Archive for category Europe
Day 30: London
We slept in that morning after being out late at Crobar and Trafalger Square. I didn’t roll out of bed until 12:30, and we didn’t even leave the hostel until 2:30. I was okay with that though, since it would be our last chance to sleep in. We really didn’t do a whole lot this entire day.
Since we missed the breakfast, we stopped at this Turkish place right down the street. Chuck got a Kebab roll and I got a Tikka Chicken roll. I had no idea it would be so spicy! It gave me visions of the Mucho Macho Burrito, but it wasn’t quite that hot. Afterward I did have a similar feeling though; the one that comes from drinking a lot of water after eating a spicy food. From there we went to the train station and bought our ticket for the next morning’s ride to Gatwick Airport.
Then we did head out Harrod’s. Not sure if you’ve heard of it, because I hadn’t, but it’s a rather large shopping center. We walked around a bit, but most of the stores were high-scale. We went to the Waterstone’s though. Chuck tried to find Watership Down to no avail. Seems they’d sold their last copy just an hour or so before we got there… Murphy’s Law, right? There are five levels to Harrod’s, and we definitely did not walk around them all. I thought the layout was a bit weird. Instead of a regular mall where there are distinct stores with entrances, this was more like an office building where you could walk into another store without going into a main passage. Felt a bit cramped, really. It was also hard to figure out where the stores were, since you couldn’t see them from afar.
After the failed book-finding, we headed off to Hyde Park. We strolled through and went to the Serpentine Gallery. It’s a small art gallery, and they had only one exhibit there. It was a modern artist, whose name evades me, He has a Popeye series of artwork. It was weird at first, but then interesting. The sculpture-things were inflatable pool-toys sticking through ladders, trashcans, dangling chairs, or other things. Well, we thought they were inflatable pool-toys. Turns out they are actually made of aluminum, but look extremely real. They have the right colors, reflectivity, and even wrinkles. It took me a long while to figure they weren’t plastic, and I was still wondering as we left. The paintings were oil on canvas collages. Lots of consumerist and sexual snippets meshed together. From afar it looks just like a print magazine had been blown up, but closer inspection shows the finer detail and brush strokes. Once the shock of the material and medium faded, I was really impressed. It’s a shame the building was so small; I would have liked to see more artwork.
After the short visit to the Serpentine Gallery, we walked through the rest of the park. Saw a monument to… someone (Chuck, help me out!). It started raining again. Quick diversion. Being a meteorologist in London must be easy: every day it is mostly cloudy with a chance of showers through the entirety day. And it will rain at some point. If you look out the window and it’s not raining, just try to go do something out there and it will start to rain. Now back on track! We walked through the rest of Hyde Park whilst ducking between tree cover, and eventually made it to the Marble Arch station which is just past Speaker’s Corner (no one was speaking in the rain). We took the train to the Angel station again, where we went back to the Borders in the N1 center. Chuck got Watership Down at last! Since I had one ride left on my Oyster card, I took the tube back and Chuck walked. So what if it was just one stop. After the ride I got my 3 pound deposit for the card back. I then walked around for a little bit trying to find a souvenir shop. It was difficult, but I found a hole-in-the-wall market which had a few things, and I got some of them. Can’t give away what I got though, that’d ruin it for the people getting them.
Chuck and I met up back at the hostel and then went to Yum Yum, which was this little Asian restaurant just down the street from our hostel. We both got the Roast Duck with rice which was actually really good! Duck has an interesting and pleasant flavor. After the dinner we went to the Tesco across the street and got some snacks for the voyage home. It consisted of some Jammie Dodgers and dried mango! Chuck spent all but two pence of the last of his change. I still had some to spend the next morning at the airport. Following Tesco, we read and checked the internet. I finally finished Hyperion! The book was good but it ended abruptly. It’s a cliff hanger for the next book, Fall of Hyperion, but it bothers me that I won’t get any resolution until reading its sequel.
