Day 8-10: To Amsterdam!
We crossed two borders, three countries, and the only time we had to get out our passports was when checking into the hotel.
5th January
It was an 8 hour drive from icing-sugar-snow covered Paris and we stopped three times. The second time, I had scalding hot insta-soup and burned my tongue to heck. To keep myself from falling asleep or throwing myself out of the window from boredom, I filled up the drive by writing: plotting the arc which now has the fond nickname 'cause of death' (because once you, Sab, hear about the new direction I am taking with it, I will die. There will be death. You will kill me painfully, and when I am autopsied they will likely find ruptured eardrums), and planning a location I will call The Worst Holiday Destination Ever. I am open to discussion provided nobody mentions full character names (initials, maybe?) or specifics mainly Kia, because I never keep track of all the stuff I barf at you about.
We arrived. On the wrong street. At the advice of a shopowner, we parked on that street and walked to our hotel, a 1-star-with-free-breakfast thing with narrow stairways and 60 metres from the red light district. Then we went to the Anne Frank Museum, which is the actual house where they hid. The front is new, but the back is the same old house.
There was an amusing display at the end about what the limits of fundamental rights are considered to be, where the audience can vote on questions like, "Should the government be allowed to know what people read?" and, "Should Muslim girls be allowed to wear headscarves to school?" and see how many percent of the audience vote Yes or No at the end, along with a comparison of the audience breakdown against the overall average breakdown. I didn't vote because I was trying to guess the audience responses according to what society views as politically correct today, but there was one I did vote on: "Should people be allowed to burn the national flag?" Hell yes. Burn, baby, burn. (This says something about me.)
Then we went to an Argentinian steakhouse with a scarily friendly owner, where I had two platefuls.
6th January
Today we woke up just in time for the free breakfast (8-10am) and then walked to the van Gogh museum. It was nice, and well-done. Now I can sound snobbish and cultured too! Mother was feeling sick, so she sat in the foyer and slept while Jean-Yves and I toured the place, and then we took Mum back to the hotel and Jean-Yves and I went to a pub for lunch. He did Sudoku. I watched Real Madrid pulp VIllareal in soccer. En route to another pub, a crazy Canadian guy yelled all sorts of 'Canada pride' stuff at us because Jean-Yves was wearing a maple leaf beanie.
Then we went to the red light district, because there are only two things anyone goes to Amsterdam for: sex and pot. It was depressing and there were too many goddamn bicycles. Bicycles everywhere. (This is not a pun.) Still, I was amused to see that a shop selling male fetish wear had a marble plaque over its entrance commemorating the birth of Princess Helene. It's safe to say that nothing in Amsterdam is permanent except the architecture (and the bicycles, the stupid bicycles, the stupid, stupid bicycles which nearly ran me over about 15 times in a day): unlike Paris, there are practically no new buildings.
We also went to Chinatown, where I was terminally embarrassed by Jean-Yves accosting two random Asian guys to stand next to me in front of the Chinese temple. To . . . prove we were in Chinatown, I guess.
But I have reached a conclusion: I do not like Amsterdam. It's grubby and the streets do not make sense and the alleys near our hotel smelled of pot and the canals are filthy because they are frozen and with them the filth is frozen and the architecture is not as pretty and the men aren't sexy I don't care if the people here speak English well I WANT TO GO BACK TO PARIS thank god we are returning tomorrow. I hope Spain is not as saddening. Amsterdam is quiet, scattered and depressing; there are no parks here. I do not like it. :( It doesn't inspire me like France does. It just makes me miserable. The fact that I haven't showered in about 3 days is also contributing to my overall sense of unwell-being, I think. It's hard to go, "I LOVE THIS PLACE" when your hair is covered in enough oil to kill a small seabird and you can't get it out because the shower at your 1-star hotel doesn't work.
On the upside, the flower market was nice. And the souvenir shops are great. Amsterdam is practically a brand; they have caps and bags and t-shirts with nothing more than the name of the city in fancy script on them, and they sell. In true Amsterdam tradition they stock things like lighters with naked women on them, marijuana grinders, shirts with slogans like, 'Good guys go to Heaven, bad guys go to Amsterdam' on them (I wanted to buy that one so much, it would have been one of my favourite shirts) and what I am gleefully calling 'cock socks'. Guess what those are for. No, really, guess. Hint: if you are thinking 'footwarmers for domestic avians', you are thinking wrong.
Also,the church bells are lovely, but it is so damn anachronistic to hear them in the red light district.
7th January
Out of Amsterdam! Our parting gift from the Netherlands was a coating of snow everywhere, which made Amsterdam a little more attractive.
En route we stopped off in Brussels, capital of Belgium, where we saw the famous Mannekin-Pis and I got some Belgian chocolate truffles. I liked Brussels better than Amsterdam. It was quiet, but it was a pretty sort of quiet, and the architecture was a lot nicer-looking. Also, walking around the place gave me ideas. That's always a good sign. We ate in a pub, where I had some kind of Helvetican pizza that I had to use the back of the knife to break the crust with, and they gave a little Godiva 50% dark chocolate with the hot chocolate I asked for.
