6 posts tagged “travel”

sitting here in Pete's living room after a 24 hour travel day and 4 hours of sleep, it's hard to remember much of what happened in the week plus i spent in Paris after we got back from Amsterdam. things that bob to the top of my booze-sodden brain include:

• the Eiffel Tower at night
• the Freedom Pub, a generic American/British sort of place with no end of cute, friendly bartenders and Foster's on tap
• many, many World Cup games
  
• way too much beer
• having an amazing sandwich from the local bakery for lunch every day
• the tiny hotel room i spent a few days in to give Dennis and Aimee a break while everybody else crowded into their place - this hotel was notable for the strange but extremely cool pencil illustrations of superheroes hanging throughout the place
• the long, ridiculous weekend of drinking and chain smoking with Pete and MattHH
• so much beer

i feel very special and lucky to have been able to fly back into the States through Washington DC, which happened to be flooded at the time, causing no end of cancellations and delays and pushing back my arrival in New York by about 8 hours.

yesterday we got up late after staying up til 2am in our lobby on the computers (thanks to Lamont and Laurel for bringing me a chocolate waffle while i blogged). Allison and Aimee continued their artfest at the Rijksmuseum while the rest of us went to see the Amsterdam Dungeon.

i think we were expecting this to be a real old gaol with a tour, but instead we got an extremely cheesy, theatrical tourist attraction. along with a dozen other foreigners, we were shepherded through a series of rooms that reenacted various dark and creepy aspects of Amsterdam's history. there was a torture chamber room, where the torturer told us about how she was going to mash up a prisoner's cock and feed it to the little boy trapped in an iron cage next to her. then there was a plague room, where a dummy vomited blood into a bucket over and over. and let's not forget the trial room, where an Inquistion court presided over a trial against Dennis for crimes against fashion, due to the horizontally striped shirt that his wife let him wear outside the house. the whole thing ended with a rollercoaster ride through an abandoned church complete with dead organist. of course it was all set up to get us to shell out extra cash for photographs to remember our awesome experience by. needless to say, we all declined, and i wished i'd gone to see Night Watch and Nightwatching.

for the rest of the day i basically just wandered around. i didn't feel like doing anything touristy, so i passed on the Anne Frank Museum when the others went. i read the sections of my guide book about history, architecture and the sections of the city, and i wanted to see what the different neighborhoods looked like. later we caught the US/Italy match and celebrated the not-a-loss at a metal-playing coffee shop. this morning we caught the train back to Paris.

so it turns out that Amsterdam really is extremely great, and i hadn't just remembered it that way due to being completely stoned for the entirety of my first whirlwind visit. i figure next time i'll stay in a less touristy part of town and get to know some of the more outlying areas better. i'm completely over the oceans of drunken idiots in the Red Light District. maybe next time i'll rent a car!

so Thursday morning we got our Jesus on by visiting Sainte-Chappelle and Notre Dame. i was struck by a couple of thoughts:

1. it must have been rad to be the King of France and have enough money to build yourself a fancy private church connected by walkway to your giant ass palace because you can't be assed to walk a block to Notre Dame and stand around with all the peasants.
2. it must really suck to pray, confess or otherwise conduct any sort of true religious activity at Notre Dame and be stared at by thousands of tourists.

that afternoon we took the train to Amsterdam. that started poorly. when i went to pick up my tickets at the train station, it turned out that the system couldn't issue them to me because the expiration date on my credit card had changed since i initially bought the tickets. i had to pay €195 for a roundtrip ticket as opposed to the €65 my original tickets cost. supposedly i'm getting a refund in a few weeks, though it wasn't clear how much it will be. anyway, to make things worse, they double-booked our tickets, and two ladies who got on in Brussels were disappointed because we were already in their seats. derrrr.

once we got to Amsterdam, though, all has been well. Laurel and Lamont met us here. we're staying at an extremely cute little hotel off of Nieuwmarkt. the food has been amazing. today we walked around a lot. Dennis and I drank beer while everybody else went to the Van Gogh. eventually we settled down at a cafe to watch the Dutch play the Ivory Coast in hot World Cup action. our side won, and the streets went nuts. orange everywhere.

i just want say that i love this town and would really enjoy living here. the architecture is just amazing. everything's brick. i can't get enough of the brick. the locals are so chill - totally different vibe from Paris. and the language is just plain cool. look at all those extraneous vowels! i am thinking it would be fun to rent a place here for a month in the spring or fall. and i'm wondering if one can take Dutch anywhere around SF.

Update: Lamont just turned and looked at me and, without any prompting, said, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking all day". Amen brother.

Tuesday night i had dinner and a couple beers with SF pal and fellow traveler Allison and Paris-dwelling friend Shadok. i've known Shadok for like 7 or 8 years online, but i've never actually hung out with him before. super cool guy. thanks for dinner buddy!

on Wednesday Allison and i visited the Musée D'Orsay. i was pleased to find some of Toulouse-Lautrec's smut on display, including my new favorite, Alone. where can i get a print?!

after getting our culture on we walked along the Seine a ways. about halfway to the Eiffel Tower it started to rain, so we decided to leave that for an evening next week and walked back up to the Arc de Triomphe. we looked around for food, but apparently Parisian restaurants take a break between lunch and dinner, so it was back to Dennis and Aimee's for ham and cheese sandwiches. by the way, if you don't know this already, European mayonnaise is the best tasting food in the universe.

tthat night Aimee made tasty sausages and cabbage for dinner, and we sat around drinking wine, watching soccer, and laughing liberally. a perfect evening!

i'm happy to report that i've gotten the hang of the Metro very quickly and that my fabled direction sense has kicked in and made me the master of wandering the streets of Paris. i'm still sort of intimidated by the French attitude though. it's like i told Dennis: whenever i encounter a French person, i automatically feel like a douchebag and that i need to prove myself not. maybe i have a complex.

bonjour from Paris. boy it's hot here, but also very cute. Allison should be here soon. i haven't slept in 22 hours. i'm going to try to power through 8 or 10 more before sleeping. at least some of those will be spent leveling in the Western Plaguelands, with other, cooler ones dedicated to wandering around the neighborhood.

ps: i like GreenCine 's post titling convention, so i'm horking it.

flying to Paris today via DC. a little apprehensive about the journey from CDG to my friends' house, cos i know approximately 5 French phrases, but i'm sure it will all be fine. cross yer fingers that i get my biz class upgrade!