressively and inches centimeters [editor's note: screw you, metric system!] away from the cars next to them; they don't wear helmets; they don't like to obey (what I imagine/hope are in existence) traffic laws; sometimes, they aren't even looking up at things in front of them and instead gaze longingly at their iPods.  It doesn't help that it is impossible to tell the difference between a sidewalk, bike lane, a car lane, and a tram line.  I've heard that for this reason, all streets will now be renamed suicide lanes.

     b) Store hours: Not even trying to make sense.  Stores open and close at the most random hours.  Very few things are open late around here.  It also seems like just about every store picks a random day of the week to not be open.  One store will be closed on Tuesdays, while the one next to it will be closed on Thursdays; some stores close down for multiple days during the week.  One museum here is closed Mondays, Saturdays, holidays, and April 30th (probably because the people who run the museum threw every day of the year into a hat, then pulled April 30th and said "Okay people, looks like we're taking off that random day for no reason!"  The worst example thus far is the visa office at City Hall.  Online their hours are listed as Monday through Saturday 8:30-5, but in person they close at 4 and are not open on Thursdays.

     c) An added bonus of nonsense:

3) Movies: With the weather totally killing the mood around here most of the time, I've taken up to watching a lot of movies.  I've seen a movie almost every day for the past week, including Braveheart, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, and Moneyball.  American Beauty in particular has instantly become one of my favorites.  Send me your movie recommendations!

4) Other random thoughts: Yesterday (Friday the 13th - when the guy got hit/spiritually hit himself with a car) Marta and I went unsuccessfully to get our residence visas.  On the way back, we stumbled across a taco shop, and I ended up getting a burrito for dinner.  Dutch burrito variants are interesting: no beans, heavy on the cheese/sour cream, no tomatoes (at least that I saw/tasted), and with pineapples.

Speaking of interesting...after we ate at the taco place, I accompanied Marta to a nail salon.  There didn't seem to be much to do in the area, so I just sat around using my phone while she got her nails did.  Maybe this should have gone in the "things that don't make sense" pile.  Oddly enough, simply being at the nail salon was not the strangest part of the experience.  There were plenty of things wrong with the situation, but I particularly "enjoyed" the music.  The salon had on a rap radio station.  Apparently, Dutch radio stations either don't censor explicit lyrics or don't understand any English.  Not only were they playing American music exclusively, but they kept choosing rap songs I had never heard of (not that I'm a rap connoisseur) and which had a hankerin' for swearin'.  The juxtaposition of a lady gingerly painting another lady's nails with lyrics like "Imma fuck some bitches up" in the background...perfection.  Also, the bathroom was placed lovingly between a fire exit and a deep, dark, stone stairwell that looked like it was from a medieval castle.  I think the nail salon was called "The set for the movie Saw."  The icing on the cake was the language barrier.  At one point, Marta told the lady she's from the United States, but the lady apparently had never heard of it.  Considering one of the signs outside looked to be in Vietnamese...ironic...

Today's Dutch lesson: poffertjes!  (Small, airy pancake-like dessert that's covered in powdered sugar, butter (roomboter) and any other topping you want - I got brown rum.)

                              
        

     

Harrod’s Potter and the Jaywalker of Abbey Road

After the bus trip, one day of London, and Stonehenge, not to mention all of the Rotterdam lead-up, I felt like I got hit by a double decker bus that proceeded to reverse over me multiple times, then broke down and caught fire on my face for good measure.  Specifically, my feet felt like one giant blister filled with microscopic construction workers jackhammering away, except with nuclear bombs instead of jackhammers.  The internet at my apartment in Rotterdam had been working so intermittently, and the T-Mobile phone internet had not been working period, that I just wanted to have a good Skype connection more than anything.

That in mind, I tried to schedule my day at a fairly relaxed pace so as to find time for a Wifi connection.  I began by taking the Tube over to Abbey Road.  I figured that all it entailed was finding the crossing, and holding up residential traffic while I looked like an ass.  I assumed correctly.  Abbey Road crossing is right in front of the legendary Abbey Road Studios, but aside from that the main function of that crosswalk is to piss off local Londoners who want to be on their merry way.  Regardless, it was the perfect choice for me to see a quick sight in London before crossing other odds and ends off my list.

