I'm going to attempt picking up exactly where I left off a couple of posts ago:
So if I remember correctly I was at a restaurant on the side of a small mountain in Eisenach. After the totally delicious plate of german food we continued hiking for about 2km more until we reached a really really cool castle. I have seen probably 50 or so castles on this trip, but that was the first one that I actually got to go inside and check out. I'm sure that I could write more about the day, but in the interest of covering about 2 weeks of material in one sitting I think that I'm going to have to spare some details.
I stayed with Danny until last wednesday. I have to say that her family is really really cool! I wish I could describe it in the way that I remember it, but I guess that it will have to suffice to say: The Kraters (that's the family name btw) are some of the nicest and most caring people I have ever met. Thank you!
Thinking back on the days that I spent in Mühlhausen, I don't really remember which order anything happened, so I'll list some of the major events:
1: Danny and I visited Erfurt, which is a medium large east german city. I remember whichever day it was being a lot of fun just going around shopping, eating, feeding ducks etc. Cool place though, and well worth the visit.
2: Hanging out with some of Danny's friends. This happened a couple of times. I thought that it was definitely a lot of fun. One of the times I went out for coffe at a local spot with Danny's friend Franci while she was busy at a meeting for the fire department (she voulenteers there in case you didn't already know). That was just a really cool thing to do, we pretty much just sat and talked for 2.5 hours, but it was really fun trying to express more difficult thoughts in German, and I feel like it was exactly the same for her trying to say more difficult things in English. There were also a handful of other times that I got to meet some of Danny's friends, one time we went bowling, and another time we had a picnic, and I have to say that there is something to be said for just having other people around. It's a lot of fun. Franci, Chang, Stephan, Krüger you are all some really cool cool people and I'm glad to have met you.
3: There was also a day in there that Danny and I took a trip to Weimar. That was really cool but at the same time really strange. In case you didn't know Weimar used to be the capital of the Weimar republic AKA East Germany. The city is a cool democratic city today, but it's really strange because a lot of residual buildings and statues are left over from the 40s. For instance I visited the old capital building, with all sorts of plaques on the wall glorifying facism. Cool, but very strange nonetheless.
4: I saw the 6th Harry Potter Movie. I know, I know after having not visited a movie theater in years I've seen 2 movies in the past month. Also a fun event with Danny's gang, and it was hilarious watching Ron dubbed over in German. His voice is just so opposite of the english version.
5: Went on a hike with Danny. It was just a hike but it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was still raining, and the hike was probably the second muddiest experience of my life... slosh slosh slosh!
I'm sure that there are probably 10 or so really cool other things that I am overlooking, but that is the brief recap of my awesome week and a half with Danny. Danny you are what I would consider a very good friend. Thank you.
On wednesday after I left, I had a booking for a hostel in Hamburg, but then realized exactly how dumb it was that I did that. Seriously! Wacken was thursday through saturday, and I booked a room for wednesday night. I realized that I had made this really really stupid booking error, and got onto a computer at an internet cafe in Hamburg to cancel it and got on the next train to Itzehoe. I was just chilling out at the Hauptbahnhof waiting for the train, when I decided to strike up a conversation with a couple or other black clothed Wackeneers. It turned out to be one of the most important and awesome conversations of my entire trip. The travelers were an Australian pair named Mary and Andy and they were just 2 of the coolest people I have ever met. I kind of followed these two along, and they offered to let me camp with them. We ended up chilling out together for the whole festival, and I made some awesome amazing friends.
I think that I will have to describe Wacken in full in another post. I could write pages about it. It was all at the same time one of the best, most fun, dirtiest, most disgusting, smelliest, and just overall amazing and eye opening experiences of my entire life.
And to end this post I just want to give a special shout out to all of the people here in Europe who have gotten me through this trip: Woulter, Marcelle, Oma, Craig, Kristina, Dimitri, Michael, Ewe, Danny, Jörg, Connie, Stephan, Chang, Franci, Mary, Andy, Liz, Oven, and all of the other awesome Norweigans and Aussies! Thank you all for all that you have done.
Catch you guys all back home in a couple of days back in America
Peas
Monday, August 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
I´m still alive everybody!
Hey guys I know that I haven´t written all week, but now is not the time to elaborate. Right now I am in Hamburg for a couple of hours before making my voyage to metal haven AKA: Wacken Open Air. I don´t think that I´ll have internets while I´m there, so you´ll probably all hear from me around the 2nd of August. Catch you then!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
3 of the best days!
The past 3 days.. or maybe it's 4 or 5 I don't really know... have been totally awesome. I'm pretty sure that the last time that I posted here I was in Köln and said that I would be leaving for München on the next day. Well what a surprise... that is exactly what I did!
Here's the abridged version.
I pulled into München at about 5:00 in the evening and had a little looksee to see what the city was all about, and it turns out that they have a really pretty center area. I then parked myself at a small park in the downtown area and played my guitar for quite awhile... I didn't want to walk more than 2 miles or so with my big pack. It was all pretty cool, I even met a kid and his father that offered to let me stay at there house after a 10 minute conversation. Germans are the coolest people ever. Anyways, after awhile I caught another train to Pasing which is the suburb of München where Michael lives.
After I got to Michaels house we went out to a local spot and and had a gigantic dinner with his friend Ewe (pronounced oovah), which was killer, and after that it was pretty late so we all went to bed.
I'm going to have to realise at somepoint that I will never be able to write as much detail in this blog as I would like... so I'm really going to commence the abbridgement this time...
The next day was pretty lax. Michael and I went out on the town to see some of the sights, but unfortunately it rained all day. So after a couple of hours of walking about in the rain we decided that we should do something indoors. So we went and saw the new Ice Age movie. It was the first time that I've been to a movie theater in like 3 years, and I have to say if mojvie theaters were as cool as they are in Germany I might actually consider going more often. Granted they are still absurdly expensive, but the seats are sooooo comfortable, like a really really poofy couch and the theaters and screens are altogether smaller. It's awesome, and luckily I could actually understand what they were saying in the movie! Yay for understanding german on a Kindergarten level. After the movie we pretty much just went back to the house and talked and then went to bed. We also ate dinner somewhere in there.
