Wasser Mit Keine Gas

8:00 PM Zurich

We love Switzerland... but this rain is relentless. We would love to spend tomorrow exploring the old town portion of Zurich but the weather forecast says 90% chance of rain with potential 1 inch accumulation. Lovely. We're certainly paying for all the beautiful weather we had in Amsterdam! The Paris hail storm rendered our cheap umbrella useless so we tossed it and purchased two new ones today for CHF 8 each. Not only does the rain get old... but sharing umbrellas sized for one person gets old as well! Total umbrella cost for this trip? 10 euro + CHF 16... so $30 ish? That'll teach us to travel in the spring!

We arrived in Zurich this morning (one hour train ride) and had the good fortune of being able to check in early. Our room here is quite nice - bed is comfy and we finally have our own bathroom again. We're nestled in a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood - according to wiki, about half the entire Jewish population of Switzerland resides in the Zurich metropolitan area. Unfortunately, we're a bit far from the action and the public transportation here is a little hard to get used to. They don't have a subway system, but the trains are similar to the Metra in the Chicago land area (except that they come around a lot more often) and there is an electric tram system that runs on the streets (like buses!). So far we've gotten our feet wet (quite literally... puddles everywhere and relentless rain) with the Zurich public transportation system between getting to our hotel and then back to town for dinner.

We could have had dinner in our neighborhood but we braved the weather to go back into town. We had our most expensive European dinner yet at Santa Lucia, an Italian restaurant that had a very strong local feel. Our server did not speak English and there were no tourists in there besides us. They had a wood fire oven and the pizza I ordered had real Italian sausage on it. Yum. By the way, the server asked us if we wanted wasser mit gas... as in carbonated water. We said no, mit keine gas - with no gas - and we were given a bottle of Acqua Panna (some Pellegrino brand) and it cost us CHF 5.20. Ouch. Good thing we got it, though, because Andy ate the red peppers they put at the end of the table... spicy!

Speaking of food, Andy wants to bring the Swiss style hot dog back to Chicago and make a fortune. In the Lucerne train station, we ordered hot dogs from a stand and were handed hot dogs nestled inside a loaf of pretzel bread with some ketchup ... see pictures:

This bread + this hot dog is just to die for :P We think that the only way to make it better is to make it Chicago style with relish, onion, tomato... We think we could make a killing selling this at home!

We're home early tonight and will probably sleep in, in order to best prepare ourselves for a day of sight seeing in the non-stop rain. We don't have too much planned - I want to go to the big church, Grossmunster, and just have a look around the old parts of the city. The good news is that the weather looks great for Munich in a few days! We're really looking forward to that - I already booked us for a free three-hour walking tour of the city! What a bargain :) On the way home from dinner, we stopped at the train station grocery stores (apparently all train stations have groceries stores?) and picked up some strawberries and croissants for breakfast... and two bars of chocolate. Addicted. I mean, what would you do if you could get the finest chocolate for less than $2 at the grocery store?? The answer is, eat it with every meal.

High Expectations Being Met

10:34 PM Lucerne

Lucerne is like out of a dream... I don't think I've been anywhere this beautiful (OK, I've never been to Colorado, I bet it's pretty darn close out there). A lot of Lucerne's charm comes from the old looking town nestled in the most beautiful, mountainous landscape you can imagine. The people are very friendly and all speak English and the majority of tourists are Chinese or Indian and getting shuttled in on buses and led around by a tour guide. The tour groups entertain us, and we think to the time when our travel agent tried to sell us on tour packages... we're very glad we didn't go for it. We're too... well... I want to say free spirited... we're definitely that... but we're also too... shall I say, aimless? We don't like being told where to go and when. Andy went on a guided tour through parts of the UK a few years back, and although had a very good time, still would have preferred to make his own experiences. A lot of times those groups tell you where to eat, how long you have at particular sights, where you can go, etc. If you're into making your own rules, don't be afraid to be your own tour guide.

Today we went back up to old town for some coffee and quiche, as I mentioned in the previous post. We walked up to the Dying Lion:

The Lion Monument of Lucerne, or Dying Lion, is a memorial for Suisse Mercenaries who were massacred by revolutionaries during the French Revolution in 1792. It is also well known that Mark Twain remarked that this was the saddest and most moving piece of stone he had ever seen. The injured and dying lion is indeed very emotional and moving (as I stand there smiling in front of it ... really though, I was moved).

After that, we did our grocery shopping for our picnic tonight, and took advantage of the ATM in the train station (money goes quick around here). We're trying to take it easy, so we went back to the hostel to drop our food off and rest a bit before going to the wall and climbing the towers. The Museggmauer Wall was built in the late 14th century and supposedly used to have 30 towers. Today it has nine and tourist are allowed to climb three of them (within park hours). We climbed two and got to see the most spectacular views in Lucerne.

 Climbing up the towers! It felt like a lot of steps for our sore legs but the views were well worth it!

Just one of the views from the top. Lucerne is one of those places where no picture or memory really ever be as beautiful as the real thing. You just have to be there.