We also showered and packed up most of our stuff so leaving in the morning would be quicker. A quick bit about the shower. The two shower units I’d used before had the same problem where it was mostly cold water with a random splash of warmth. This third shower was on the opposing side and a different issue: the water had one setting – scalding. It started off just hot, but it eventually got so hot I was actually scared of burning myself. That is unacceptable. It was on the lowest setting, barely turned on, and it threatened to burn all my skin. And that’s a problem when you’re trying to wash out your shampoo and rinse off the soap. I thought maybe the hot and cold were backwards, but turning the handle to the other direction just made it even hotter. Their showers can’t even have the same fault… impressive. Sometime thereafter we went to sleep. It was the last night in that hostel, thank goodness!
Day 29: London
With the rise of the sun ended the first night in Journey’s. Only two more to go… holy carp, that’s a long time. I ate breakfast, which was actually decent. Had some Golden Puffs and bread with drum roll peanut butter and jam! Peanut butter, you ask!? That’s right, we finally found some! Then I showered. The showers themselves seemed clean. The area right outside the shower, where you could towel off and change was different. There was a bunch of wet carp on the ground along with dirt. The mat they had didn’t help with anything other than holding water. The shower heads were fixed and shot straight down. The water temperature varied widely in a ratio that was approximately 30% warm, 60% cold, 10% hot. Adjusting the handle didn’t do anything. I have no idea how the pipes were rigged, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s not like they were completely out of hot water…. it just didn’t come in warm all that often. Just another nuisance. One upside was the hooks where you could hang your clothes and towel.
Our adventure for the day consisted primarily of the Science Musem, which had free admission! We’re all about the free stuff! It kicked Vienna’s Deutches Museum’s ass in a couple, important ways. 1) This museum was free. 2) The exhibits worked! We spent over four hours in that museum and I don’t think we even saw it all. We saw some engines, airplanes, jets, 18th century inventions (probably my favorite part of all we saw), a plastics exhibit, and quite a few other things. I also enjoyed seeing the history of computing. They had a Cray 1 there, along with some of the first calculators, and Babbages Difference and Analytical Engines (which are mechanical computers, believe it or not)! In the same section were also some crazy pieces of 3- and 4-D geometry. I really enjoyed the museum!
The night before we had talked to a couple people staying in our room, one of whom was a Londoner herself. She told us about a few cool places to check out. One of them was Maxwell’s. It’s a restaurant and Mondays they have 50% off on their burgers. Chuck and I made our way over there after the Science museum, since most other sights closed around that time. They told us a 40 minute wait, but we got a table in 15. I think the food took longer to arrive than we waited to be seated. I got the double stack burger for the main meal and had a banana and toffee sundae for dessert; both were good! The burgers seemed pretty expensive at their full price, but were decent at 50% off. I really enjoyed the hassle-free tap water and refills and credit card acceptance!
Another recommendation was Crobar, a rock bar in the Soho Burrough. Chuck and I headed there a bit later that evening. I really enjoyed the place! They had good rock and metal music along with good drinks. I tried quite a few of their shooters. They had stuff like Misty Mountain Hop (LOTR anyone!?), Charlotte the Harlot, Fireball, and Johnny the Fox. I enjoyed all the ones I tried. I’m glad they had those instead of just straight shots because the shooters are just more fun. Crobar isn’t a huge bar, but it’s got a good amount of seating. The music machine didn’t seem outrageously priced either. Plus you could open a tab on a credit card, which is convenient for not spending all your cash. I enjoyed the crowd, because I’m familiar with the types from my concert goings. I definitely recommend the bar to anyone who hates “pop” music and the regular, lame circle of bars. Josh Burke, this is an example of an awesome bar! Remember our plan to open a metal bar? We can take a lesson from these guys! Mental note: chuck owes me for both dinner and drinks!
After we left Crobar, we went to Trafalgar square to catch a night bus back to St. Pancras/King’s Cross. Along the way we ran into the most awesome thing we’ve ever encountered: public urinals. Right along the sidewalk was this metal structure which could fold open to reveal a small area to walk in and pee in to. I have no idea why more of these aren’t in cities because it would basically eliminate the whole peeing on buildings or bushes problem. I definitely partook of the wonderous contraption! We then checked out what was going on at the plinth. It was just some guy standing around, and once it started raining he went inside a tent he had up there. Uneventful, so we made our way to the bus. Once we got to King’s Cross, we tried to find a kebab stand which was open at 3:30. That was an impossible feat. Chuck and I looked around for a while, and then he headed back while i continued to look. No luck. My faith in kebab’s just died! After I gave up the search, I headed back to bed.