Back in Paris. Hot shower. Pillow that is not made of rock. No goddamn bicycles. Mmmm.
5th January
It was an 8 hour drive from icing-sugar-snow covered Paris and we stopped three times. The second time, I had scalding hot insta-soup and burned my tongue to heck. To keep myself from falling asleep or throwing myself out of the window from boredom, I filled up the drive by writing: plotting the arc which now has the fond nickname 'cause of death' (because once you, Sab, hear about the new direction I am taking with it, I will die. There will be death. You will kill me painfully, and when I am autopsied they will likely find ruptured eardrums), and planning a location I will call The Worst Holiday Destination Ever. I am open to discussion provided nobody mentions full character names (initials, maybe?) or specifics mainly Kia, because I never keep track of all the stuff I barf at you about.
We arrived. On the wrong street. At the advice of a shopowner, we parked on that street and walked to our hotel, a 1-star-with-free-breakfast thing with narrow stairways and 60 metres from the red light district. Then we went to the Anne Frank Museum, which is the actual house where they hid. The front is new, but the back is the same old house.
There was an amusing display at the end about what the limits of fundamental rights are considered to be, where the audience can vote on questions like, "Should the government be allowed to know what people read?" and, "Should Muslim girls be allowed to wear headscarves to school?" and see how many percent of the audience vote Yes or No at the end, along with a comparison of the audience breakdown against the overall average breakdown. I didn't vote because I was trying to guess the audience responses according to what society views as politically correct today, but there was one I did vote on: "Should people be allowed to burn the national flag?" Hell yes. Burn, baby, burn. (This says something about me.)
Then we went to an Argentinian steakhouse with a scarily friendly owner, where I had two platefuls.
6th January
Today we woke up just in time for the free breakfast (8-10am) and then walked to the van Gogh museum. It was nice, and well-done. Now I can sound snobbish and cultured too! Mother was feeling sick, so she sat in the foyer and slept while Jean-Yves and I toured the place, and then we took Mum back to the hotel and Jean-Yves and I went to a pub for lunch. He did Sudoku. I watched Real Madrid pulp VIllareal in soccer. En route to another pub, a crazy Canadian guy yelled all sorts of 'Canada pride' stuff at us because Jean-Yves was wearing a maple leaf beanie.
Then we went to the red light district, because there are only two things anyone goes to Amsterdam for: sex and pot. It was depressing and there were too many goddamn bicycles. Bicycles everywhere. (This is not a pun.) Still, I was amused to see that a shop selling male fetish wear had a marble plaque over its entrance commemorating the birth of Princess Helene. It's safe to say that nothing in Amsterdam is permanent except the architecture (and the bicycles, the stupid bicycles, the stupid, stupid bicycles which nearly ran me over about 15 times in a day): unlike Paris, there are practically no new buildings.
We also went to Chinatown, where I was terminally embarrassed by Jean-Yves accosting two random Asian guys to stand next to me in front of the Chinese temple. To . . . prove we were in Chinatown, I guess.
But I have reached a conclusion: I do not like Amsterdam. It's grubby and the streets do not make sense and the alleys near our hotel smelled of pot and the canals are filthy because they are frozen and with them the filth is frozen and the architecture is not as pretty and the men aren't sexy I don't care if the people here speak English well I WANT TO GO BACK TO PARIS thank god we are returning tomorrow. I hope Spain is not as saddening. Amsterdam is quiet, scattered and depressing; there are no parks here. I do not like it. :( It doesn't inspire me like France does. It just makes me miserable. The fact that I haven't showered in about 3 days is also contributing to my overall sense of unwell-being, I think. It's hard to go, "I LOVE THIS PLACE" when your hair is covered in enough oil to kill a small seabird and you can't get it out because the shower at your 1-star hotel doesn't work.
On the upside, the flower market was nice. And the souvenir shops are great. Amsterdam is practically a brand; they have caps and bags and t-shirts with nothing more than the name of the city in fancy script on them, and they sell. In true Amsterdam tradition they stock things like lighters with naked women on them, marijuana grinders, shirts with slogans like, 'Good guys go to Heaven, bad guys go to Amsterdam' on them (I wanted to buy that one so much, it would have been one of my favourite shirts) and what I am gleefully calling 'cock socks'. Guess what those are for. No, really, guess. Hint: if you are thinking 'footwarmers for domestic avians', you are thinking wrong.
Also,the church bells are lovely, but it is so damn anachronistic to hear them in the red light district.
7th January
Out of Amsterdam! Our parting gift from the Netherlands was a coating of snow everywhere, which made Amsterdam a little more attractive.
En route we stopped off in Brussels, capital of Belgium, where we saw the famous Mannekin-Pis and I got some Belgian chocolate truffles. I liked Brussels better than Amsterdam. It was quiet, but it was a pretty sort of quiet, and the architecture was a lot nicer-looking. Also, walking around the place gave me ideas. That's always a good sign. We ate in a pub, where I had some kind of Helvetican pizza that I had to use the back of the knife to break the crust with, and they gave a little Godiva 50% dark chocolate with the hot chocolate I asked for.
Back in Paris. Hot shower. Pillow that is not made of rock. No goddamn bicycles. Mmmm.