Sunday was probably the coolest day yet! Michael and I went out for the whole day for a bike tour of some of the Bavarian countryside. It was sooo fun and beautiful. We rode the whole day through tons of beautiful green farmland and rolling hills. It is totally beyond words. About 3/4 of the way through the ride we went "swimming" at a nudist beach on the side of a lake. I say "swimming" because only Michael did any swimming. The water was just too cold for me so I just chilled out outside of the water instead... worked on my tan. After we finally got home from the long day of bike riding (I worked it out and we went about 70km which is a little bit more than 40 miles.) I cooked Michael and Ewe a stir fry for dinner. It turns out that any food that isn't bread, cheese, or sausage is considered a foreign food and is bound to get mixed reviews... hopefully the next one turns out better. I'm going to not make it so spicy this time around.
Monday was something of a travel day. I caught a train from München to Göttingen to Mühlhausen, where Danny lives and it took about 5 hours. It was good to finally see Danny again... It has been more than a year! Danny and her mother Connie picked me up from the train station, which was killer and we didn't really have much time left in the evening after I got off of the train (Train is coincidentally the band that I am listening to as I write this), so I we had a wonderful homecooked meal, went on a short walk, and then pretty much just went to bed.
Today (it's 10pm ish here right now on Tuesday btw) was a lot of fun too. We had a delicious breakfast, and then made our plans for the day. Danny parents happen to be on their Vacation break right now, and so today we went to a town called Eisenach and went on a pretty cool hike. I wish that I could describe just how beautiful everything is here, the greens are jsut plain greener and the air is fresher. It's soooo beautiful. I love it! About 1/2 way through the hike we stopped a a little place up on the mountain and had another awesomely delicious german meal.
I'm going to cut it short this time.. I'll make sure that I finish my story on the next post. But I have to get to bed. Nobody likes the guest that stays up all night and makes a ton of noise typing.
Catch you all soon
-Jess
Here's the abridged version.
I pulled into München at about 5:00 in the evening and had a little looksee to see what the city was all about, and it turns out that they have a really pretty center area. I then parked myself at a small park in the downtown area and played my guitar for quite awhile... I didn't want to walk more than 2 miles or so with my big pack. It was all pretty cool, I even met a kid and his father that offered to let me stay at there house after a 10 minute conversation. Germans are the coolest people ever. Anyways, after awhile I caught another train to Pasing which is the suburb of München where Michael lives.
After I got to Michaels house we went out to a local spot and and had a gigantic dinner with his friend Ewe (pronounced oovah), which was killer, and after that it was pretty late so we all went to bed.
I'm going to have to realise at somepoint that I will never be able to write as much detail in this blog as I would like... so I'm really going to commence the abbridgement this time...
The next day was pretty lax. Michael and I went out on the town to see some of the sights, but unfortunately it rained all day. So after a couple of hours of walking about in the rain we decided that we should do something indoors. So we went and saw the new Ice Age movie. It was the first time that I've been to a movie theater in like 3 years, and I have to say if mojvie theaters were as cool as they are in Germany I might actually consider going more often. Granted they are still absurdly expensive, but the seats are sooooo comfortable, like a really really poofy couch and the theaters and screens are altogether smaller. It's awesome, and luckily I could actually understand what they were saying in the movie! Yay for understanding german on a Kindergarten level. After the movie we pretty much just went back to the house and talked and then went to bed. We also ate dinner somewhere in there.
Sunday was probably the coolest day yet! Michael and I went out for the whole day for a bike tour of some of the Bavarian countryside. It was sooo fun and beautiful. We rode the whole day through tons of beautiful green farmland and rolling hills. It is totally beyond words. About 3/4 of the way through the ride we went "swimming" at a nudist beach on the side of a lake. I say "swimming" because only Michael did any swimming. The water was just too cold for me so I just chilled out outside of the water instead... worked on my tan. After we finally got home from the long day of bike riding (I worked it out and we went about 70km which is a little bit more than 40 miles.) I cooked Michael and Ewe a stir fry for dinner. It turns out that any food that isn't bread, cheese, or sausage is considered a foreign food and is bound to get mixed reviews... hopefully the next one turns out better. I'm going to not make it so spicy this time around.
Monday was something of a travel day. I caught a train from München to Göttingen to Mühlhausen, where Danny lives and it took about 5 hours. It was good to finally see Danny again... It has been more than a year! Danny and her mother Connie picked me up from the train station, which was killer and we didn't really have much time left in the evening after I got off of the train (Train is coincidentally the band that I am listening to as I write this), so I we had a wonderful homecooked meal, went on a short walk, and then pretty much just went to bed.
Today (it's 10pm ish here right now on Tuesday btw) was a lot of fun too. We had a delicious breakfast, and then made our plans for the day. Danny parents happen to be on their Vacation break right now, and so today we went to a town called Eisenach and went on a pretty cool hike. I wish that I could describe just how beautiful everything is here, the greens are jsut plain greener and the air is fresher. It's soooo beautiful. I love it! About 1/2 way through the hike we stopped a a little place up on the mountain and had another awesomely delicious german meal.
I'm going to cut it short this time.. I'll make sure that I finish my story on the next post. But I have to get to bed. Nobody likes the guest that stays up all night and makes a ton of noise typing.
Catch you all soon
-Jess
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Cologne: It's kind of like the stuff to make you smell fancy, but instead it's a city in Germany
So it is once again late that I am writing this post. So I'm going to try and be quick about this one.
Last time I wrote I was in Amsterdam, and had been there for only a couple of hours, so I'll pick up right where I left off.