Back at the park by our hostel, we had our picnic dinner of pretzel bread, cold cuts, fruit and wine we got from the grocery store and enjoyed the sunset over the lake. There were quite a lot of people out there with us and we like how it seems that just as many people appreciate the nature surroundings as much as we do. We talked about how staying in places for only two or three nights really makes you prioritize. For example, Lucerne has a lot of old churches and historic spots that we could have visited but we chose to focus on the nature, views, and parks. We have no regrets! Zurich tomorrow :)

Pacing Ourselves

A Europe trek is like a marathon, if you start out sprinting as fast as you can, you're never going to make it through all 26.2 miles without collapsing. With that being said, we started out way too fast in Barcelona. We were walking very far, very quickly when we should have been taking the subway. Now, almost two weeks in and we want to see just as many things, but we're only able to walk about a quarter the distance :P Andy also has some "overuse tendinitis" in his foot (diagnosed via Dr. Mom over facebook) so we have to take it easy. My advice? Don't do too much, too fast. Use the subways whenever possible (if walk is longer than 15 minutes or so) and don't speed walk everywhere. The Eifel Tower will still be there when you get to it and Europeans all stay out late, so that cafe you want to get to won't shuffle you out early.

After roaming around Lucerne some more this morning, we're back now, to take a break, and the internet is fast enough here to actually add some pictures to the blog! So here are some teasers before I put up the entire facebook album!

Rainy day in Luzern and that dang hood won't stay put! Good thing it has a pull string, I am styling!

This bridge (without me in it) has been my laptop wallpaper for a full year - I was so happy to finally get to see it!

I almost didn't post this picture because it's just SO unflattering... lol. But I had to, to capture the moment. Here we are with our slabs of Luzern-made chocolate ($22 of it!) and enjoying every bit of it. Andy's was gone in about 10 min flat. I still have some of mine :)

So it is some sort of Catholic holiday today... being the confirmed Catholic that I am, I have no clue what holiday it is :P Unfortunately, the local shops are all closed and only the big restaurants, chain cafes and tourist stops remain open. Bad timing for us. We did find a place to eat and everything in the train station is open, including the grocery store.

Let's talk about my sticker shock for a bit... coffee (no free refills) sitting in a cafe is CHF 4.50 (remember, 1:1 with USD), fresh squeezed orange juice CHF 6.50. Two pizza-slice-sized pieces of quiche, two green salads and two small chocolate truffles, CHF 25.50. Andy says I'm just in shock because the conversion to dollars is so close, when in reality, we were paying the same amount in dollars in France because a single euro is worth about 1.4 US dollars. So my 3€ coffee at the cafe in Amsterdam was still CHF 4.50 or $4.50.   Next, groceries. Today we paid CHF 4 for like 7 strawberries, CHF 3.50 for cold cut ham, 3.50 for bread, and 6.90 for French wine. Sound like reasonable to only slightly pricey groceries? Moral of the story: when in Europe for extended periods and on a budget, go to the grocery store and get some picnic items for the majority of your meals. Andy and I have not eaten at an actual restaurant in Switzerland - the average price of an entree with meat is CHF 30... and all you readers know I'll want a drink too... it's just not worth it for us.

Andy made a good point, stuff that flies over my head and the heads of many sticker shocked Americans in Europe - the American government subsidizes a lot of our food to keep the prices low and we make up for it in taxes. The tax rate in Switzerland is virtually zero and the business owners get to keep a lot more profit. We also produce a lot of our own food in the US, keeping our prices down as well. Some things should be kept in perspective: there is no tax on food here and we don't tip the servers or bar tenders. If we stopped and thought about how much we paid in taxes in addition to how much we tip, the cost margin seems a lot less dramatic. Food for thought. (No pun intended.)

Apfelsaft in a Wine Bottle

5:47 PM Lucerne

                WE’RE FINALLY IN LUCERNE! IT’S EVERYTHING WE HAD HOPED IT’D BE! Everything went SO smoothly this morning that it almost felt like this how travelling is for people who aren’t as naturally as unlucky as we are! We got up at 5AM – so early – and I had had maybe two hours of sleep because there was a huge shift and people staying in our room and all the newbies felt the need to introduce themselves and small talk in the room at 11PM the night that we have to be up at 5.  With maybe a total of 2 or 3 hours of sleep at best, we got up to head to the train station.

                Before I go on about our travels to Switzerland, Andy thought I should mention a funny conversation we overheard yesterday at dinner.  Seeing as the blog is called Two Engineers Take on Europe and so far, nothing has really mentioned why being an engineer would make us any different than ordinary college aged travelers.  Yesterday at dinner there were four middle aged people at a table, a Canadian couple and a Dutch couple.  The Canadian woman was talking about all sorts of topics that she really didn’t know much about but one made Andy and I stop our conversation to listen to her.  It went something like this “… well in Greece you see solar panels everywhere! We need to do something more like that. Say, I have a black hose that I use to water my plants and in the summer, it absorbs so much heat that it takes like 15 minutes of running the water for it to cool off again! I should be able to run this hose along my roof and use the heated water for my house!” lol, right?  A whole lot is wrong with this idea… even entertaining the fact that it actually did take 15 minutes of running water to get to cold water again (I think our hose is 45 seconds at most in the summer), that would be enough water for maybe ¾’s of one person’s daily shower?  Also the whole point of a parabolic solar trough is to take advantage of more area to collect the sun’s energy and focus is on a section of a pipe – therefore getting more energy per unit length.  The pipe (or hose??) doesn’t have enough surface area to absorb radiation to make it an efficient system.  Winding your black hose around your roof for your water supply? So silly. Anyway, these are the kind of things we’re talking about regularly.