The only other place I knew for sure I wanted to visit before I left was Harrod's.  I had heard random things about Harrod's and didn't quite understand what it was.  For good reason, as I found out.  Harrod's contains one of everything ever.  The department store, if you can call it that, has five humongous floors filled with various vendors.  One room of vendors might have luxury handbags, the one next to it has expensive jewelry, and the next has gourmet foods.  The store is so massive that it has its own map, and any interaction with a vendor will lead to the inevitable question "Do you need directions to anything else in Harrod's?"  In my humble opinion, Harrod's shines brightest in its food sections.  It reminded me of the candy store in Harry Potter (Honeydukes?) where you can pick just about any type of consumable you're craving.  I imagine that somewhere, in the deep dark recesses of the store, you could find chocolate-covered monkey brains or gourmet elephant dung with a candied pecan center.  If you can dream it, you can buy it! #capitalism

I wandered around Harrod's for a couple of hours, then decided to go out in search of money and Wifi.  It took an hour to track down a Barclay's bank, which turned out to be in a secret alley next to Harrod's.  Kind of like the secret train door thing Harry Potter reference fill in the blanks yourself nerd.  Afterwards, I found a Starbucks, and knowing that Starbucks is good only for its Wifi, I looked around for a seat.  All of the seats were taken by hip coffee drinkers who understand terms like "macchiato" and "mocha latte" and "coffee."  Not being from that terrible planet, I figured the only way I would go unnoticed and get some Wifi action without being kicked out or hipster-harangued was to buy something.  I ordered a "small tea" which the lady promptly rephrased as a "tall Earl Grey no milk."  Hanging on to the grand tradition of Starbucks sucking, the tea was not worthy of the name "tea."  It was more like "pee."  However, the Wifi actually worked perfectly and I got to Skype with Robyn.  Starbucks, you're good for something!

Afterwards, I ran back into Harrod's for some lunch, which ended up being a French pampelmousse (grapefruit) lemonade and a chicken and pepper baguette.  Harrod's does not allow you to consume food on the premises, so I took the cue to go to my next stop.  I kept hearing about how good the Tate Modern was and made my way there while having my lunch.  Along the way, I found London Bridge, which contrary to popular belief is not falling down.  However, I did see Fergie-Ferg being a cave troll like Tom Cruise...

The Tate Modern has public viewing galleries and paid exhibits, but being cheap and not caring enough about art, I stuck with the free exhibits.  I generally do not enjoy art museums, and the Tate Modern did not disappoint in being overall disappointing.  I suppose if you like wall-sized paintings of red streaks, you're in luck.  I happen to like modern art (especially surrealism) when compared to other visual art forms, but some of the pieces challenged the distinction between purposeful genius abstraction and first grade art class.  My favorite part was the pontificating amongst the viewing public as they stared for minutes on end at, for example, a bunch of rocks hanging from a string.  Does it represent the chains of bondage that hold us back in our daily lives, or perhaps the finite time humans have tethered to the earth realm? Or perhaps someone really likes rocks on strings and we're experiencing his strange obsession without warning the rocks about a rock predator on the loose?  

By then it was getting to closing time for most places, so I came up with my last sight to see in London: the Royal Observatory/Prime Meridian.  It seemed fitting to end at a place from which all places technically start.   The walk up to the Observatory is quite a trek.  You walk on a path so steep that math teachers use it to relay the idea of obtuse angles to their students.  Once I made it up the hill and/or torture device, I realized that the Observatory was going to close in five minutes.  I was so exhausted, red-faced, and out of breath by the time I got to the ticket office that the lady there gave me a discount on admission.  I did the tourist thing, taking a picture of my feet straddling the East and West.  How original.  Before heading back to the hostel, I took one last look at Big Ben, and grabbed a traditional cornish pasty as my last meal.  It was a delicious, empanada-like baked good filled with beef and potatoes.  With that, I decided it was a good time to call it quits on my London trip.