I woke the day after I last posted (tuesday) to the sound of rain on the skylight in the dorm room that I was staying in. I checked my phone. It was 8:45, so I got up as quick as I could, put on a shirt and got right downstairs to catch the end of breakfast. One thing that I have made a policy of mine on this trip is to never, ever waste a free meal. The breakfast was simple, just a couple of pieces of bread and some cheese, but hey it was still food! I also ate one of the apples that I had bought i Brussels b/c I was still hungry and then I hit the town. The hostel that I stayed at was right in the middle of the Museum district, but I didn't come to Amsterdam to see museums. I came to see the city. So I walked down to the a music store that I had passed on my previous trek through the city and played a couple of really really cool guitars. I have to say if anyone is looking to getting an accoustic, look into LAG guitars. They make really awesome bright sounding wonderful accousitcs for really cheap... 300$ or so. Anyways I continued to wander aimlessly through the more central areas of the town, and luckily I came by a sporting goods store. There I bought a sweet lightweight tent for Wacken! After I bought the tent I went ahead and headed back to the Hostel to put it away. This is when my day really got fun!
I went downstairs to check my email and such, and being the snoop I am I noticed that the guy next to me (who was also in my same dorm room) was checking out a roster for another music festival. It turns out that Craig (which was his name btw) had just been to 2 different music festivals. One crazy metal fest up in Sweden, and another mixed genre festival in Denmark. Craig was a pretty cool guy for sure. He has similar tastes in music to myself, but is 25 and hails all the way from Perth, Australia. Anyways I ended up spending the remainder of the day with Craig, he invited me along to meet a couple of friends of his, to get the locals tour of the city. It took awhile to actually find the people we were looking for, but it turned out to be worth the wait. Their names were Ella and Iris. We had tons of fun together. First we went to the grocery store, got some more stuff for sammiches, and a couple of 6ers of Heinekin. Then we went to a really beautiful park, and ate and had a couple of beers. After that we pretty much wandered aimlessly through every district in the city just like I would have been doing by myself, but it was way more fun with other people! Pretty much we just walked and stopped at a bar here and there to try the local specialty beers, and then went on our way. Also I have to say that walking through the Red Light district at night is something else. Picture yourself walking down a busy street like pearl street, and then imagine that all of the shops on said street only sell prostitutes, porn, sex toys, lingere, marajuana, beer, and pizza. That is pretty much the Red light district in a nutshell. I only went window shopping of course, but still it was an interesting place to say the least.
Anyways that was pretty much it for my day in amsterdam, the following day, yesterday, was sort of a travel day. I got up early again, got my stuff together and took my train to Cologne. I hung out in a park for a couple of hours,sunbathed and played guitar, and then I took off to meet Kristina and Dimitrij. We had an excellent home cooked meal, talked for awhile (it turns out that Kristina is pregnant! Congrats Kristina), and eventually went to bed.
Today I got up at around 9:30 which is really really late for Germans, and immidately started my day. Dimitrij let me borrow his bike, and we looked up a cool music store here, so I rode there, and then to the main square, to hang out there for a bit. Later on I went back to their flat, and caught up with Dimitrij once more. He invited me to come along for a new test drive for a car that these guys are planning on buying for when the baby comes. Now that was a lot of fun! We took the BMW that he was testing out on the Autobahn, and got it up to 240kph! That's about 150Mph! I've never been driven so fast in my life, but it was a lot of fun. After that I went back to the Flat, and then back downtown, to the trainstation, and bought myself a pass! For the next month I can now ride any domestic german train for free! Seems like a good Idea to me! I then came back to the Flat for the night and just hung out.
That is at least the abridged version of my past couple of days. I guess that I'll just have to get over it that I can never actually write everything!
I do however have more to ad to wierd things about germany.
1. German toilets don't have a switch/flusher like american toilets. They just have a big button that you push instead
2. Europeans in gerneral measure gas milage in liters per 100KM. This confuses me a lot.
I can't think of the rest of them. I'm going to bed so that I can get up bright and early for my train to Munich!
Bis gleich!
tchuß!
-Jess
P.S. Happy Birthday Kelsi!
Last time I wrote I was in Amsterdam, and had been there for only a couple of hours, so I'll pick up right where I left off.
I woke the day after I last posted (tuesday) to the sound of rain on the skylight in the dorm room that I was staying in. I checked my phone. It was 8:45, so I got up as quick as I could, put on a shirt and got right downstairs to catch the end of breakfast. One thing that I have made a policy of mine on this trip is to never, ever waste a free meal. The breakfast was simple, just a couple of pieces of bread and some cheese, but hey it was still food! I also ate one of the apples that I had bought i Brussels b/c I was still hungry and then I hit the town. The hostel that I stayed at was right in the middle of the Museum district, but I didn't come to Amsterdam to see museums. I came to see the city. So I walked down to the a music store that I had passed on my previous trek through the city and played a couple of really really cool guitars. I have to say if anyone is looking to getting an accoustic, look into LAG guitars. They make really awesome bright sounding wonderful accousitcs for really cheap... 300$ or so. Anyways I continued to wander aimlessly through the more central areas of the town, and luckily I came by a sporting goods store. There I bought a sweet lightweight tent for Wacken! After I bought the tent I went ahead and headed back to the Hostel to put it away. This is when my day really got fun!
I went downstairs to check my email and such, and being the snoop I am I noticed that the guy next to me (who was also in my same dorm room) was checking out a roster for another music festival. It turns out that Craig (which was his name btw) had just been to 2 different music festivals. One crazy metal fest up in Sweden, and another mixed genre festival in Denmark. Craig was a pretty cool guy for sure. He has similar tastes in music to myself, but is 25 and hails all the way from Perth, Australia. Anyways I ended up spending the remainder of the day with Craig, he invited me along to meet a couple of friends of his, to get the locals tour of the city. It took awhile to actually find the people we were looking for, but it turned out to be worth the wait. Their names were Ella and Iris. We had tons of fun together. First we went to the grocery store, got some more stuff for sammiches, and a couple of 6ers of Heinekin. Then we went to a really beautiful park, and ate and had a couple of beers. After that we pretty much wandered aimlessly through every district in the city just like I would have been doing by myself, but it was way more fun with other people! Pretty much we just walked and stopped at a bar here and there to try the local specialty beers, and then went on our way. Also I have to say that walking through the Red Light district at night is something else. Picture yourself walking down a busy street like pearl street, and then imagine that all of the shops on said street only sell prostitutes, porn, sex toys, lingere, marajuana, beer, and pizza. That is pretty much the Red light district in a nutshell. I only went window shopping of course, but still it was an interesting place to say the least.