Day 28: London
Sadly, we only had two nights at Palmer’s Lodge. This was the morning of our checkout. We put our packs into the luggage room and set off to the O2 center, where we’d seen Harry Potter. A person at the desk of the hostel had told us there was a Waterstone’s Bookstore there, but it was not open during the time we went. It was before noon on that Sunday, and I expect they didn’t open until noon, if they opened at all. Annoyingly, there were no signs posted with their hours, unless I overlooked something.
So we headed back to the hostel, got our packs, and headed for the new hostel. Why were we switching? We’d looked at prices on the internet and two nights at Palmer’s and 3 at Journey’s – St Pancras ended up being a cheaper combination than staying 5 days at either one alone. St. Pancras was also a more central location, which made it a bit easier when trying to get to places around London. I’ll come right out and say the Journey’s was the worst hostel we stayed at. I’ll go into more details later. As of this time, we were only checking in. We were allowed to drop out bags off in the room, even though the beds hadn’t been made. And here’s where I’ll tell you a little bit about the hostel. It’s exterior is rather plain, and it looks like a hole in the wall. The paint job wasn’t very nice and shouted “Cheap? You got it!” The room was ridiculous. 17 beds crammed into the same room that I’d seen some 8 bed dorms in other hostels have. Beds were stacked 3 high in most places. There was no room for baggage. Anywhere you set it, it was in the way of either getting in your bed or even just having a path to walk. The place was also filthy. The baggage spilling everywhere must mean that there is never a way for anyone to do any cleaning. The carpet was stained, dirty, and had a lot of crumbs. There was all sorts of litter behind the beds and just on the floor. Ventilatoin was almost non-existent. There was one small window which partially opened into some small, garbage filled area. Luckily, my bed was right near this window. It provided a bit of circulation. Apparently some of the other rooms have zero windows. I can’t even imagine how terrible that would be. How can you cram 17 people into a room and then not even have ventilation?
The common room and kitchen were similarly small and dirty. Again, no circulation left the entire place really hot. It became unbearable to just sit there after a few minutes if a fan wasn’t blowing on you. It wasn’t blowing anything other than the hot, stale air, but it was at least moving. There were few seats in either the common room or the kitchen, so finding a seat was a pain. The bathroom had one stall our of order and the toilets barely flushed. And you had to straddle the commode to close the door. One of the faucets was dripping. They had a hand dryer, but the towel dispenser was always empty. I’ll tell you about showers later.
Anyways, after we checked in, we headed out. Our first stop was finding a bookstore. There was supposed to be one in the train station, but I think it was also closed because it was Sunday. We asked around and heard rumor of a border about 20 minutes away in Angel. We set off on foot and, after another round of asking about it, were directed to the N1 center wherein lay the Borders! We spent some time perusing (I love bookstores), and I eventually got a book of both Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. I’ve been interested in reading the books for some time, and was happy to find them both for only 3 pounds! Chuck looked around but didn’t get anything.
We wanted to do what my guidebook called the Millennium Mile (which when measured was over 2 miles, but that’s besides the point). We started at London Tower, where we saw the outside of the fortress. There was a group there where some people were firing water balloons from a trebuchet, so we watched that for a little bit. Their aim was horrible! Mental note: I want to build a trebuchet some time in my life. And not just a little one, I want it to be something like 12 feet tall, without the arm extended. Next, we walked to the Tower Bridge, Part of it was under renovations, of course, but it was a neat bridge to cross! The towers in it are large and the railing is interesting to see!
