Saturday, December 12th 2012

            Early morning!  We woke up at 5:00 and packed.  Then we went to Oval subway station and took the tube to Kings Cross / St. Pancras international train station.  The subway ride was thirty minutes and after our gaffe in Brussels we didn't want to flirt with missing another train.  At the stop after ours two young guys got on the train – one had a broken umbrella with a wooden handle on one end.  He wobbled onto the train using the 'cane' like an elderly person. Very funny.

            We got to St. Pancras at 6:45.  We grabbed a quick latte and croissant at the train station and then onto bullet train.  It would be our last high speed train through Europe.  A little bitter sweet as it’s always exciting to travel via train in Europe (sad) but it also signals the more luxurious part of our vacation (happy).  In both Paris and Iceland we're staying in well-regarded hotels so our adventures with Airbnb (the service to rent out flats from denizens of the countries we) are done.

            As we were speeding along the French country in the bullet train my attention was drawn to what looked like an airplane-shaped kite hanging in the sky.  As we got closer I realized it wasn’t a kite – it was a real airplane…a small one-engined Cessna or something.  Normally when you see a plane you watch as the plane gradually disappears into the horizon – but we were going so fast in the train that we gradually passed it.  We were going faster than a plane...in a train. Very cool.

            We got dropped off in the Gare du Nord station and made our way back to the St. Germain section of Paris which is where our hotel is located.  The hotel is nice but the walls are paper thin.  The couple next to us is, umm, quite active…ahh…romantically speaking.

            It reminded me of a quote from my favorite comedy of all time, Dumb and Dumber,  “This is the life. Cold beer, a hot tub and paper-thin walls.”

            :)

            After unpacking our stuff we set off to buy Christmas presents for all our friends and family.  The front desk at the hotel suggested we go to Galeries Lafayette as we’d, “be able to satisfy all our shopping desires there.”

            We took a subway out to the galleries and it was basically like an American mall.  Spent five minutes there and then decided to head for Champs-Élysées where we had seen a bunch of small vendors selling authentic French goods during our first stay in Paris.  We must have imagined the vendors because there was basically nothing there for us to buy.  Exhausted we headed back for our hotel room, showered and then headed to Le Petite Prince for dinner (one of my friends had recommended it). 

            Most Parisians don’t eat until late and we got to the restaurant at 7:00.

            “We don’t open until 7:30.”  The maitre d said to us.  “Do you have reservations?”

            “No.”

            “Hmm.  Okay you can sit and wait until 7:30.”

            We sat and waited...hungrily.  Finally we were able to order…gnoshed on spiced shrimp and a rack of lamb.  It was delicious but we were exhausted and returned to our hotel and passed out.

Friday, December 14th 2012

            We woke up in a lazy mood.  The rain was coming down in sheets and Mena and I were a bit weary after the prior days travel.  As we lounged around our bleak apartment I told Mena it felt like I was a factory worker in Liverpool and this was our flat.  Very bleak. 

            While Mena was getting ready I walked downstairs and got us ‘white coffee’ and croissants with eggs.

            “How's your food?”  I asked Mena after I’d brought it back to the flat.

            “Everything tastes better in Europe.”  She said, smiling.

            I agree most things taste better here – some of it is probably our imagination but I also feel the ingredients are somewhat fresher in the UK and definitely fresher in Paris.

            We lounged around the apartment and then decided we needed to rally and get a move on.  We decided to head out to the London Tower and then work our way back to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace.

            We took the train to Waterloo and had the intention of walking across the Tower Bridge enroute to the London Tower but when we got out of the 'tube' (as its affectionately known in London) it was still raining.  Hard.  We were walking along the base of the subway station when we saw advertisements for the London Dungeon.  Now this is not something I think either of us would normally be interested in.  It’s the definition of a tourist trap – but the rain was coming down so hard our other sight seeing activities would render us soggy.  I had read somewhere that the London Dungeon was worthwhile but I couldn’t recall the specifics.

            “Do you want to check this out?” I asked Mena.

            “We might as well until it stops raining.”

            The exhibit was slated to last for ninety minutes and it cost is €48. Pretty expensive...

            We were both cautious entering the place, but dear lord am I happy we went in. The whole thing was very well done and I couldn't stop laughing every time Mena got spooked.  She clung to my arm as we went through section after section.

            Of course the workers, able to discern which tourists are scared easily picked Mena out of the crowd and she was the very first one they targeted.  A man walked up to her, his head dropping low and his eyes staring intently, as he yelled in her ear.  Poor girl!