Anyways that was pretty much it for my day in amsterdam, the following day, yesterday, was sort of a travel day. I got up early again, got my stuff together and took my train to Cologne. I hung out in a park for a couple of hours,sunbathed and played guitar, and then I took off to meet Kristina and Dimitrij. We had an excellent home cooked meal, talked for awhile (it turns out that Kristina is pregnant! Congrats Kristina), and eventually went to bed.
Today I got up at around 9:30 which is really really late for Germans, and immidately started my day. Dimitrij let me borrow his bike, and we looked up a cool music store here, so I rode there, and then to the main square, to hang out there for a bit. Later on I went back to their flat, and caught up with Dimitrij once more. He invited me to come along for a new test drive for a car that these guys are planning on buying for when the baby comes. Now that was a lot of fun! We took the BMW that he was testing out on the Autobahn, and got it up to 240kph! That's about 150Mph! I've never been driven so fast in my life, but it was a lot of fun. After that I went back to the Flat, and then back downtown, to the trainstation, and bought myself a pass! For the next month I can now ride any domestic german train for free! Seems like a good Idea to me! I then came back to the Flat for the night and just hung out.
That is at least the abridged version of my past couple of days. I guess that I'll just have to get over it that I can never actually write everything!
I do however have more to ad to wierd things about germany.
1. German toilets don't have a switch/flusher like american toilets. They just have a big button that you push instead
2. Europeans in gerneral measure gas milage in liters per 100KM. This confuses me a lot.
I can't think of the rest of them. I'm going to bed so that I can get up bright and early for my train to Munich!
Bis gleich!
tchuß!
-Jess
P.S. Happy Birthday Kelsi!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Amsterdam: need more be said?
So I realized that my journalistic style is getting kind of stale, so I decided that I will write this entire post in 3rd person narritive.
It was approximately 10:30AM when Jesse finally got off of the computer for his last session of meaningless blogging. He slid his chair back with the loud sound of metal grinding on tile to alert the teller that he was done. Jesse was as usual ashamed by his lack of knowledge with the French language. The teller wrote down a the number that he was to pay, and naturally he complied without a problem.
Jesse walked out of the internet cafe with a slightly puzzled look on his face. "where am I going to go?" he asked himself. He stood on the street in front of the interned shop for a couple of minutes before deciding that he would go back to the town sqare to look for the central train station. Jesse still needed to buy a ticket to amsterdam, and even beyond that he needed a ticket from Amsterdam to Cologne. And so he walked. He walked for some 2 hours before realising that he had no chance of finding the Central Station. He pulled out his map again and located the North station, to buy a ticket there, and so he walked once again with his guitar upon his back and wind at his side.
Upon his arrival at the North station, Jesse felt embarrassed. He didn´t really know why, but he did know that he did. It seemed like most everything was closed this day... but of course it was sunday! But unfortunately throughout all of the hustle and bustle and excitement of the past 2 and a half weeks travel, Jesse had forgotten this fact. "how peculiar..." he thought as he entered the main hall of the North Brussels Station, but alas he did find a ticket vendor. "May I get a ticket to Amsterdam for tomorrow please?" Jesse asked. "but of course!" the vendor bellowed with a thick dutch accent. "That will be 23€ please and I need to see your passport as well" Uh Oh! It was about this time that Jesse realized that the unnamed, peculiar feeling he had was that of being a stupid tourist. He had left his passport and credit card both in the safe at the hotel.
And so he walked. He walked for another hour back to the hotel to retrieve his essentials. And then he set out on foot once more. This time to the closer train station, the Midi at which he had gotten off previously. But before he ever got there he once again got sidetracked by that ever so enticing Flea Market accross from the Metro in one final futile attempt to find a tent, what he did find however, was a meal. He bought a game hen and potatoes for one to eat later that night.
And so after realising that there were no tents to be found, we walked to the Metro, and caught a subway train to the Midi train station. There he was able to buy 2 train tickets. One to amsterdam and one to Cologne from amsterdam. He was surprised by how easy the proccess was. Not a problem at all. And so he took the metro back and walked back to the hotel once more.
This was where Jesse made the biggest mistake of the day: Tired from all of the walking, he took another nap, and got up around 7:00 pm. He ate the dinner which he had previously bought at the market, and decided to take one more walk before calling it a night. And after his walk he once again retired to his quarters.
Jesse thought that he would call it an early night, and would fall asleep watching television, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Instead of falling asleep, Jesse watched the entirey of Ghostbusters on TV as well as 2 episodes of House. He was getting restless. He turned off the little glowing box called the Television and once again he tried to sleep. No avail! He tried harder, which didn´t work at all. Eventually he decided that since he wasn´t tired enough to sleep and would thus make himself such, so he exercised for 1 hour. He still had plenty of energy left over from his nap. After a long period of considering what exactly he was going to do about his predicament, Jesse finally decided to just calm down and let himself sleep naturally. It didn´t work. At least not then... and it was approaching 1:00AM. It was around this time that Jesse decided to think up some more plans for his trip, and so he did for 2 more hours, before finally deciding that he wasn´t going to make it to Fucking, Austria and would instead go to Wacken Open Air the biggest Metal festival in the world. With his mind resting comfortably upon this thought he finally fell asleep. It was 4:00 AM.
Sorry guys... I´m going to have to stop the 3rd person for the sake of time, speaking of which it is almost my bedtime... 2AM
Today was relatively uneventfull. I woke up at 8:00 painstakingly and had some breakfast. I went over to the internet cafe accross the street and found out 3 very important pieces of Info:
1. Dimitri and Kristina, who I mentioned in an earlier post from Basel, are happy to put me up in Cologne for a couple of days! Woo Hoo!