                Getting back to our travels to Switzerland and onto my next rant about hating the US company called Rail Europe or Eurail.  This is the company I bought my train passes from (about $444 each, btw).  The website is absurd and tries to make it seem like they’re making your life SO much easier by allowing you to do everything through them and not through the European rail companies, while nickel and diming you all the way through.  Here are my guidelines for taking the trains in Europe:

   1.       If you plan on taking the train (high speed or normal) more than 4 times in one trip, it’s worth your while to buy a rail pass from Rail Europe

   2.       Here’s where it gets tricky – some rail companies in Europe require “seat reservations” and some don’t.  If you don’t make reservations (ie, just hop on with your rail pass), you can be fined, in some cases.  Rail Europe likes to say, just make your reservations through us! No problem! So Andy and I try (not wanting to repeat our cargo hold train ride) try to reserve our seats for our long ride to Munich this week.  Rail Europe tries to charge us $13 each for the reservations and then another $36 shipping and handling… and get this… the ONLY OPTION for s&h was overnight shipping to my house in Waukegan. What.

   3.       Andy and I, furious at this point, say forget it. We’ll deal with this at the station

   4.       When you go to the train station, your first stop should be the information counter. They always speak great English! Present your Rail Pass and Passport and they will activate it for you.

   5.       At this same counter, make all your seat reservations.  Most of the times you don’t need one and these people will KNOW (better than freaking rail Europe) when you need one and when you don’t.  Oh and the cost? 5 Swiss Francs. Or approximately $5 and some change.

So after taking a train from Amsterdam Central to Schipol Airport, we hopped on our Easyjet flight to Basel Switzerland (one hour, nbd), hopped off, hopped on the 50 Bus to Basel SBB train station, got our rail passes activated and hopped on the 10:17 train to Lucerne.  So easy.  In Lucerne, we stopped in the Swiss Travel Agency who took care of all our seat reservations through Munich (absolutely no hassle and CHF 10 total cost).  My advice? Don’t be afraid of the European rail companies. ESPECIALLY in Switzerland! Haha. This country really has it together.  The American company is nickel and diming you for crap like reservations and such – also reading their schedule is difficult and frustrating.  They’re the only company you can get the passes through, though, so just get your passes and handle the rest through the European companies.

It was raining in Lucerne by the time we got there, so the walk to the hostel was pretty grey and wet.  We’re literally staying in a dorm that has the bottom two floors as a hostel.  We have our own balcony and we’re 2 minutes walking from the beach!  We walked up to old town and saw the famous Lucerne bridge and bought some lunch from a bakery and some fruit from a market.  We bought a bottle of wine on a whim because it was such a good deal… only to find out it was actually apple juice.  Andy’s German is pretty rusty… “ apfelsaft” is apple juice. Not wine. Who puts apple juice in a wine bottle?! Anyway, as I write this, I’m swigging my juice from a wine bottle. Picture that.

        Everything is expensive here… we knew that coming in.  Two peaches and two nectarines cost us CHF 5.60 (about 1 to 1 with dollars) and our sandwiches were CHF 5.80 each.  We also bought huge slabs of chocolate which was really not cheap… CHF 22.70… buttttt we’re in Switzerland and it was made right here! The Lindor truffles are only CHF 2.80 for a box, though. WOW. The town is mostly peaceful and full of locals… but the bridge… just loaded with crazy tourists! It’s like the busses just dropped them off right there and that’s all they do. 

        Back at the hostel, we walked to the beach and ate our sandwiches and stalked by a very angry swan (what is it with these birds?)… who actually scared us away.  He was terrifying and charging all the other birds.  So obnoxious.  When the coast was clear of devil swans, we enjoyed the rest of our food and the view… our view was the lake and many churches, homes and other buildings scattered along the hillside.  On the other side, our view was picture esque mountains with snowy tops and clouds formed around them.  None of the pictures I took did it justice.  Switzerland is breathtakingly beautiful.

Oh you're American? I love Americans!

2:00 PM Amsterdam

                This morning we purposely slept in and skipped the hostel breakfast.  Once we were ready to go, we organized all our dirty clothes into one bag and headed to the Laundromat (currently waiting for our clothes to dry).  It’s 5€ to wash and 2€ to dry – it isn’t a bargain but it’s worth it. The machines only take coins but in Europe the 1€ and 2€ coins are used generously.