            The rest of the time we were scared a lot and laughed even more. Atypical but glad we did it.  It was a fun hour and a half and by the time we’d finished the rain had dissipated a bit.  We walked across the bridge and started toward Trafalgar Square…Piccadilly Circus…

            (Not much to say about either place.  I find that I don't have as much to write about on this blog as opposed to my blogs detailing my other journeys.  Western Europe is just very similar to new York. There are not many moments where I'm blown away and compelled to capture it in a blog.)

            After Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square we walked to Buckingham palace. Although I’d been to London before I never saw the Buckingham palace and didn’t know what to expect.  It is a huge, library-esque building that doesn't really look like a house for the royal family.  We took a few pictures and that was that.             

Afterwards we walked back to the tube and made our way back to or flat.  We read, relaxed and then went out to dinner.  Originally walked to same pub we went to the night before but it was too crowded and noisy on a Friday night. Instead elected to go to an Indian restaurant.  (Since India was a colony of Britain there is a huge Indian population in London, and, consequently a lot of great Indian food).

            Oval Tandoori was the name of the restaurant.  The proprietor and wait staff were overwhelmed because there was a large party in the other room, and it took us forever to get served but the food was incredible.

            On the walk home I saw a guy leaning against a store front near our apartment.  He was clearly inebriated and was struggling to take off his shoe (for reasons which weren't readily apparent). As we got closer I saw he had a broken nose and had clearly gotten the $%*# kicked out of him that night.  It made me remember something I'd read on the travel guide for London.  Whenever I travel somewhere new I download the free, crowd-sourced Wikitravel information for each city and country we visit.  As Mena can now attest I am completely neurotic at making sure I know my surroundings and that I never put us (and more importantly, her) in danger. On each Wikitravel sheet it lists a 'stay safe' section where it details the crime threats, rip-off schemes and other idiosyncrasies of the place you're visiting.  For most places it lists petty theft and pick pocketing as the main threats. In certain places, like Vietnam, the threats are more severe in certain places – but that's neither here nor there.

            On the London 'stay safe' Wikitravel section it says that one of the 'biggest threats' are drunken English men fancying to get into fights after a night at the pubs.  Everywhere I travel I hear certain snippets of conversation over and over...Russian women are the most beautiful...Americans are rich and dumb...English men are bad drunks.

            As I watched the now one-shoe'd man wobble home to his flat I couldn't help but assume he was the bad drunk or he'd been beaten up by a bad drunk. Mena and I moved out of his way as he stumbled past, spitting blood on the floor. We made our way up to our luxurious (sarcasm) flat, packed and fell asleep. We had a 5:00 AM alarm the next morning to head back to Paris...

Video of our London flat at night...

London flat at night - NEW LINK

Thursday, December 13th 2012

             We left Amsterdam early, grabbing a coffee and yogurt from our hotel on the way out.  We were traveling from Amsterdam to London.  This required a train change in Brussels.  The ride from Amsterdam to Brussels was pretty uneventful, although our train was a little late (got in at 10:23 instead of 10:08).  No biggie.  We walked down into the train station, identified which track our next train was on (track 2) and got some food.

            While we were walking I turned to Mena, “Our train travel has been flawless so far.  What a great way to travel.”

            “Don’t jinx us!”  She said.

            How right she was…After getting baguettes, hot chocolate and Belgian chocolate we walked back to the main board showing the trains and their corresponding tracks.  Our train was nowhere to be found.  I had a bad feeling in my gut.  We walked to where our train was supposed to be and ran to the woman at the desk.

            “Hi we’re supposed to be on the 10:56 Eurostar train to London.”

            “You missed it.”

            “But its only 10:50?”

            “Eurostar trains require you go through security a half hour before the train departs.”  She said.  “Look at your ticket.”

            Arrgh…whoever reads all the fine print!  We’d taken two Thalys trains where you only needed to be on the platform two minutes before the train arrived.  Eurostar was completely different.  Who knew….

            The woman was nice enough and she booked us tickets on the next Eurostar train to London which was leaving two hours later.  Normally a two hour delay isn’t a big deal, but it was unfortunate in this situation for two reasons.  Number one we were only in London for one and a half days and number two we were supposed to meet with the people we were renting our flat from at 1:00 and now we wouldn’t even be getting into Paris until 3:00.  I was able to get on Wifi at the Brussels train station to email the people to let them know we’d be late…but we didn’t get a response so we had to get on the train without knowing whether they’d be there to meet us at the flat and hand over the keys.                       