2. Michael in Munich is also willing to put me up for a couple of days. DOUBLE WOO HOO!
3. Danny in Reiser (The jr. year foreign exchange student) Is willing to put me up for a week! TRIPLE WOO HOO!
I have of cours planned accordingly. On the 15th I will leave Amsterdam to Cologne and on Friday I will leave Cologne for Munich, and finally I will leave Munich for Reiser on Monday! It should be a lot of fun. and cheap too! I´m really excited!
Anyways back to today... after the internet cafe I decided to go back to the Midi train station and catch my train to amsterdam. It all went just as according to plan and 3 hours later I was here.
Once in Amsterdam I immediatly procured a map and headed for the Hostel that I was booked at. It took about 3omins and 2 miles of walking to get here, but I did. After that I checked into my room, and went back out on the town. I just really walked for awhile. That was pretty much it. I guess that I did end up stopping in a grocery store and picking up some bread, salami, and cheese, which made a good economical dinner and will make another good economical dinner tomorrow. I also got a beer called the "Amsterdam Maximizer" with a whopping 11.6% alcohol and a 24Oz can. I didn´t drink the beer right away, instead I brought the food back, ate, and then went out and played my guitar in the park across the way.
When I got back around 9:00 I struck up a conversation with some other travelers from the east coast in the TV room and had my beer. It certainly did the trick for a little while at least, but of course it didn´t stop me from going out to Busk on a street corner! And so I walked to a certain corner that the east coasters suggested me, but on the way was stopped by another tourist. He turned out to be a cool guy. His name is Ellen, and he is from S. Korea. Apparently he also just came from Brussels but had a rather rougher time than I did. Someone stole his wallet, so all he had to go by to find his hotel in Amsterdam was the name. The Inner Hotel.
He seemed like a nice guy so I had him follow me back to the hostel to look up where his hotel was. It turns out that it`s less than a block away from this one.
Really tired and going to cut it really short now.
After Ellen found his hotel, I went back out one last time to the same steet corner I was headed to before and played for about 40 mins. I made 1,30€ but hey, It´s better than nothing. Then I came back here and started typing.
Anyways it´s late here now and I´m going to bed.
Sleep well all! Or be awake well all! Whichever makes more sense.
~Jess
It was approximately 10:30AM when Jesse finally got off of the computer for his last session of meaningless blogging. He slid his chair back with the loud sound of metal grinding on tile to alert the teller that he was done. Jesse was as usual ashamed by his lack of knowledge with the French language. The teller wrote down a the number that he was to pay, and naturally he complied without a problem.
Jesse walked out of the internet cafe with a slightly puzzled look on his face. "where am I going to go?" he asked himself. He stood on the street in front of the interned shop for a couple of minutes before deciding that he would go back to the town sqare to look for the central train station. Jesse still needed to buy a ticket to amsterdam, and even beyond that he needed a ticket from Amsterdam to Cologne. And so he walked. He walked for some 2 hours before realising that he had no chance of finding the Central Station. He pulled out his map again and located the North station, to buy a ticket there, and so he walked once again with his guitar upon his back and wind at his side.
Upon his arrival at the North station, Jesse felt embarrassed. He didn´t really know why, but he did know that he did. It seemed like most everything was closed this day... but of course it was sunday! But unfortunately throughout all of the hustle and bustle and excitement of the past 2 and a half weeks travel, Jesse had forgotten this fact. "how peculiar..." he thought as he entered the main hall of the North Brussels Station, but alas he did find a ticket vendor. "May I get a ticket to Amsterdam for tomorrow please?" Jesse asked. "but of course!" the vendor bellowed with a thick dutch accent. "That will be 23€ please and I need to see your passport as well" Uh Oh! It was about this time that Jesse realized that the unnamed, peculiar feeling he had was that of being a stupid tourist. He had left his passport and credit card both in the safe at the hotel.
And so he walked. He walked for another hour back to the hotel to retrieve his essentials. And then he set out on foot once more. This time to the closer train station, the Midi at which he had gotten off previously. But before he ever got there he once again got sidetracked by that ever so enticing Flea Market accross from the Metro in one final futile attempt to find a tent, what he did find however, was a meal. He bought a game hen and potatoes for one to eat later that night.
And so after realising that there were no tents to be found, we walked to the Metro, and caught a subway train to the Midi train station. There he was able to buy 2 train tickets. One to amsterdam and one to Cologne from amsterdam. He was surprised by how easy the proccess was. Not a problem at all. And so he took the metro back and walked back to the hotel once more.
This was where Jesse made the biggest mistake of the day: Tired from all of the walking, he took another nap, and got up around 7:00 pm. He ate the dinner which he had previously bought at the market, and decided to take one more walk before calling it a night. And after his walk he once again retired to his quarters.
Jesse thought that he would call it an early night, and would fall asleep watching television, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Instead of falling asleep, Jesse watched the entirey of Ghostbusters on TV as well as 2 episodes of House. He was getting restless. He turned off the little glowing box called the Television and once again he tried to sleep. No avail! He tried harder, which didn´t work at all. Eventually he decided that since he wasn´t tired enough to sleep and would thus make himself such, so he exercised for 1 hour. He still had plenty of energy left over from his nap. After a long period of considering what exactly he was going to do about his predicament, Jesse finally decided to just calm down and let himself sleep naturally. It didn´t work. At least not then... and it was approaching 1:00AM. It was around this time that Jesse decided to think up some more plans for his trip, and so he did for 2 more hours, before finally deciding that he wasn´t going to make it to Fucking, Austria and would instead go to Wacken Open Air the biggest Metal festival in the world. With his mind resting comfortably upon this thought he finally fell asleep. It was 4:00 AM.
Sorry guys... I´m going to have to stop the 3rd person for the sake of time, speaking of which it is almost my bedtime... 2AM
Today was relatively uneventfull. I woke up at 8:00 painstakingly and had some breakfast. I went over to the internet cafe accross the street and found out 3 very important pieces of Info:
1. Dimitri and Kristina, who I mentioned in an earlier post from Basel, are happy to put me up in Cologne for a couple of days! Woo Hoo!