Luckily, there is not much to tell about the return trip the next day.  All the excitement happened first thing in the morning, when the hostel couldn't find my driver's license for 20 minutes.  Other than that, the bus ride was very pleasant.  The bus had Wifi; we took long rest breaks; and we even went through the Chunnel this time.  All in all, London was a fantastic voyage, and one that I hope to do again with Robyn.  I highly suggest it to anyone who has the time.

***

From here on out, my blog will be much shorter and/or less frequent, since hopefully my schedule will settle down.  All of this traveling has gotten me to the point where I am looking forward to stillness and serenity.  I will certainly keep everyone up to date when things happen.  Hope you've enjoyed reading so far!

                

Between a Rock and Another Rock

Episode 3: Between a Rock and Another Rock

When we last left the young bloke, The Empire had thrown everything it had at him: cramp-inducing walks, balmy weather, eyelash references, impossible navigation, and the prospect of bathroomless tour buses.  He decided to escape to a far off place: Stonehenge, on the moon of Salisbury.  There, he intended to train with the Circle of the Elders to prepare for his final battle with Londontown and the Empire.     

***

Stonehenge…

I woke up at 6am to catch the 7 o’clock bus to Salisbury.  Waking up that early takes on an added bit of fun when staying at a hostel.  Since you’re sharing a room with 5 other people, you try to stay relatively quiet so as not to wake everyone.  However, the cages under the bunk beds were built in the 1800s, consisting entirely of nails scraping a chalkboard and MRI machines.  So when you pull them out to retrieve your belongings, the entire city knows it and notifies the Royal Air Force.  After about 10 minutes of slowly nudging the cage to avoid the piercing howl as much as possible, I ran out of the hostel towards the bus station (which I had learned was misleading far away from the hostel).  I got there just as the bus was loading.

The bus ride itself was fairly pleasant compared to the trip into London.  It took two hours to reach Southhampton, where I then transferred to a bus towards Salisbury.  After another 45 minutes, the bus arrived in Salisbury.  I was feeling slightly nauseous by then; breakfast isn’t served at the hostel until 8 and all I brought with me was a granola bar.  I stood around a couple of minutes just breathing in the fresh Salisbury air, then felt well enough to get a shuttle ticket to Stonehenge.  It took way longer than expected, because some lady wanted to discuss monthly bus pass options for her daughter with one of the two assistants there.  The other one was so old and British that I thought he was the Queen (OH SNAP).  Thirty minutes later, I got the Stonehenge ticket for 20 GBP, which included the bus fare, entry to the site, and audio guide. 

The ride over to Stonehenge looked like something out of Lord of the Rings.  The landscape was so verdant and hilly that I was convinced I ended up in the Shire.  I knew it wasn’t a dream when I saw Frodo and Samwise skipping through a field then vaporized by the London Eye of Sauron.  Aside from that, the bus spoke to its occupants, informing us of the wonders we were about to experience and the history of the area.  One story I remember is how a man who murdered his wife in Salisbury was sentenced to death by public hanging.  However, he tried to slit his throat the night before; a doctor sewed him up, and the executioners decided to go ahead with the hanging anyways.  Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t do a good job, and the man’s head fell off into the crowd below.

Stonehenge itself could not have been any better.  Perfect weather, low amount of tourists, great scenery.  I snapped dozens of pictures from every angle.  Of all the things I hoped to experience during my Erasmus exchange, this was my top choice.  I’ve wanted to visit Stonehenge as long as I can remember.  At first glance, I couldn’t help but wonder why I wanted to go so badly.  I mean, it’s a bunch of large rocks arranged in a circular pattern for no known reason.  Upon reflection, I realized that much of it relates back to my childhood and the fact that Stonehenge is a place to visit in my favorite video game of all time, Earthbound.  Sometimes, those little vestiges of childhood just can’t help but want to come out and play once in a while. 

After about 45 minutes at the site, I noticed that I had to catch the bus in 15 minutes or I’d be there for another hour.  As much as I would have been fine hanging out there, I did not want to spoil the perfection in my mind and overstay my welcome.  I grabbed some souvenirs on the way out, then took the bus back to Salisbury. 