            Airbnb (the service we’re using to short-term rent flats from people) is great because it allows you to experience what its like to live in these cities (as opposed to just plopping down into a hotel) and you also meet locals who can give you great suggestions.  The negatives are the logistics…coordinating key drop off times…figuring out where to meet…doing all this without a cell phone or WiFi in many instances. 

            Additionally, when something goes sideways (as it did when Mena accidentally broke a picture in London), it makes resolving the issue difficult.  The ‘picture’ that we broke in Paris was a poster in a cheap frame.  The whole thing literally couldn’t have cost more than $10.  When it broke Mena and I cleaned up the glass shards and threw them out as we didn’t want to leave a mess for the proprietor.

            I received this email yesterday from the person we rented from:

           

hi Joseph

i'm sorry to tell you there is a frame was broken and the picture inside was disappeared during you stay. also because that picture is the old paris photo post and its my friend's picture. and now i'm talking with the Airbnb Customer Service to figure out how to fix this problem.

best

lu

Here was my response:

Hi Louis -

We didn't have wifi in our hotel in Amsterdam so just responding to this now. Unfortunately as we were walking out of the door to catch our early morning train my girlfriend knocked the poster off the wall with her backpack. The glass shattered and cut the poster. We didn't want to leave the shards of glass so we cleaned it up and threw it out across the street. The poster and glass frame looked very basic to us and we figured we'd work with you and Airbnb to figure out a reasonable solution. Obviously we are sorry for the last minute accident and would like to make sure you are compensated for our mistake. I guess I'll wait to hear from you or the Airbnb customer support.

Sorry again,

Joe

            It seems as if the person we rented from is trying to make it appear as if the cheap poster in a simple glass frame was expensive.  Oh well…we’ll see what happens.

            When we arrived in London we took the Northern Subway line to our stop Oval.  We ate lunch at a crappy Middle Eastern place and waited in a café for our two hosts to show up.   We had to wait till 4:30.

            They showed up at 4:30 and they were both very nice people and it was a relief to deal with nice people after such a messy day.  The flat is…how can I say it…crappy.  At least from the outside it is.  It’s an industrially zoned building with a hallway imbued with all sorts of weird stains.  The flat itself is decent enough – small and humble, but all in all okay.

            After we got settled we followed our host’s advice and took the subway to the South Bank of London.  We walked along the Thames River and saw a German street festival, the London Tower, the London Tower Bridge and a slew of other buildings (that I don’t know the name of) all lit up beautifully in the night sky.

            We came home at night and went to a local pub near our flat called Fentiman Arms.  We ate the obligatory fish and chips and I drank some beer and we had a wonderful time.

Wednesday, December 11th 2012

             We decided to visit the Vincent Van Gogh museum today.  We took a tram all the way out to the museum only to find out it was closed. Sigh.  There were signs that certain pictures were being showcased at another museum…but it didn’t clarify which museum. 

            We walked to a man in a hot dog stand and I asked him if the Van Gogh Museum was definitely closed.

            “He nodded.”

            “Are they viewable anywhere else?”

            “Follow the red line in the trees.”  He said. 

            Hmm okay.  We followed a red line in the trees that danced between buildings and trees and streetlights and after twenty minutes we came upon the Hermitage Amsterdam museum where they were temporarily displaying Van Gogh paintings while the Van Gogh Museum was being refurbished.

            The exhibits were nice and it was incredible to see, up close, the individual brush strokes of some of Van Gogh’s works.  I found something new out about Van Gogh – he showed no talent for art as a youth and didn’t really start painting until he was twenty-seven when, after failing as a preacher and an art dealer he, “decided to become an artist.”

            It took him years of toiling and struggling but he was eventually able to master the craft.  An adage was written on the wall, "getting better must come through doing it and through trying."

            I have a lot of respect for the guy.

            Afterwards we ate at a shady (and kinda gross) shwarma place and headed back to our hotel feelings we’d experienced most that Amsterdam had to offer.  Once we got back we realized it was too early to retire so we set out for the Heineken Brewery Museum.  The museum was really well done and it was a lot of fun, albeit cliché and touristy.  Mena drank her first whole beer so that was cool.  :)

            We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner.  At the end I tried to pay, but apparently the card doesn’t work if it doesn’t have a ‘chip’ in it.  (Which American cards don’t).

            The man kept saying, over and over again, “There is nothing wrong with your card.  There is nothing wrong with your card.”

            “Okay then. How can I pay? Do you have another way to enter my credit card information.”

            He shook his head. He directed me to an ATM machine down the street but the place was closing down and I didn't want to leave Mena there by herself so I told her to come with me.

            “Sir do you mind leaving a card if both of you are leaving?”