We then walked along the Queen’s Path, which follows the River Thames. We passed a few more bridges, came across a weird looking government building. Some locals called it the “crushed testicle,” which happens to be a pretty accurate description. Impressively, we saw the London Bridge. I do wonder if it’s the same one mentioned in the childhood song “London Bridge is Falling Down.” I must find out. We saw some neat looking buildings, passed a church, an Sir Francis Drake’s old galleon, and then finally to the Millennium Bridge! We’d seen it in Harry Potter 6 not just two days before, and now we saw it for real. It wasn’t as large as I expected it. Well, I didn’t know it was only a foot bridge. It was a neat piece of engineering because there’s not much too it. It’s entirely metal and it doesn’t even appear to have much framing.
Right up the foot path from the bridge is St Paul’s Cathedral. We weren’t able to go inside (I think a service was going on), but it looked rather impressive from the outside. The dome was huge! We sat outside it for a little while, thinking of what to do next. We just decided to continue along the road. We got some more pictures of the other side of St Pail’s and then came across the Royal Courts of Justice, which look pretty awesome! There’s also a pretty wicked dragon statue in the road in front of the building! Further down we came across the Charring Cross station. Around here we got some food from the Tesco again. This time we found the fabled Jammie Dodgers! They were a nice treat! Charles wasn’t too impressed, but I thought they were good. Trafalgar Square was close, so we went back over to see what the person on the plinth was up to. This time it was a guy wearing the shirt of a charity, and he was trying to raise money from up there. We waited around a bit and saw how they changed the people. They brought out a lift and raised up the new person and brought down the old person. Not too exciting, but to think they have to do that on the hour every hour is impressive. The guy who then was up there was boring, so we left.
We rode the tube back to the King’s Cross station. This is where we set out on our search of Platform 9 and 3/4, famous from Harry Potter. The area where Platform 9 and 3/4 should be is under renovation, so the attraction was moved to a spot just around the corner. We even had to wait in a little queue, but we finally got our pictures with the cart which looks like it’s disappearing through the wall. The King’s Cross and Platform 9 and 3/4 in my mind was way different than what actually exists, but I guess that’s the beauty of books, right? I liked my mental picture better. After out picture there we just came back to the hostel. I think we just hung around there for the rest of the night. There’s not much to do when it’s really hot and cramped in the common room, so I just read a bit more in Hyperion while laying on my cramped bed before sleeping. The hostel sucks so much. Filthy, hot and cramped.
Day 27: London
As I noted in the last post, we got in pretty late the night before. We woke up at 9:30 to grab some free breakfast. Then we went back to sleep! We woke up at 2:30 and took showers. Showers are always nice! Then rushed off to meet for the free tour of London.
The tour stared off near Green Park. It was just one large group, but it was managable. We walked through and talked about Green Park and then walked on to Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not at home that day, sadly. Otherwise Charles and I would have stopped in and had crumpets and tea with her. She and I are on a first name basis, you see. Wot wot! The Palace looked nice, but we couldn’t see too much. The garden out front was pretty though. Apparently, quite a few people have managed to break into the ground or palace, which made me want to try it. Mayhaps another time. It’d just be fun to do!
We walked along then to see some of the palace guards. That’s right; the ones who wear those silly hats. They were very serious about those mammals which must have been crouching on their heads. The area wrapped off, woefully, so neither Charles nor I had the chance to pester the guards and see if they didn’t budge, as rumored. From there we walked to the house of one of a King’s mistress and then along Pall Mall, which is one of the most expensive streets in London. Carp like that doesn’t impress me, so I didn’t think too much of the area.
Onward we walked, now on to Trafalger Square! This is where the British like to party… for just about anything. The square is pretty awesome. A large statue of Horatio Nelson stands in the middle. He was a bad-ass naval commander, before he was shot by a sniper. Apparently, after you get sniped, you tend to die. And that’s what Horatio Nelson did: died. If you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling a bit funny today. Not in a physical way, but a mental way. I’M SO WACKY! Also in the square are a few fountains with statues spewing water, and a few gargantuan lion statues at the base of Mr. Nelson’s statue. There are four plinths in each of the corners of the square and one has been turned into an art project. Let me clarify that just a bit: a living art project. For an hour at a time, a UK resident is on the top of the plinth. They can do whatever they like for the hour, as long as it’s not illegal. This project lasts for several months, and the plinth is occupied 24/7, even in incliment weather. The guy up there when we passed by was talking to some folks and taking pictures. Not anything too exciting.