                Our hostel has a kitty that just lives here and it’s currently hanging out in the bar area sitting on the stools, and meowing for snacks.  It’s a very social kitty!  Our clothes are almost dry, though, so I will have to finish this post later. Today we’re going to a few markets and a very big park in the do-nothing-hang-out area marked on the map!  Yesterday in the market there was a guy selling antique figure skate blades that people tied to their shoes in old times.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures because there were signs everywhere saying NO PICTURES UNTIL YOU BUY! So rude.  But as Andy mentioned, an older gentleman came up to us and pointed to a particular set of blades and then to a nasty scar on his arm and said… playing hockey when I was 12! Too bad I didn’t have any cool scars to show him… just stupid I-burned-myself-while-making-caramel scars :P

                Okay, we’re back in the hostel again and it’s about 7 PM.  We walked quite a bit today, south of the hostel and the city center.  We saw the same street performer with the 10ft unicycle and heard him tell a couple of the same jokes as yesterday... (Oh you're American?! I love Americans! I love their accents - instead of ore-gah-no it's oregano!) We went to the Heineken brewery but it was 18€ per person for the “Heineken Experience” which I presume is a brewery tour and beer tasting (sheesh, for 18€, that better come with beer!), but we decided since we don’t even like Heineken that it wasn’t worth the money.  We’re really excited about the beer in Germany!  Along the canal, there were a lot of green houses set up selling flowers, plants and LOTS of tulip bulbs! The ceilings inside the greenhouses were completely covered with hanging flowers – so beautiful.  A couple streets further, there was an open air market that was literally just the stores along that particular street expanding their merchandise onto the sidewalks and streets in a market fashion.  You could walk along this street and buy everything from clothes, to art, to toothpaste and shampoo and frying pans. 

                At the park, almost the entire lawn was covered with people picnicking! There were kids everywhere throwing sticks in the water, chasing ducks and climbing trees.  Not a whole lot happened today, honestly.  Amsterdam has been really chill!  We had Mexican food for dinner – we both love Mexican and it’s a LOT harder to find here!  Tomorrow we have an early flight to Basel, Switzerland, then a bus to the Basel train station and then a train to Lucerne.  Our hostel in Lucerne should be similar to this one (except we’ll have our own room! Woo!) and it’s two minutes walk to the beach and 15 minutes from the famous bridge that we can’t wait to see :)

                Short post today but I didn’t want to bore you all! Next time I check in, I’ll be in Switzerland!

"Can we just go in there and shit?"

10:43 AM Amsterdam

                For the first time on this trip, we’re sleeping a lot and not walking a million miles per day.  The absence of soreness in my legs and feet was surprising at first, but then I remembered that they’re not actually supposed to chronically be hurting! Yesterday we got up around 9:30, okay I got up at 9:30, Andy was sick all morning (see his blog post) so he was up at like 6. Ha. The free breakfast included with the hostel is not good at all, although it was probably made worse due to the fact that we really weren’t feeling well yesterday morning… There is some bread to make toast, cut up apple or orange, hard boiled egg and two choices for cereal, mystery flakes or mystery cocoa pebbles.  The coffee is Nescafe (ouch, I’m really missing Marie’s breakfast!); the room to sit in to eat is downstairs and has a really bad funk in the air that was making our stomachs turn.  Then someone came down and sat next to me who smelled really bad… needless to say, breakfast was not a very pleasant experience for us :P

                After going back to bed for a while, we got up, showered, and set out in search for some decent coffee and food.  We had some crepes and coffee at a nearby bar where people were already drinking beers and smoking (it’s about noon) and then a little while later, had a ridiculous looking hot dog from a vendor.  They were hot dogs in a gigantic bun covered in cheese and pepperoni like a pizza.  Talk about grossly delicious!  Holland is known for its dairy, so there are cheese shops everywhere and the cheese on this dog was delicious. The hot dog itself? Well I’m a bit of a hot dog snob but these weren’t even as good as the cheapest Oscar Meyers at home.

                Amsterdam is such a wonderfully chill city; you really never feel unsafe when walking around.  Even the narrow alleyways that look dodgy still feel safe; and you know by now that if Amsterdam had a dodgy section, Andy and I would find it.  We walked around the canals into a residential area and then through that to a park by a college. We think part of what makes this city so chill is the lack of traffic.  Pretty much everyone rides their bikes and the bike roads are almost as big as the real roads!  You also have to be super careful as a pedestrian, because the cyclists rule the roads.  I saw this woman get massively “schwinned” by a biker who was not about to stop because some tourist didn’t look both ways before crossing the bike path! Public restrooms aren't very common around here, though, I actually had my first encounter with a bathroom that actually charges you (50 cents) to use the toilet.  It's always a question of "where are we gonna pee?!" if we've been just wandering around for half the day and not sitting anywhere to eat or near the hostel. Today we overheard a couple frazzled Americans looking to find a toilet and one said to the other "can we just... go in and shit?" and Andy and I burst out laughing. Americans.

With our luck, we just bought Andy a new sweatshirt the day before, only to have to weather turn from cold to amazingly sunny and warms.  We sat in a plaza with a big Rembrandt statue in it and had ice cream (mmm Haagen Daas) and got stalked by some excited pigeons.  If you can’t tell by now, we’re not really doing anything in this city except walk around, sit in parks and eat!  We got a bottle of water from a convenience store and the guy short changed us by 2 €. You have to watch out for that in Europe – a lot of tourists just assume they’re getting the correct change back and don’t check.  I read that it’s mainly people working exchange booths but it could be merchants as well.  Always know what your price should be, and always count your change.  Andy was paying attention like always and we got our 2€.