I had about 2 hours in Salisbury before I had to catch my London return bus.  One thing that the Omniscient Being Bus Voice noted was that Salisbury is home to one of only 4 copies of the Magna Carta.  As soon as the bus arrived, I wandered around to find the cathedral where this copy is housed.  The good thing about churches is that Christians overcompensate for the fact that they’re not Jewish by building unnecessarily gigantic houses of prayer (kidding! sort of).  I located the place by following the obviously-overcompensatory steeple or whatever it’s called.  I eventually got to the Magna Carta room, but they don’t let you take pictures so you’ll just have to believe me.  The thing looks like it was written in Lord of the Rings language using the world’s tiniest pen.  Not even one inch margins!  Any professor would have given it an automatic zero.

The last thing I wanted to do in Salisbury was track down some lunch.  Remembering the name Salisbury and its association with the word steak, I decided to get what was advertised as “sirloin steak.”  I assumed this meant Salisbury steak.  However, since I had no clue what Salisbury steak entailed, I blindly accepted that I was engaging in a local custom by eating “Salisbury” steak… Unfortunately for me, I only found out today that in fact Salisbury steak has nothing to do with the town of Salisbury, and everything to do with a physician whose last name was Salisbury.  One day, he thought it’d be a good idea to form ground beef into the SHAPE of a steak and cover it with gravy.  Yada yada yada, I didn’t actually eat Salisbury steak.  In fact, it was one of the least appetizing steaks I’ve had.  But I made up for it by buying marzipan and amaretto truffles at a chocolate shop! 

Aside from the bus ride back, the only other thing I did that night was to do as the British do: grab some curry for dinner.  I found my way to a local curry shop, and got naan plus Chicken Tikka Moran (?) which is a creamy coconut-based sauce (tasted like butternut squash too).  It happened to be better than anything I had in London, except for the bangers and mash.  There were even tiger photos and paintings covering the wall, so I felt like a bad ass eating that chicken.  They’re grrrrrreat!   

Next blog – Epiblawg: Harrod’s Potter and the Jaywalker of Abbey Road  

Bangers and Mash

Episode 2: Bangers and Mash

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, known universally to the alien races as The United Kingdom, a very long and exhausting trip was underway.  The Empire, also known as the British Empire, had made it quite difficult to travel in between its rival kingdom, The Netherlands, and the borders of the Empire.  The Queen of the Empire detected a disturbance in the force: a young, American, Jewish bloke who just wanted a nice, fulfilling first visit to the epicenter of the Empire: Londontown.  Little did he know the adventure that awaited him...

…

I had managed to fall asleep sometime around 2:30am local time, but not wanting to miss out on anything, I set my alarm for 8am.  My room in the hostel is a 6-person mixed-gender dorm.  There were three other guys in the room, two from Brazil and one from Australia.  The Australian guy had kept going on and on about his recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and the two Brazilians asked me as soon as I got into bed why I wasn’t going out to party.  Stereotypes. 

I decided to first get some British pounds (GBP) out of the ATM at Barclays.  When I arrived to the hostel, they asked for a deposit if I needed a keycard for the room (that might be helpful…), a padlock (because at hostels, you store your stuff in a cage under the bunk beds), and a converter (because leave it to the British to do things differently from the rest of Europe).  They held onto my ID cards (luckily I had three on me!) until I gave them 15 GBP… The map provided by the hostel did not make any sense, so I asked the guy at the desk for directions.  He tried to explain the ATM’s location to me, partly in Spanish because he very clearly came from the Rebel Alliance.  It came out as: “You just do a Z then another turn and you’re there”  *hand motion of a Z shape with an extended bottom line*  His explanation made about as much sense as the bus ride the day before.  As it turns out, wandering around a little bit can be easier than following misleading directions.  The Z+line translated more to an L shape when I eventually found the ATM.  The confusion didn’t end there.  Because GBP share in common with the Euro the look and feel of Monopoly money, it took me a minute to figure out exactly how much I had of each currency.