From there we walked to an archway, which, for some reason unknown to anyone, had a bronze nose in one of the columns. One of those great little things spotted by the guide that not even locals notice. We walked across some street and into a courtyard. There a naval head quarters sat. It is also where some military guys parade on occasion. In the 2012 Olympics, it’ll be the location of sand volleyball. Right on the other side of the clearing is the house of the Prime Minister. It’s painted black because the folks in charge of renevations were too cheap to clean the soot and dirt from it. The quickest fix was to just paint it black and say it’s tradition. Across the street from that is Hyde Park, which used to be the home of the royal menagerie, before it was relocated to the area that is now the London Zoo.
Then we walked along and saw Tower Clock (whose bell is called Big Ben)! We walked around the corner and came across a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, I had to do a double take too. I have no idea what a statue of ol’ Abe is doing in London, but I have pictures! Then we saw Westminster Abbey. By the way, Westminster Abbey is a fantastic building. It’s been the place of corronations for centuries, and has awesome architecture. The low-yet-wide stance of the large doorway is quite intimidating.
And right across the street from Westminster Abbey are the Houses of Parliment. I think this gothic building is my favorite building ever. On one end is the Tower Clock, and the rest of the building has some other, smaller towers, and really intricate stone masonry. The color is perfect and the whole thing is just regal. I love this building! The Belfry in Bruges was damned awesome, but the Houses of Parliment take the cake! On some steps near the Houses, our guide told us the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November.” Yeah, that poem you head in V for Vendetta is real, and has a history to it! I’m very glad Parliment wasn’t blown up, or else I wouldn’t have much to look at there!
Once the tour ended, we grabbed some food at the corner Tesco store and ate it there. We walked around a bit more, and got to see the London Eye, but it soon started to rain. Chuck recorded a get-well video for his Grandmother, and then we headed back. We rode the tube back but had to do so in a round-about way because one of the lines was shut down for a signal failure. Signal failures seem to be a pretty common thing there, because we heard about several in our 5 days there. So we got back to the hostel and then I proceeded to write the day 25 blog adn the drafts for 26 and this 27th blog. I also uploaded some photos. Looked into doing laundry but they didn’t have soap there to use.
I was nearing the end of Hyperion and would need another book for the rest of the time there as well as the flight home, so Chuck and I devised a plan to find *some* bookstore and buy *some* book. Chuck’d headed to bed a while before I finished writing and uploading, but I followed suit not too long after.
Day 26: Brussels and London
We started out day off in Brussels. Since the hostel did not have a free breakfast, I ate the rest of the waffles I’d bought in the corner store the night before. And then we had to wait until 7:30am, because their reception didn’t open until them. No 24 hour reception is one of the most annoying things.
We checked out and walked back to the train station. Once we arrived we headed to the Eurostar platform. From Brussels, we were heading to London by rail. The only way to do that is through the Chunnel (English Channel Tunnel). We first had to go through customs. It was a british lady and she was extremely rude. The wifi at the hostel the night before was terrible, so we didn’t get the address for the hostel, and we told her we were going to look it up once we got there and she said, “So you’re going to ask strangers where this place is? Sounds like some good planning there, guys.” I thought, is it our fault the internet didn’t work? Exactly. She was a douchebag. I’m still annoyed just thinking about her.
Anyways, the train wasn’t quite as nice as a Railjet, and it did get a bit stuffy, but it was alright. I was surprised at how quickly the train traveled. It must have been going faster than 120 km/h like the Railjet. The entire trip was about two hours and we were in the Chunnel for probably only 20 minutes. There is no warning going in or out, or else I would have paid closer attention, but there we are. Once we arrived in London, I plopped down and opened my laptop. Luckily, I found I had the information for the hostel opened in a tab in Firefox, so we were able to get the address without even asking anyone. Take that, rude customs lady.