                The street performers in Amsterdam are pretty exciting, we saw one guitarist (not very good), a cello player (very good!) and a guy doing a trick/comedy show involving a 10ft unicycle, knife juggle and whatnot.  We stopped by and watched his show for a good 20 minutes (see the pictures when I post them!), we gave him the 2€ we almost got short changed!  We figure a guy who can ride a 10ft unicycle while juggling machetes is deserving of our 2€ coin. Ha.

                We spent the rest of the night at the hostel, blogging, organizing train tickets to Switzerland, drinking (a little), and eating pizza.  There isn’t really a ton to do in this city outside of drinking and smoking.  There are some spots on the map marked with live music but who knows if that’s only during the weekends and they’re not that close by the hostel.  Today we’re walking to a large park with spots on the map called “Do-Nothing Hang Out Spots” – our hostel owners do have a sense of humor.  So we’re off to do nothing and hang out!  We have to do our laundry first though… what a drag.  There is a Laundromat right next door that we’re going to – apparently Andy’s sick of wearing dirty clothes :P

You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden

9:35pm Amsterdam

                Today I awoke in the early hours of a stifling, summer camp-esque bunk room to the sound of whispering Spaniards spraying an ozone hole’s worth of body spray on themselves. My stomach and the suffocating smell of body spray had me writhing in agony, as I had had far too much to drink the night before. I raced to the bathroom to relieve my stomach; and as I mistakenly washed my hands with the conspicuously placed toilet cleaner I thought to myself, “So this is backpacking through Europe”. So far, this journey has been the experience of a lifetime.

                Amsterdam is like nowhere I’ve been before; it’s fascinating. The city is brimming with life and activity, yet there’s not an ounce of a sense of rush here. Locals coast their bikes at a comfortable pace, tourists scurry from alleyway to alleyway in search of the next intrigue, and electric railcars slowly pace about; stopping for the occasional oblivious tourist standing on the tracks. The entire town seems to embrace the smaller things in life.

                After a brief recovery period, we managed to pull ourselves out of bed as not to miss the free breakfast. It was a simple meal; some fruit, toast, and watery coffee. We decided perhaps we would need something a bit more substantial, so we made our way outside. To our delight, it was a gorgeous day outside; warm, sunny, and breezy –the kind of day you only see a handful of a year. We took a short stroll around the block and stopped at a diner for some European coffee and some of the Dutch’s famous pancakes. The pancakes and coffee were phenomenal –thin and soft, buttery, served with powder sugar and thick-as-molasses syrup. Still hungry, we stopped at a local hot dog vendor and, after lamenting at the lack of Portillo’s, grabbed a couple of hot dogs for the road. Revitalized, we set off for a day of exploration.

                The map that the hostel provided was full of useful suggestions for activities. We saw a marking for a botanic garden on the east side of town and decided to head that way. We wound through the alleyways and over the many canals of Amsterdam. The day was beautiful, the flowers and trees in blooms of purples and whites, and the canal boats calmly and quietly cruising about the petite waterways. The town really never seems to stop the festivities. Although it was late morning, we saw people sitting outside drinking beer, madams setting up their windows for the day, and the bars and smoke shops full of patrons.

                The garden was in a more local part of town. It was small, but beautiful. Small wooden tables and benches, well kept grass, rows of flowers dotted with a few trees. There were a few cheerful locals reading and enjoying the weather. One odd fellow, and old man, even briefly approached us about the crazy weather before leaving us with “you never promised me a rose garden” and biking off (apparently it’s a quote from a famous country song, and he was trying to be clever. I found it quite entertaining).

 Walking through the city we were approached several times by friendly locals striking up small conversations. I felt so welcomed. We went to a small market with tents selling all kinds of old wares. As Becca spotted some ancient looking skates and an old man happening to pass by stopped to show us a scar he got when he was twelve years old from a skate running over his arm. Even the beggars here are pleasant. We were approached by one passing by on his bike; he greeted us warmly and had a short chat with us before asking for spare change. When I denied him he just said “that’s okay, have a nice day!” and peddled off. I wish he were a bit ruder, then I wouldn’t so feel bad about not giving him anything.

                We sat down for some ice cream at Rembrandt Park, enjoying the locals playing music. One young man was playing the cello masterfully. I had forgotten how much I love classical music. We finally settled on the dock of a charming canal and sat barefoot in the sun, our seemingly first time to relax and do “nothing” on this trip. It was wonderful.

                Towards the end of the day we came upon a great crowd gathered in a large public square, buzzing with tourists and railcars. The crowd was congregated around an energetic, middle aged Australian man with a small portable microphone, speaker, and various props. He was making some hysterical jokes (mostly at the expense of crowd members) as he attempted to juggle and catch hats on his head. It was a long show for a street performer, with a great finale including him using crowd members to climb atop a 10 foot high unicycle to bike around while juggling scimitars. As his show ended, he paused to ask for donations, and he asked in a way I’ve never encountered before.

                He gave a short speech about what he does. He comes out every day, works hard and makes people laugh and smile, even if it’s for only 30 minutes. He said that his performance is his job and that “I’m not on welfare, I’ve never been on welfare, because I have a job, and you all pay my salary”. It struck me all of a sudden and sort of to the bone. He and some (I’m sure plenty do in fact collect welfare) of the other street performers go out and try to do something with their lives. I generally do not tip street performers unless I find them to be truly spectacular, but his speech did make me stop and think (and yes, I tipped him a few Euros, because his performance was fantastic). Regardless as to whether or not he’s telling the truth, living in the suburbs I hardly ever see homeless or street performers, but on this trip I have seen so many that the reality of poverty has been a recurring thought.