Money in hand, the first thing I wanted to do was get a transportation card.  London has a “journey day pass” which allows you to get around via the Tube (subway) and buses and costs only 7.5 GBP.  Unfortunately, since the only map that makes sense in London is for the Tube system, that card had most of the day off.  I think I saw it on a beach chair with a Corona at one point. 

Going off of memory, I proceeded back to the bus station (Victoria Coach Station) and noticed the road name: Buckingham Palace Road.  If most things so far on this trip have not made any sense whatsoever, at least the British thought to name the road leading to their cherished monarchy after the name of the palace.  The “map” I picked up at the hostel made the walk look like it would take 5 minutes when in fact it was a good 20 minute hike through throngs of tourists.  Once I managed to reach the palace, I went to buy a ticket for a tour.  I told the lady I wanted to see “the castle” instead of “the palace” and she seemed quite upset with me.  Well, retroactive-America-won-the-war-so-get-over-it to you, Madame Prissy Pants! 

After I smacked her in the face with a white glove, I noticed that my tour didn’t start for another 45 minutes.  I took a lot of photos of the outside of the palace, since you can’t take any once you’re inside.  I then wandered around St. James’s Park until I came across a bunch of horse shit.  That’s when I saw a bunch of horses shitting together outside of a museum, mounted by guys in old-timey military garb.  I took some pictures (not of the horse droppings) and proceeded back towards the palace.  On my way back, I saw some Beefeaters guarding a random gate.  I thought to myself: “I wonder if they’d survive eating that Quick burger I had.”  After I gave one of them a Quick burger and he ate it, he suffered instant death.

The tour of Buckingham Palace was actually very good.  The girl who gave me the audio tour guide said to me "Oh my god, your eyelashes are fabulous."  I looked at her awkwardly for a moment, then had to deal with the emotions of years of torment regarding my feminine eyelashes.  Anyways, I’ve been to a few royal accommodations, and this one is probably the most spectacular I’ve encountered.  It happens to be the 60 year anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, so they had a special exhibit set up with her coronation dress and other things from the celebration.  I heard a guy behind me ask “When’s the old bag gonna croak?”  Probably when she’s a frog, jolly good sir.  Ribbit.    

After the palace visit, I tracked down Big Ben and the Parliament building.  For some reason, I kept thinking of the Mission Impossible scene from there.  I’ve heard Tom Cruise roams the halls of Parliament late at night and guards dark bathrooms like a cave troll.  I picked up that information from the special edition Mission Impossible London Guidebook, sold only in the most exclusive non-existing stores.  Anyways, you have to appreciate that feeling of “I’ve made it” when you see a world famous landmark up close. 

Because I couldn’t quite understand the map, and by couldn’t quite understand I mean my map was drawn by a 2 year old who ate his crayons then regurgitated them onto a piece of paper in some obscure pattern, I walked in a random direction until I came across something with a bunch of tourists.  Turns out I had stumbled upon Trafalgar Square.  I still don’t know how exactly the name is pronounced, but I referred to it as “Truffleger” or “Tonguetwister” or “Truggleduggle” Square when asking where I was.  I hate crowds, so I was not the biggest fan.  However, I was intrigued by the presence of a giant blue rooster statue.  Legitimate scientists posit that aliens erected it as a sacrifice altar where the aliens, known as the British, would order KFC then leave a bucket filled with chicken wings at the rooster’s feet.  Or you might prefer the musings of one girl there: “I really like that big blue cock.” 

In an attempt to get away from the throngs of people, I ventured over to another area whose name I recognized from someone in my life or Wikipedia saying “_______ is a place in London”: Piccadilly Circus.  There was no circus.  There were clowns, however.  Like one guy who was walking around in a full Spiderman bodysuit.  Or the guy dressed as Freddy Krueger.  It basically seemed like Times Square without giant buildings or cawfee tawk.  I did find some good souvenir shops there, so I couldn’t resist getting a Mind the Gap hoodie.

I spent a few hours after that going around to different bus tour agencies to find out about Stonehenge.  Every single one told me either 1) no availability during the next 2 days or 2) the bus ride is about 2.5 hours long and there’s no bathroom or rest stops.  What is this, the Third Reich?!  Freedom includes the right to go to the bathroom whenever and wherever, including at police stations, children’s hospitals, right in the road, and inside the cages at zoos. 