            Really dude? Your machine is broken and now you're insinuating we're a flight risk?

            I shrugged.  “Sure.”

            I gave him a card, got the Euros, paid him and left him a very nice tip.

            “Just to make him feel bad for doubting us.”  I joked to Mena as we walked through the streets back to our hotel.

            Goodnight Amsterdam!

No More Pictures

Unfortunately I've used up all the memory on my computer.  I cant upload any more pictures without deleting some.  Sorry!

Tuesday, December 11th 2012

            We stayed out late on Monday night so waking up Tuesday morning wasn't fun.  The alarm went off at 5:15 and we were both up shortly thereafter showering, packing and preparing for our journey to Amsterdam.  As we were leaving Mena's backpack hit a picture on the wall and the picture fell and the glass broke.  Oh well.  We took the broken picture and pieces of glass off the floor and wall and threw it in the trash outside.

            The walk to Paris Nord station was 1.5 miles.  It was most definitely a good / painful way to wake up…slugging through the pre-dawn streets of Paris with forty pounds of gear on your back.  Mena was a real trooper and did her part to carry bags that were (seemingly) bigger than her.

            Paris Nord station, like all the train stations I’ve seen in Europe, was big and grand and elegant.  It’s the busiest train terminal in Europe with 190 million travelers passing through the concourse each year.  The interior and exterior of the train station are recognizable as they have been featured in countless films (as of late the Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum and Ocean’s Twelve) and books (DaVinci Code).

            Mena and I arrived a half hour before our train departed.  We ate pastries and drank coffee as we waited underneath the massive screen telling us which track we’d be travelling on.

            The high speed Thalys train from Paris to Amsterdam was nice.  Aside from a girl across the aisle that kept sneezing it was a quiet and smooth ride.  It’s hard to believe it reached speeds of 186 MPH…it felt like we were barely moving save for the entire train leaning gently from side to side as we hit the turns.

            Mena passed out and I became completely engrossed in Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novel, “A Moveable Feast” which detailed his time in Paris between 1921 – 1926 when he was rendezvousing with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Pablo Picasso.  The book is fascinating as it gives you a behind the scenes look at the struggles that Ernest and Scott faced as young writers.  It’s also interesting because it provides specific addresses of cafés, bars and hotel which still exist in Paris.

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

            Our hotel was a ten-minute walk from Centraal Station.  We had lunch, changed and walked to (Momma Singh close your eyes) the red light district.  As we wandered through the incredibly confusing streets of Amsterdam with our tourist-issued map we came behind a man walking down the street in a garbage-green hood.  Judging by his struggling, awkward gate I thought he was old.  I watched as he picked up a half-smoked cigarette from the floor and put in his mouth.  When we walked in front of him I was shocked to find he was a young kid.  A 25-year-old in a 55-year-old body.  His face had been ravaged by whatever his vice was – alcohol, drugs...whatever.  Scary to see someone so young and lost.  He was anywhere but Amsterdam.

            We just did a casual walk through of the red light district.  Women behind glass paneled booths accosted men walking down the street.  It was pretty weird to see it out in the open like that. 

            After the red light district we did a complete 180 and went to the Anne Frank Museum.  I remember reading Ann Frank’s diary as a child.  As my mother can attest I didn't like it...it was, literally, my least favorite book as an adolescent.  But it resonates more now that I was able to sit in the room she wrote it in.  The whole thing was tragic and touching.  She was an incredibly precocious and talented writer (and person) and it’s a shame she had to die.  At least she died for something and her legacy continues.

            After the Anne Frank museum we walked past the posh neighborhoods of Amsterdam.  My biggest take away from the trip to Amsterdam thus far is that the city gets a bad rap for the red light district but not enough credit for everything surrounding it – it is a profoundly beautiful, progressive and cultured city.  Not all about weed and prostitutes.

            Afterwards we went to Leidse Square and Mena ate bratwurst for the first time.

            “What’s in this?”  She asked me.

            I smiled.  "Sometimes it's better not to know."

            We took the tram back to our hotel and napped and read and wrote.  Later we took the tram out to an Indonesian Restaurant where we ate various 'rice plates' which I'd never heard of before but which are small amuse-bouche servings of various Indonesian foods – a lot of coconut milk, stewed meats and vegetables.  It was Mena’s idea and decision and it was excellent.

            We took the tram back with young kids looking for red light district.

            “They all look so young.”  Mena said.

            ‘They are.”

            I guess some of the appeal of going to these places fades as you get older.

Or maybe not.  I guess it all depends. 

            :)