                Afterwards we returned to the hostel to the familiar sounds of loud music, young people smoking and drinking, and an overall dorm-like living situation. Many of them are constantly coughing, even in bed, perhaps they should lay off the weed a bit. Honestly though, it’s a lot of fun. Everyone is very nice and social, and it feels very safe (the back alley is even fenced in with razor wire, which I found simultaneously comforting and disconcerting). I’m very grateful that Becca found this hostel. It’s right in the thick of the action; it’s clean, safe, and a riot! She also booked a similar type of hostel in Munich and Vienna, and I can’t wait to see what those are like. We grabbed a couple of rounds of beer at the hostel’s bar and headed to bed early. Tomorrow is a new day of exploration.

X-Rated Amsterdam

6:00 PM Amsterdam

                Sorry for delay on daily blog posts! Andy and I had a bit too much fun last night in our hostel in Amsterdam and I was not in a good shape for writing ;) Yesterday we enjoyed the room in Brussels and since the whole town was dead (because it was Sunday), we headed back to Brussels Midi station quite early for our 4 PM train to Amsterdam.  The train to Amsterdam was overbooked so we actually did not have seats – we were allowed to look for empty seats after departure in our designated coach cars but there were none available.  So even though we paid over 70€ for our tickets, we had to sit in the entrance area with everyone’s luggage. Awesome. It wasn’t so bad, though, honestly, because there were small pull down seats – we just had to watch out for luggage tipping over on us.  By the time we had passed Rotterdam, there were enough empty seats for us :) Want to avoid this happening to you?? Book well in advance! Two days is not enough apparently. Lol.

                The Amsterdam central train station is only a 10 minute walk (if that!) to our hostel downtown - Flying Pig Downtown.  We’re right in the middle of the action in this city that never sleeps.  We’re surrounded by clothing stores, cafes, restaurants, bars, and special Amsterdam “coffee shops”.  For those of you not familiar with “coffee shops”, they are special bars where you can smoke weed, drink coffee, beer, whatever you want.  We’re also right down the street from the Red Light District – on our walk to lunch we see girls in the windows beckoning you to come inside.  Prostitution is considered like any other job in the Netherlands, they are protected by the government and pay taxes on their earnings.  They are also taken care of if they contract HIV – the government here will give them some sort of equivalent of unemployment benefits and a place to live. The purpose is to keep the business as clean and classy as prostitution gets. Ha. 

Amsterdam isn’t really known for any really big attractions, like the Eifel Tower or something, but tourists from all over the world flock here to enjoy the Netherlandish life pleasures… sex and weed :P The souvenir shops are raunchier than your local Spencers (I hope mom likes the penis shaped salt and pepper shakers I got her!) and there are sex shops and head shops (drug paraphernalia shops) more often than Starbucks in Chicago’s loop.  The markets sell cannabis lollipops and on the first night we went looking for a hoodie for Andy (he didn’t bring one because the weather was supposed to be warmer… and he thought people would start noticing that he was in the same long sleeved sweater in every picture!) and we had a really hard time finding one that wasn’t obscene (didn’t have drug references, sex references, etc). 

Out of pure curiosity we wandered around into the sex shops, saw some porn titles I REALLY didn’t need to see (some people are into really sick things…) and quickly wandered out.  We paid 4€ to go to the sex museum – inside it had some really tacky/raunchy mannequins but it also talked about sex throughout the ages, the development of the porn industry and even had some of the earliest porn strips (photographs from the late 19^th century).  It even had ~2.5ft stone penis carved in the Roman Age! That took some dedication :P

For dinner, Andy had a traditional Dutch meal called Hutspot.  It was a soup with a giant meatball and more mashed potatoes than I could ever eat.  We agree that the food here isn’t worth raving about and we’ll save our money by eating street food for the rest of our time here.  After dinner we wandered into a 70’s themed bar (not really on purpose… there were so many bars, we were overwhelmed with the decision of picking one..) and met a nice Romanian couple (the girl was sucking a cannabis lollipop… lol) but just had one drink because they were pricey.  I had full intentions of writing this last night… but there is a very good deal on beer pitchers at our hostel bar… so uh… well that answers that ;)

This is the first place where we’ve really given up all our privacy.  We’re staying at this wonderful youth hostel in a 32-person dorm.  The reception desk is attached to the bar that is serving beer and food from 10:30AM to 3AM. There is a smoking room but it is closed off so the whole place doesn’t smell like smoke.  For those of you wondering – we are not taking part of in legal weed consumption… mainly because I have to take a pee test for my new job the week I get back!  Apparently my other 2 pee tests this year weren’t adequate for them.  The entire city smells like weed, but you can definitely still enjoy Amsterdam without smoking!  Anyway, the 32-person room has sections of beds, our main sleeping area has 3 sets of twin sized bunk beds and 1 set of full size bunk beds.  We have a locker (it’s literally just a box) next to our bed that we can lock with our padlocks.  The toilets are okay… very small, but manageable.  The bedroom has about 3 or 4 sinks so you don’t have to haul your things to the tiny and kind of icky bathroom stalls.  The shower room is VERY nice, actually, I wouldn’t go in there barefoot or anything, but if we’re comparing it to a dorm shower room, it’s quite nice. 