I wandered a bit back towards Parliament and decided to go across the bridge to the London Eye.  Street performers on the bridge were running Ponzi schemes in the form putting a ball under a small cup and harassing tourists to pick up an immediate gambling habit.  Once I looked beyond the dejected musical homelessness and desperate attempts at survival via tourist harassment, I made it to the other side into a carnival atmosphere.  The area beneath the London Eye is filled with snack vendors, street performers, attractions, tourists stacking themselves up into pyramids, mass paranoia brought on by the release of that hallucinogenic gas from Batman Begins, and other typical city life.  They call it the London Eye because, like the Eye of Sauron, it watches over all the land and sends massive hordes of goblin-like beings at you. 

After checking out all the goings on, I crossed over the Westminster Bridge and went to see Westminster Abbey.  It was closed off, but I noticed that it was a building, with windows and a door, maybe even multiple doors, and other things that make a structure a building.  The gift shop had some Christian-y things, but I’m Jewish, so they kicked me out and told me never to return to this country.  I kept wondering why the church part was closed but the gift shop was open.  Keep Christ in Christmas, god damnit!  

At that point, I wanted to get some use out of my day pass, so I hopped on a bus and let it take me somewhere.  Where, I shall never know.  I roamed around many parsecs, crossing through the Andromeda galaxy, and ultimately arrived via the Interstellar Ultra Hyper Super Tube at Kensington Palace area.  It was already dark by then, but I pretended like I was a jogger so I wouldn’t get death-murdered or robbed.  Instead, I probably looked like I had just robbed a royal palace.  CCTV is tracking me down as we speak.  Anyways, it just so happened to be the day after the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.  The gate to Kensington Palace was covered in pictures, flowers, teddybears, etc.  A few old British ladies who were camping out in front of the gate engaged me in conversation about what a wonderful lady she was, because as old ladies they had nothing better to do.  Their persistence and unforgiving passion for a dead lady instilled more fear in me than any possibility of death-murder or robbery.  So I ran away, back to the tube, and returned to Victoria Station. 

Before I went back to my hostel, I inquired at the bus station about buses to Stonehenge that have the-need-for-basic-human-functioning toilets in them.  Luckily, National Express had a bus leaving at 7am and a return around 3pm, so I booked it.  That meant guaranteed little to no sleep. 

So I decided to end the day with a traditional British dinner: bangers/sausage and mash, and a pint of Guinness.  I’ve had Guinness before, but it tasted so much better here.  More like a thick, chocolatey dessert than a drink.  The server didn’t understand when I said “bangers and mash” and thought I said “bang her smashed.”  She had a one-track mind.  The bangers and mash were amazing.  Three sausages atop buttery mashed potatoes, covered in onions sautéed in red wine.  After being thoroughly filled up with British fare, I headed back to the hostel, where the three other guys and good ol’ Banana Pancakes guitarist awaited me.  I’ve decided that bangers and mash perfectly encapsulates my day in London: a mish-mash of delicious and intriguing sensory overloads topped with a sausage-fest.

Next blog – Episode 3: Between a Rock and Another Rock    

The Magic Not-So-Cool Bus

This trip.  Wow.  Vakken A.  This will probably be a trilogy, because I need to get to sleep.  I will write the other two parts tomorrow, and I'll add pictures to all three blogs when I'm back in Rotterdam.  

Episode 1:  The Magic Not-So-Cool Bus

Yesterday I took the Eurolines bus from Rotterdam to London.  I can't tell if it was the biggest mistake ever, or the most uncomfortable adventure of all bus-time.  To start, the bus was 20 minutes late.  What happened to Dutch punctuality???  With that lovely start to the day, all seemed to be going well: passing through the Dutch countryside, seeing new parts of Rotterdam, etc.