Right after that we got an Oyster card. “Pray tell, what is an Oyster card!” you ask? It’s a card you get in the London Underground stations that is awesome. You get reduced fare tube rides, and you can even use it on the DLR (D-something Light Railway) and buses! You put some money on it, and you can use it on all those different lines without having to mess with cash or correct change. It’s not a perfect system, but it was pretty convenient. We didn’t want to pay for the tube right away, so we took a train from St Pancras/King’s Cross, where we landed, to Swiss Cottage, where our hostel was. The bus took *for ever*. It’s definitely not a quick means of getting around, but I do suppose it beats walking.
We stayed at Palmer’s Lodge Hostel in a 28 bed dorm. 28 beds sounds like a lot, but it was set up pretty nicely! There were two floors and each bed was it’s own separate bunk. We had a reading light, curtains, and a locker right under the bed. It was fantastic! The common room was large, the wifi was great, the breakfast was delicious and it was just a good vibe. There were not millions of 12 year-olds running around like in Berlin, thank Zeus.
Once we put our stuff away we tried to find Finchley road. Notice I said “tried.” Right at the beginning we took the wrong brance and ended up walking in a different way. Once we found we were not in the right area, we backtracked and made our way to Finchley road! There was a shopping center there and we found the theater and looked at show times. Then we went and grabbed some lamb burgers at Chicken Cottage, which was was basically a fast food place. But where else in America can you just get lamb burgers like that!? It was great.
What moving times were we checking out? Oh, I’ll keep you in suspense for just a second longer. Or maybe two sentences. Three sentences would really just be cruel. Five just too many, so I’ll end here at four. We were looking at times for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price, that’s what! We saw it at 4:30 and I remember it just like it was yesterday (which it wasn’t, because this was around 5 days ago now). The movie was pretty good, although there is something about every Harry Potter movie that is slightly awkward. I can’t place my finger on it exactly, but some of the dialogue between Harry, Ron and Hermione is just… off. Some of the CGI was really disappointing as well. Other than that, I enjoyed it. The movie was nice and dark. They did leave some stuff out, but I think it was a decent adaptation.
After we got back from the movie, I checked email. Earlier I’d sent one to my friend Sarah Sessler, who just so happens to be studying abroad in London this summer. We manages to connect and she told me of her evening plans and also extended an invite. Charles and I headed out to Greenwich and the Up the Creek comedy club. We took the tube and then the DLR. It ended up taking quite a while to get there. Greenwich is toward the south of London, and therefore on the opposite side of where we were staying in the North. The Oyster card ended up freaking out at the Canary Warf stop, and ended up charging me 1.10 pounds for a trip I didn’t make. That was very frustrating! That’s like $2.00! It was 10 pounds to get into the club (which I wasn’t expecting), but we saw 3 comedians. They were pretty good. There were some British references I didn’t get, and sometimes their accents were hard to decipher, but I enjoyed myself! Then we went back to the flat where Sarah’s living. We had some drinks with her floormates and played a game of Euchre. We left from there around 2:30 am. Missed the first bus by literally under a minute, so we had to wait another 20 minutes for the next night bus. It was pretty cold! In total, it took 2 hours to get home by bus, including finding the connecting stops, walking to them, etc. That is an insane amount of time. Waiting around takes a large majority of the time. We did eventually get back. Glad the hostel didn’t have a lockout! Reception made sure we weren’t just some random guys by checking we had keys, which was a nice security touch.
I ended up getting into bed around 4:30. And then I fell asleep. So that is the end of this tale. Good night, all in all!
Day 25: Bruges and Brussels
Like we start off all days, we woke up. We grabbed breakfast first off and then packed up all our junk. Once we checked out we set our bags in what was usually a booth in the bar which they turned into a luggage-storing area. We ran to the Smatch super market to get some supplies, since they were closed the night before. I got a bar of soap, deodorant and some sandals. The shower shoes I had bought in America were water shoes that were annoying to wear and took forever to dry. I bought these new, all-plasticy-foam shoes are much better for drying. Even though I only have a little while left here in Europe, they’ll more than pay for themselves!