That’s all for now, we had a fantastic day exploring the city but I’ll write about that in the next post :)

Je Suis au Jardin

10:15 PM Brussels

                Andy finally posted a blog today!  I bet you all don’t even want to read my post now!  This morning we had to say goodbye to our wonderful bed and breakfast in Paris.  It truly was worth the money (yes, it was the most expensive place we’re staying on this whole trip) and if I ever come back to Paris, I will stay here, without a doubt… and I DO plan on coming back!  Marie has the most beautiful personal garden I have ever seen and really takes pride in taking care of it herself.  She has a little sign on her door that says Je Suis au Jardin (I am in the garden).  I told her how much my mom would have appreciated all her hard work J After having breakfast and saying farewell’s to Marie, we departed for Gare du Nord, which is the biggest train station in Paris, and I believe just translates to North Station.  From this station, you can get on any line of the Metro as well as the high speed trains to Germany, Belgium, and parts of Italy.  The train to Brussels leaves approximately every hour and it cost us €76 each.  This wasn’t included in our train passes… actually, our very expensive train passes won’t come into play until we get to Swizterland.  This is just the way they worked out – France isn’t even included as a country you can pick when choosing what pass to buy!

                Last night, Andy spent a lot of time making sure we knew where we were going and wouldn’t get lost in Brussels.  I think he had had enough of wandering around lost in the rain or darkness!  Boarding Gare du Nord is kind of like boarding a plane for Easyjet… they don’t tell you the dang platform (or gate) ahead of time!  You have to go around like a goon asking people where to go.  We wandered aimlessly for a while only to learn that our train had been there all along.  The conductors, however, are extremely friendly and all speak English! We got the cheapest tickets we could get were actually pretty comfortable (still way better than LOT Polish Airlines seats!).  Those high speed trains seriously book it through the country side! It went along the highway and it seemed like the car’s speed was zero compared to ours – so awesome.  For those of you who like numbers (and can still only picture English units, like me…), Paris is 189.8 miles from Brussels and the train made it there in approximately an hour and 15 minutes… or 1.25 hours.  That means that the average velocity of the train was 237.25 mph, DAMN!

                The train station we arrived at is called Brussels Midi or Zuidstation.  Andy says that he when he reads signs he can’t tell if it’s a German word that he doesn’t know or if it’s Dutch.  They are very similar… sort of a French/German hybrid.  To me, it just sounds weird. Ha. Brussels Midi is nice because it actually has announcements and signs in English!  We needed to take the M2 to Botanique and there was an announcement saying that there was technical failure on that particular line, but it shouldn’t have been at our stops… WELL… nothing can go perfectly smoothly for us, can it?  We get on the M2 and take it to two stops before the stop we need at Botanique and the conductor gets on the speaker and says something in Dutch.  Thank goodness for Andy, who was paying attention, and managed to make out that the train was turning around and going back to Brussels Midi!! He didn’t say it in English! We hopped off and walked along where the subway was supposed to take us (it’s all under construction and not working) and managed to find our hotel.

                This one is really swanky! I got it for a great deal on booking.com – likely because it’s brand new and we’re only staying one night.  Normally, this would have been far out of our budget (almost double!).  We’re SO happy have to have a real bed (Marie’s place was wonderful, but that was still a pull out bed!) and private bathroom – you can’t take these things for granted!  We also have a similar heated towel rack that we had a Marie’s.  These are great for drying clothes!  We’ve been hand washing most of our stuff in the sink and these heated towel racks for great!  Andy is washing his jeans as I write this.

                I’m so excited to sleep in tomorrow; check out isn’t until noon and our train to Amsterdam isn’t until 4 – the 2 was sold out!  After we checked into our first hotel of this journey, we dropped our stuff off and went to see the Royal Palace, just down the street.  There is a beautiful park along the way – nothing spectacular (I love Chicago and Grant Park… it is hard to impress me ;) ) but still, very pretty.  Along the way we passed some very official looking embassy buildings.  Brussels is sometimes referred to as the “Capital of Europe” because it is the main center for the European Union (EU) and, in fact, we see many European Union flags flying from all the buildings.  It’s too bad that we’re here on a weekend, because we imagine these streets are flocked with government officials from all over the world during the week!  Andy joked that the flag manufacturing companies do well here – there are different flags flying from every building!

                After exploring we sat at an outdoor pub for some Belgian beer.  Gosh I love beer. After a first round of Belgian wheats, we hopped next door, where they had full meals as well, and had more beer with some meat and potatoes J  One thing I’ve noticed about Europe is that it’s very pricey to eat out but the standard for food is much higher.  The quality (even at places like diners and pubs) is exceptional but you do pay for it! We eat about one meal out a day or less.  It’s not hard to only eat street food, but we have been enjoying a few sit-down meals as well.