2. Michael in Munich is also willing to put me up for a couple of days. DOUBLE WOO HOO!
3. Danny in Reiser (The jr. year foreign exchange student) Is willing to put me up for a week! TRIPLE WOO HOO!
I have of cours planned accordingly. On the 15th I will leave Amsterdam to Cologne and on Friday I will leave Cologne for Munich, and finally I will leave Munich for Reiser on Monday! It should be a lot of fun. and cheap too! I´m really excited!
Anyways back to today... after the internet cafe I decided to go back to the Midi train station and catch my train to amsterdam. It all went just as according to plan and 3 hours later I was here.
Once in Amsterdam I immediatly procured a map and headed for the Hostel that I was booked at. It took about 3omins and 2 miles of walking to get here, but I did. After that I checked into my room, and went back out on the town. I just really walked for awhile. That was pretty much it. I guess that I did end up stopping in a grocery store and picking up some bread, salami, and cheese, which made a good economical dinner and will make another good economical dinner tomorrow. I also got a beer called the "Amsterdam Maximizer" with a whopping 11.6% alcohol and a 24Oz can. I didn´t drink the beer right away, instead I brought the food back, ate, and then went out and played my guitar in the park across the way.
When I got back around 9:00 I struck up a conversation with some other travelers from the east coast in the TV room and had my beer. It certainly did the trick for a little while at least, but of course it didn´t stop me from going out to Busk on a street corner! And so I walked to a certain corner that the east coasters suggested me, but on the way was stopped by another tourist. He turned out to be a cool guy. His name is Ellen, and he is from S. Korea. Apparently he also just came from Brussels but had a rather rougher time than I did. Someone stole his wallet, so all he had to go by to find his hotel in Amsterdam was the name. The Inner Hotel.
He seemed like a nice guy so I had him follow me back to the hostel to look up where his hotel was. It turns out that it`s less than a block away from this one.
Really tired and going to cut it really short now.
After Ellen found his hotel, I went back out one last time to the same steet corner I was headed to before and played for about 40 mins. I made 1,30€ but hey, It´s better than nothing. Then I came back here and started typing.
Anyways it´s late here now and I´m going to bed.
Sleep well all! Or be awake well all! Whichever makes more sense.
~Jess
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Belgium: the land of chocolate, waffles, and the Flemmish people
I am writing this from an internet cafe accross the street from the hotel that I have booked. Unfortunately I am not a very fast typist on a french keyboard, but what can you do... All that it really means is that this post might just be a little shorter than the usual, but that said this past day and a half have been some of the most exciting times of my life! Life is just different when you're on your own.
So lets get down to it.
yesterday, the 11th, we woke up bright and early to catch Omas flight. It all turned out to be a breeze getting her on the plane. My end of it was easy as pie, relative to how difficult it could have been that is. There was only one problem: Apparently as the plane was descending into chicago the altitude drop made it really hard for Oma to breath... so they rushed her to a hospital in Chicago, were as far as I know she will be staying for a couple more days until it is safe for her to fly back to Vegas. I'm sure that she will do OK, she always seems to pull out of these things.
As for me, I took a train from the airport to the Bussels southern train station. It was only 2€ and I met two really nice people who helped me out. One of the people was a Femmish man named Vincent not much older than myself with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, he marked a couple of good spots to visit and play music on my map for me (he spoke english btw). The other was a kind black woman named Katie, we couldn't communicate so well because she only spoke remedial amounts of english and german, and I can only speak a very miniscule little bit of French, but luckily Vincent decided to be our translator, and Katie walked me to the Hotel to keep me from getting lost. She was going to a flea market around the corner, so it wasn't out of her way at all. I know what some of you are thinking right about now... "make sure that everyone is legit, and not just trying to figure out where you are staying to rip you off later" and my answer is this: I am the only one that knows my room number or my real name except for the front desk, and I am being very vigilant and safe, so no need to worry. Save my passport and credit card, which are either on my person or in a safe at all times, I hardly have anything worth stealing at all, unless they are looking for clothes.
Anyways after I checked into the Hotel, I got my stuff in order and headed off to the aformentioned flea market. I cant really describe how cool it was, but I'll give it a shot. Imagine 2 gigantic department stores, now imagine everything that they carry put together into one pile. Now imagine that all of that stuff is being sold out of market tents over an area about 4 blocks wide and 8 blocks long. That is kind of how it was. They had everything from clothes to food of every type, to TVs to Refrigerators, to deep fryers, to video games, to furniture ... the list goes on. And the best part is that it's all really cheap. I could have bought a watermelon twice the size of my head for 1€ for example. I even found a charger for my gameboy, but It didn't work and I didn't buy it, so I think that something is wrong with the gameboy itself. I ended up spending about 10€ total. I bought more fruit in the form of grapes and apples, some super gigantic carrots (another good travel food), some AA bateries, and of course some candy. Also I know that if I ever need underwear or business or really clothes of any kind for either gender. Flea markets are the places to get them for cheap! The one thing that I was on the lookout for but didn't find was a tent. I feel like I could really use one here... but I know that I won't need one for at least another 5days (Cologne is the next destination after amsterdam now btw) so I have some time to look around.
After the trip to the market I came over to this same webernet café and booked 3 nights in Cologne. I'm going to go get a train ticket after I finish this post also.
After that I went back to the Hotel accross the street and took a nap. It was much needed and I slept like a baby. I got up at around 6 o'clock and decided to walk the 10 blocks or so to the main part of town. It turns out that July 11th is the Flemmish independance day so I guess that that was just good luck on my part. They had a big stage set up in the city square and I stayed for this whole 3 hour belgian rock/pop concert. It was a lot of fun and I met a couple more cool people.
As I was walking back from the show I crossed a street drummer/performer, and asked him If I could join in. I had to play really loud to match his drums on my little tiny guitar, but it was a lot of fun. I let the drummer keep all of the money, he needed it a little more than I did, and then went back to the Hotel. It was a lot of fun.
