Hey everyone!!
Friday
I just got back in London at about 8:20pm from our loonnnng bus ride through Belgium, The Netherlands, and France. The ride from London to the dock is about 2 hours, an 2 more hour trip across the channel, and a three hour ride to Amsterdam! On the way there I slept most of the way since…but the coach bus was about ½ the size of a normal coach since there were only 12 people on the trip. Peter, Me, and Darrion (from California) made up all of the guys too…which was a bit surprising to find for an Amsterdam trip. We got into the city about 8 pm. From the first impression, I got that it was much dirtier, cramped, and reminded me a bit of how proper London (along with the rest of the world) is. The bus advertisements had a couple in an “intimate” position even! Haha. We got to our “three” star hotel then. Apparently the scale must be out of a 20 star ratio, unlike the typical 5 star ratio. But it still beat another group of kids idea of sleeping in an army tent for 8 Euros a night. The hotel was very basic, and I mean absolute bare, but for 21 Euros a night, what should you expect? It wasn’t too dirty in the rooms…just a big banged up. Peter, Darrion, and I shared a room, while the other 9 girls split up into two rooms. Next, our tour advisor took the whole group down to the red light district. What a crazy place!! It was particularly overcrowded with tourists, thieves, and/or drunk or high people. It was sad to see many girls resort to prostitution to form an income. A waitress told our group that many of the girls are smuggled from Eastern Europe in promise of better jobs, and when they arrive they must pay off the "prostituation mafia", so they are forced to work at the window. Since they don’t speak English or Dutch, it doesn’t help then communicate their problem with the local authorities even if they are willing to getting caught squeaking. After that, We broke off into two groups, and we went to the La Canna Café. I found out that our tour advisor is from South Africa, and he was a computer programmer. He wanted to take a break so he is living in London for a while as he tries to get a real job up here. After the 4 Euro Heineken, we went back to the hotel and called it a night.
Saturday
We started off at 8 AM when we set the alarms for 7…opps. The breakfast pretty much was bread, jam, and coffee. I wasn’t too thrilled to get up for the next one. We hit the road for Volendam, and arrived within an hour. The town was a nice break from the big city. It was so tiny and pretty. Many of the fisherman traded in their boats for leisure and opened up shops for the tourists. Traditionally, every dutch family should have a boat of some kind…and I’m also convinced that every person has a bike over there too. Amsterdam even beats Rome with the bicycle count! Anyways, after we watched a short slideshow on the history of the Netherlands, we were free for an hour. I bought a light jacket, and we went to Lunch at De Vrijheid. It was a small café, that looked like it had good food, since many locals were inside. I took a picture of the food also…bratwurst and a hamburger….very Dutch….well American! Then we headed back into Amsterdam, where I found a few cool shops. We went with one of the west coast girls to Anne Franks house, but It was closed (Sabbath day most likely). I got a decent picture from the outside though. After that excursion, we tried to find a place to eat, but we couldn’t make up our mind on what place to go to. Some went off for the Heineken Beer tour while we were looking for a sit down restaurant. Finally, we agreed on an Italian place, and the host rambled a lot of Italian right past me. All I could understand was Hello, …something for the two of you. We split up a pizza and went back to meet up with the other. Come to find out that the Heineken beer tour was closed, so we were lucky we didn’t get disappointed on that realm. We went back to La Canna Café, and a bum followed us for about 2 blocks begging for money. Peter handled in pretty well being that he was the one who had to deal with him. After brushing him off, we went and played the worst game of pool ever. The tables were tournament tables, with loose cue sticks…something I’m not used to. I still pulled off the win against Peter who couldn’t seem to figure out the pattern of which the cue balls returned on (they had 2 slots…odd). After that, and having Peter stop twice at New York Damn Good Pizza! (yes, it’s actually called that!), he went back to the room to sleep. As for me, I’m more of a late person, so I took out my newly deck of cards and went downstairs to the hotel’s mini club in the basement. I asked a couple at a nearby table if they wanted to play cards. We started off played asshole, and I got to know a bit more about them. They were Australian on a holiday out touring Europe for a few months. Some more from their group came and played other games like Snap!, and BS. I asked them about Fosters, and they said it was crappy beer back at home. They wanted to know if Budweiser was a common drink in the US (they specifically asked if the “everyday brickman” drinks it). Interesting view they have on us over here, and they were very friendly. After it hit about 2 am. We called it a night, and I went upstairs to retire for the night. I learned earlier in London that the easiest way to make friends in a unknown environment can be as simple as a deck of cards.
Sunday
Today, we woke up on time at 7! We packed up our stuff and the bus took us to the medieval city of Bruges in BELGIUM. I found out that I love Belgium also. They have great food, music, and scenery. Not as radical as the Netherlands, but much like the US in a way. We walked up to the town square, where I quickly found a music store and spent probably a half hour in there. Most of the Happy Dance Style of music that we refer to in the US as “Euro” is made in Belgium, plus I used to listen to a Specific Belgium Radio Station each week. The town was a lot bigger than Volendam. It still exists as one of the few medieval cities left since the industrial revolution passed by since the river dried up and trade no longer continued with other parts of Europe. One thing we noticed in both countries was that you had to pay .20 or .30 to use the bathroom even in a public place. It got annoying to break up a euro just to use the bathroom. The ACLU would be all over that if it ever broke out in America. Lol. We continued our journey back to Calais (northern France) where we caught the ferry and took it back to England. There was some major traffic jams on the way, particularly before port Calais and on the outskirts of London due to some roadwork. I got a little sleep in and some journaling for the BES class. Quite an impressive, busy, and tiring weekend.
Purchases from this weekend...
# posted by Joseph Trapani @ Sunday, October 02, 2005