We first stopped in Breda, The Netherlands.  All was going well...until the bus driver hit an electric pole.  Yes, the kind that supplies live electricity to things.  He fucked up his side mirror, then went upon his merry business.  It was clear, at that moment, that this was going to be a long bus ride.  At some point when we got into Antwerp, I had to pee.  There was a bathroom on the bus, but the non-obvious door handle made it seem like someone was in there.  I was standing around for 15 minutes before a British lady yelled from her chair "Ju' tur' i' tew the roit!"  I had done that already.  But apparently my mojo wasn't flowing hard enough into the knob.  It needed that extra vote of confidence from a true Brit.  I was immediately greeted by a very smelly, backed-up poop stew in the "toilet."  I'll just leave it at that.

Our next stop was Brussels.  Bruxelles, je t'aime.  I forgot how much I loved being there.  All the memories and emotions of being a study abroad student FIVE YEARS AGO came flooding back when I saw the Atomium from the window.  The lovely feeling passed, however, when the bus driver let us off for a rest stop.  He stopped along the side of a non-descript road and gave us 30 minutes to do whatever.  I wandered around for about 28 minutes looking for lunch, but there was nothing in the area I could find.  Eventually, I found a Quick and ordered a "Beef Holiday."  As in, your health is taking a holiday.  I'm not proud of it, but damnit I was hungry!  I managed to make it to the bus on time.  Because the bus wasn't turning on.  I still don't understand what happened, but we were delayed for about 20 minutes while he repaired it.

A short while after Brussels, we stopped at a gas station, which happened to be a Delhaize!  I remembered it immediately from my Brussels trip as a pretty good grocery store.  I picked up a sandwich for dinner, and came across Andalouse Sauce, which is the nectar of the gods.  Again, my good fortunes soon turned to...not good fortunes.  The air conditioning turned off for a good hour.  It was kind of like sleeping in a greenhouse, except filling with the permeating scent of poop stew coming from the "bathroom."  The driver insisted that the A/C was working, until the rest of the bus mutinied and killed him.  We then had Sandra Bullock drive the bus instead but if she went too slow we would have blown up.  At least that's how I remember it.

Then, we encountered a massive traffic jam just before the crossing into England.  The bus driver took a diverted route of some kind for buses, and we ended up at a passport check point.  The customs agents joked around with their unfunny Britishness on display, all the meanwhile making me fill out a "landing card" because I didn't have a visa for the UK.  Once the ENTIRE BUS went through, we hopped back on for about 10 seconds.  Lo and behold, customs wanted to check EVERYONE'S bag.  Because the bus originated in Amsterdam.  And people from Amsterdam are 110% drug smuggling bastards who want to ruin this great kingdom.

After step 2 of border control was through, and we missed an earlier ferry (which was already behind our schedule), we had to wait around for half an hour until the bus could be loaded onto a ferry.  Awesome!  Looked like we were gonna finally make it to London!  ...but the ferry took 95 minutes to cross over to Dover.  (Speaking of which, I now understand the song Cliffs of Dover - that place has really tall cliffs!)

The second we drove off of the ferry into Dover, our bus was diverted to ANOTHER customs check point.  AMSTERDAM BUS! BETTER RECHECK FOR POT.  BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE WE CHECKED RIGHT BEFORE THEY GOT ON THE FERRY!  That took another half an hour :)  We were finally in England!!!  ...except that it was like 10pm and it takes 2 hours to get to London from Dover by bus.  The route just so happened to be covered in what's known in the bus trade as 0%-darkness-visibility-while-driving-on-cliffs.  Not the most frightening thing ever, but it was close.

We got into London sometime after midnight local time.  I then had the honor of walking by myself through dark sidewalks to the hostel, which was not as close as advertised by Google Maps.  Eventually I found the hostel, and had the even greater pleasure of notifying everyone who at that point probably thought I was dead that I was, in fact, not dead.  This is quite difficult when the Internet is powered by hamsters on running wheels.  When they stop running, so does the Internet.  At least at that point I could finally go to sleep...just as soon as that guy in the room next door would stop playing Banana Pancakes on his guitar.

Next blog - Episode 2: Bangers and Mash.

I'm going to Stonehenge tomorrow at 7am, so time for bed...

Until then - Cheers, mates!