                Just like any other city, Brussels has some dodgy alleys as well.  We try to be careful where we go, but it seems that any neighborhoods that are mainly immigrants (Turkish, Eastern European, African, Middle eastern, anything really) tend to be a little bit more questionable.  We bought some beer from a mart that was definitely questionable… but there was no where else to buy beer except the bars (with questionable people in them… ha) so whatever.  The guy working reception at our hotel is SO nice! He loaned us a bottle opener for the night and we’re enjoying beer that is quite expensive to get in America for relatively cheap (mainly Leffe, Duvel and Chimay Blue). 

                I’m really hoping not EVERYTHING is closed tomorrow, given that it’s Sunday.  I really want to get my parents from Belgian chocolate but did not even that think that we’d be here on the weekend and nothing would be open!  Worst comes to worse, they will get Swiss chocolate instead! Tonight we’re in a classy hotel, tomorrow we’ll be in a youth hostel in Amsterdam sharing a room with 30 other people (literally… 30).  We’re very excited and enjoying each city for what it is J We have everything mapped out for tomorrow and it should be very easy to get to… I’m curious to see what trains will break, catch fire (etc) to make things difficult for us. Tomorrow will tell!

Not Snoring Afterall

Paris 1:20 PM

                I have finally managed to find time to blog when my body was not completely exhausted. Currently I’m writing from the seat of a high speed train from Paris (Gare du Nord) to Brussels (Midi).  It appears as if we’re moving at 200mph –cars on the highway appear still, and even the landscape seems a blur. When I wake up in the morning I still can’t believe where I am and what I’m doing. I suppose it’s a sort of “coming of age” feeling. Anyways, today was a pleasant day in Paris. Marie, our bed and breakfast owner, really seems to have warmed up to us. She greeted us warmly this morning, and we had quite a long chat about Paris, culture, and food (my favorite!).  We quickly got ourselves together and rushed off to the subway to make the trek to the train station (ours being on the far north end of the city, whereas we’re located on the far east end).

                Paris is really a gorgeous city. I am generally quite skeptical about touristy places; but it truly is beautiful. After taking the subway and winding through the Parisian streets (on the first warm and sunny day we’ve had in Paris) we arrived at our station. While approaching the entranceway, a pair of young, Turkish looking girls approached us, nicely asking if we spoke English. Being discombobulated from thoughts of the grandeur of the station and destinations beyond, I acknowledged them with a short “yes”. Normally I am prepared for such circumstances, but these girls were quite convincing. They held up a ledger and started asking questions to Becca and I individually, asking us to “sign their petition for the blind and the deaf” in broken English.  Naively thinking for a moment that it was in fact a petition, I scribbled down some random information as they asked for a “donation”, to which I promptly refused and beckoned Becca to leave.

                This sort of situation is very common in large tourist cities it seems. With my limited worldly travels, I have come to the conclusion that I am overwhelmingly and unimaginably lucky for the place I was born, the people I was born to, and the life I enjoy. Life around the world is a struggle, and we really should not take for granted how lucky we are.

Paris has been a phenomenal experience. Our first night here I felt almost inhuman. Wandering the streets in dire straits, asking random shopkeepers if they spoke English and getting a cold and shrewd “no” before immediately going back to what they were doing. In the United States I do not believe I have ever been received so rudely. It seems there is a steep learning curve to life here. Barcelona was very tourist-oriented, and so most people spoke English, and ALL signs were in Spanish and English. Paris on the other hand is almost exclusively French, and much more focused on the locals. There is very little English here save the enormous tourist hubs. This was a bit of a shock for my presumptuous American self, assuming most educated people in the world spoke at least some English. After a bit of assimilation to the city though, our experiences took a 180 degree turn.

The food is fantastic. Even the cheapest breads and wines put most American breads and wines to shame. The traffic, while being horrendous, goes out of its way to yield to pedestrians. In Chicago you’re likely to get run down by a rogue taxi if you don’t pay attention even when crossing with right of way. Public transportation is superbly convenient. I do not believe we ever waited more than 2 minutes for a subway train. Most came within seconds (and we took MANY subway rides).

The subways in the various cities have all been very efficient, but that’s not to say there’s no confusion about them. Perhaps our biggest struggle on this trip has been (obviously) finding our way from A to B. Initially we were quite timid and reserved, but you learn quickly that you just have to try hard to bridge the gaps in communication or you will never make it to your destination. Certain funny rules and renovated stops make following simple maps, at times, nearly impossible. When we exited our train from the airport in Paris to the city center, we literally walked in circles in a flurry of people rushing all about. We saw entrance after entrance to different lines, but no exits. Everyone was rushing somewhere, but it seemed as though no one was leaving. It took us awhile (and quite a bit of exacerbation) to realize that you actually have to save your ticket stub and use it to EXIT the station. It almost feels like stumbling around; “where is the subway, how do we buy tickets, oh it only accepts coins….what direction are we facing, what street is this?” It’s all overwhelming. My advice is to just stay calm and focus on the objective at hand, one step at a time. We’ve gotten REALLY good at managing subways, trains, buses, airports, and directions -albeit our horrible luck with delays and breakdowns. You have to remember that everything will work out (even if it’s by the skin of your teeth). All in all, it has been a wonderful and eye opening experience.