Thus far today nothing really exciting has happened. I pretty much just got up, had breakfast and came here to the internet spot.
Little known facts about Belgium:
1: at least in Brussels, about 60% of people are black at least in my experience.
2: There are 4 national languages: French, Dutch/Flemmish, German, and English. Some people speak all of them, but the main language is definitely French here.
3: Belgian beer can be up to 10% alchohol by volume!
4: Belgian sinks have 2 faucets: one for hot one for cold
5: Flemmish is the most hilarious language known to man. It sounds soooo funny!
6: French/Dutch keyboards suck! The layout is:
&é"'(§è!çà)
azertyuiop^$
qsdfghjklmù
wxcvbn,;:=
The other annoying bit is that you have to use SHIFT to type numbers or . or ?
Thats about it til next time
-Jesse
P.S. The new Mars Volta album is supposed to be the best one since "Deloused" and from what I have heard it is AMAZING!
So lets get down to it.
yesterday, the 11th, we woke up bright and early to catch Omas flight. It all turned out to be a breeze getting her on the plane. My end of it was easy as pie, relative to how difficult it could have been that is. There was only one problem: Apparently as the plane was descending into chicago the altitude drop made it really hard for Oma to breath... so they rushed her to a hospital in Chicago, were as far as I know she will be staying for a couple more days until it is safe for her to fly back to Vegas. I'm sure that she will do OK, she always seems to pull out of these things.
As for me, I took a train from the airport to the Bussels southern train station. It was only 2€ and I met two really nice people who helped me out. One of the people was a Femmish man named Vincent not much older than myself with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, he marked a couple of good spots to visit and play music on my map for me (he spoke english btw). The other was a kind black woman named Katie, we couldn't communicate so well because she only spoke remedial amounts of english and german, and I can only speak a very miniscule little bit of French, but luckily Vincent decided to be our translator, and Katie walked me to the Hotel to keep me from getting lost. She was going to a flea market around the corner, so it wasn't out of her way at all. I know what some of you are thinking right about now... "make sure that everyone is legit, and not just trying to figure out where you are staying to rip you off later" and my answer is this: I am the only one that knows my room number or my real name except for the front desk, and I am being very vigilant and safe, so no need to worry. Save my passport and credit card, which are either on my person or in a safe at all times, I hardly have anything worth stealing at all, unless they are looking for clothes.
Anyways after I checked into the Hotel, I got my stuff in order and headed off to the aformentioned flea market. I cant really describe how cool it was, but I'll give it a shot. Imagine 2 gigantic department stores, now imagine everything that they carry put together into one pile. Now imagine that all of that stuff is being sold out of market tents over an area about 4 blocks wide and 8 blocks long. That is kind of how it was. They had everything from clothes to food of every type, to TVs to Refrigerators, to deep fryers, to video games, to furniture ... the list goes on. And the best part is that it's all really cheap. I could have bought a watermelon twice the size of my head for 1€ for example. I even found a charger for my gameboy, but It didn't work and I didn't buy it, so I think that something is wrong with the gameboy itself. I ended up spending about 10€ total. I bought more fruit in the form of grapes and apples, some super gigantic carrots (another good travel food), some AA bateries, and of course some candy. Also I know that if I ever need underwear or business or really clothes of any kind for either gender. Flea markets are the places to get them for cheap! The one thing that I was on the lookout for but didn't find was a tent. I feel like I could really use one here... but I know that I won't need one for at least another 5days (Cologne is the next destination after amsterdam now btw) so I have some time to look around.
After the trip to the market I came over to this same webernet café and booked 3 nights in Cologne. I'm going to go get a train ticket after I finish this post also.
After that I went back to the Hotel accross the street and took a nap. It was much needed and I slept like a baby. I got up at around 6 o'clock and decided to walk the 10 blocks or so to the main part of town. It turns out that July 11th is the Flemmish independance day so I guess that that was just good luck on my part. They had a big stage set up in the city square and I stayed for this whole 3 hour belgian rock/pop concert. It was a lot of fun and I met a couple more cool people.
As I was walking back from the show I crossed a street drummer/performer, and asked him If I could join in. I had to play really loud to match his drums on my little tiny guitar, but it was a lot of fun. I let the drummer keep all of the money, he needed it a little more than I did, and then went back to the Hotel. It was a lot of fun.
Thus far today nothing really exciting has happened. I pretty much just got up, had breakfast and came here to the internet spot.
Little known facts about Belgium:
1: at least in Brussels, about 60% of people are black at least in my experience.
2: There are 4 national languages: French, Dutch/Flemmish, German, and English. Some people speak all of them, but the main language is definitely French here.
3: Belgian beer can be up to 10% alchohol by volume!
4: Belgian sinks have 2 faucets: one for hot one for cold
5: Flemmish is the most hilarious language known to man. It sounds soooo funny!
6: French/Dutch keyboards suck! The layout is:
&é"'(§è!çà)
azertyuiop^$
qsdfghjklmù
wxcvbn,;:=
The other annoying bit is that you have to use SHIFT to type numbers or . or ?
Thats about it til next time
-Jesse
P.S. The new Mars Volta album is supposed to be the best one since "Deloused" and from what I have heard it is AMAZING!
Friday, July 10, 2009
PLANS!!! and I don't mean the DC4C album.
So for a little while there the gravity of just how serious staying by youself in a foreign country with only a backpack a debit card and some travlers checks to help you out was. But then just like always I bounced back and realised that this is going to be as fun as hell! I just wish that I could upload pics along the way, but unfortunatly I can't.
Speaking of which I already convinced Oma to lend me her camera for the remainder of the trip on the condition that I get her a copy of all of the pictures when I get back and that she gets to go back with her original SD card. It's funny becuse I think that she is still hesitant about letting the card see sunlight... funny and sad at the same time.
I've spent a couple of hours on the computer this evening and thus far have planned out my next 4 days... kind of...
What I know as of right now is that I will be in staying here in a hotel in Brussels for the next 2 days (the 11th and 12th) and then on the 12th I will be taking a train to amsterdam and spending 2 days in a hostel there... in a 10 person dorm. Could be interesting, I have no idea what to expect. I was considering going to Bruges just for the the luls, but then I realised that only a couple of people would find that funny at all, and that it's just plain not worth it. I guess that after Amsterdam I'll have to try and make it down to Fucking Austria, which has pretty much won the poll at this point. I don't think that they have a train station there is the real problem, so I might have to take a bus or something, but I really want a picture in front of the famous Fucking exit sign.
Tomorrow morning Oma catches her flight back which will be a relief. She just needs to get back to her home and take it easy. My biggest fear as of right now is that the temperature change might have some effect on her health, seening as it was the abrupt temp changes from the outside to the inside that probably caused her to get pneumonia in the first place. It was 108 degrees in Las Vegas today btw.
Today was kind of a headache with all of the travel. I got up at around 9:00 which wasn't too bad, cleaned up the apartment, made sure that I had all of my stuff, ate some bananas, and went to go return my key. Now this is where things started to get annoying. Apparently Oma thought that I told her that I would meet her in her room at 9:30, when the actual time was 10:30 and as soon as I had left at about 10:25 she apparently called the apartment, and was really worried. I went to the office to return the key expecting to be 5 minutes late or so for meeting Oma in her room, but when I asked for a reciept for the room, the receptionist was dumbfounded. She had NO idea what to do. It took, and i'm not kidding 25minutes to get the reciept, and then whe I went back to Omas room she was about ready to chop my head off for not answering the phone in the room that I wasn't in!
As the day progressed we were able to get Oma out of the hospital just on time to have 1 hour to walk the 3 blocks to the train station (no more wheelchairs for Oma, since she's not a paitient anymore). It turns out that that was the perfect amount of time. We caught our first train right on time to Cologne, and after a fair amount of convincing that I was indeed taking her to the right platform to catch the connection to Brussels, we caught that train too. We were so slow getting on in fact that we accidentally got on on the wrong car, but ended up getting to sit in first class when they saw that Oma was in no condition to get to our real seats. SCORE. We then took a taxi to the Holiday inn here at the brussels airport, and that is where I have spent this evening, and let me tell you it is kind of a cool place to be.
It's really high end for a holiday inn, and it's really modern, but by far the coolest thin is they have one of those murils that stretches down a really long hallway, but if you look at it from the right angle it looks like a 2D peice of art. It says SKOL in really big letters, which is kind of like the Flemmish (which is the main language that the Belgiens speak) version of "Cheers!" I have pix of it for when I get back. It's cool, and it feels kind of like you are warping space when you walk down the hall.
Now that I've properly vented I need to go to bed. It's about 12:40 now and I need to get up at 7 so I'll catch you all next time.
With love
-Jesse Kyle Jesse
Speaking of which I already convinced Oma to lend me her camera for the remainder of the trip on the condition that I get her a copy of all of the pictures when I get back and that she gets to go back with her original SD card. It's funny becuse I think that she is still hesitant about letting the card see sunlight... funny and sad at the same time.
I've spent a couple of hours on the computer this evening and thus far have planned out my next 4 days... kind of...
What I know as of right now is that I will be in staying here in a hotel in Brussels for the next 2 days (the 11th and 12th) and then on the 12th I will be taking a train to amsterdam and spending 2 days in a hostel there... in a 10 person dorm. Could be interesting, I have no idea what to expect. I was considering going to Bruges just for the the luls, but then I realised that only a couple of people would find that funny at all, and that it's just plain not worth it. I guess that after Amsterdam I'll have to try and make it down to Fucking Austria, which has pretty much won the poll at this point. I don't think that they have a train station there is the real problem, so I might have to take a bus or something, but I really want a picture in front of the famous Fucking exit sign.
Tomorrow morning Oma catches her flight back which will be a relief. She just needs to get back to her home and take it easy. My biggest fear as of right now is that the temperature change might have some effect on her health, seening as it was the abrupt temp changes from the outside to the inside that probably caused her to get pneumonia in the first place. It was 108 degrees in Las Vegas today btw.
Today was kind of a headache with all of the travel. I got up at around 9:00 which wasn't too bad, cleaned up the apartment, made sure that I had all of my stuff, ate some bananas, and went to go return my key. Now this is where things started to get annoying. Apparently Oma thought that I told her that I would meet her in her room at 9:30, when the actual time was 10:30 and as soon as I had left at about 10:25 she apparently called the apartment, and was really worried. I went to the office to return the key expecting to be 5 minutes late or so for meeting Oma in her room, but when I asked for a reciept for the room, the receptionist was dumbfounded. She had NO idea what to do. It took, and i'm not kidding 25minutes to get the reciept, and then whe I went back to Omas room she was about ready to chop my head off for not answering the phone in the room that I wasn't in!
As the day progressed we were able to get Oma out of the hospital just on time to have 1 hour to walk the 3 blocks to the train station (no more wheelchairs for Oma, since she's not a paitient anymore). It turns out that that was the perfect amount of time. We caught our first train right on time to Cologne, and after a fair amount of convincing that I was indeed taking her to the right platform to catch the connection to Brussels, we caught that train too. We were so slow getting on in fact that we accidentally got on on the wrong car, but ended up getting to sit in first class when they saw that Oma was in no condition to get to our real seats. SCORE. We then took a taxi to the Holiday inn here at the brussels airport, and that is where I have spent this evening, and let me tell you it is kind of a cool place to be.
It's really high end for a holiday inn, and it's really modern, but by far the coolest thin is they have one of those murils that stretches down a really long hallway, but if you look at it from the right angle it looks like a 2D peice of art. It says SKOL in really big letters, which is kind of like the Flemmish (which is the main language that the Belgiens speak) version of "Cheers!" I have pix of it for when I get back. It's cool, and it feels kind of like you are warping space when you walk down the hall.
Now that I've properly vented I need to go to bed. It's about 12:40 now and I need to get up at 7 so I'll catch you all next time.
With love
-Jesse Kyle Jesse
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