So after that we came back and got the instructions for finding our hostel in Brussels. Then we set out from the hostel for a little bit more sightseeing. The hostel in Bruges had given us a pretty neat map which was made by locals, and had tips on things to see, etc. There was one for a free panorama, and we wanted to check that out before we left for Brussels. It was actually a very short walk from our hostel to the place. It was actually a few hills on which windmills were set. The trees were of course fully leaved, which obscured some of the view, but it was decent. We thought it would take more time to get there and look around, but it was really quick. Chuck and I headed back to pick up our bags and head to the train station.
We walked across the city from our hostel to the train station. It was a decent walk, and the weather was sunny but not too hot. Once we arrived we hoped took the next train to Brussels. It took around 50 minutes to get there and we even had seats unlike the journey the other day where we had to stand. Sitting was nice, especially after that long walk with our heavy packs.
We’d written down the instructions to find our hostel, but the roads were so terribly marked in Brussels that we got lost. It was just like being in Paris again… and since one of the official languages in Belgium is French, that explains it. We walked 15 minutes the wrong direction. When we hit the end of the road, we stopped and asked directions. Turns out the road has two names and the section we wanted was actually under the new name. We headed back and finally found the 2G04 Quality Hostel at which we were staying. Damn, that was annoying getting lost with our heavy packs on.
When we arrived the reception was closed. They are closed every day in the middle of the day for 4 hours. I have no idea why a place would do that. Yeah, this is an indication of the experience to come. Luckily, someone let us in to the office so we could check in. They had a 100 Euro minimum to py with credit cards, and since we were nowhere near that we had to go to an ATM down the street and withdraw some cash. What’s nice about ATMs here in Europe is that you can find some that don’t charge a fee when you take out money. That is virtually unheard of in America!
So we paid and were able to make our way up to our room. The room seemed nice enough, with large windows that faced the street. The bunk beds were also big. The room did have an awkward layout because there was a faux fireplace which meant the bunk beds had to be arranged a bit weirdly. After we put our stuff up there, we headed out.
We were only in Brussels for that one day and we didn’t see anything about free tours… not to mention we got into town around 1:30pm or so. We just winged it.
The first place we walked to was the Grand Place. It’s basically a plaza surrounded by lots of old buildings. The buildings had some pretty cool architecture though! The hostel did give us one of the cool maps made by the same company as the one in Bruges. In there it told us about a 10 story parking garage which offered a great view of the city! We headed that way next.
From the top you really could see a ton! From afar we could see several churches and even a metal building/sculpture of atomic-sized element (can’t remember which) which was built for a world fair in something like 1958. It looked enormous, even from this far away. I took some pictures of other things that I didn’t know the name of… most of them cool looking buildings. While walking around up there I saw something written on an elevator door. It was this: “Get sick, get well/Gather ’round the ink well/only 20 years of schooling/and they put you on/the day shift.” I took a picture of it because I think it’s hilarious someone decided to take out this rage on the 10th floor of a parking garage where barely anyone would ever see it.
Anyways, after the parking garage we walked to the Cathedral and also inside. It was a pretty awesome building and I took quite a few pictures. We walked all around admiring the sculptures, paintings and stained glass windows. We then walked back to our hostel to look for place to eat. We chose the Poechenelle Kelder Cafe. It’s right next to the Manneken-Pis, or Little Pissing Boy, which happens to be a famous statue! I got some lasagna there which made a great meal while Chuck ended up getting some bread and cheese which was more like an appetizer… I win!
After that we wandered around and tried to find a grocery store. It was around 8pm, and of course most everything was closed. Why were we even trying to find a grocery store in the first place? Well, Belgium was the last country we were in that would accept euros, so we were trying to spend the last bit we had! I had around 10 euro to use. We found a corner store and went in. I got 1.5L of coke, a 4-pack of Red Bull Cola and some Belgian waffles. Red Bull Cola tastes way better than regular Red Bull. It’s like a fruity Pepsi. I wouldn’t drink it on a regular basis, mainly because of the price, but it was decent. The Belgian waffles I got were chocolate covered and really good.
We went back to the hostel and chilled out in the common room for a while consuming the food we’d purchased. I ate two of the waffles, had a couple cans of the cola and tried to surf the internet. The wifi was free, but I got terrible reception everywhere I tried it in the building. And you had to get a password from reception… and sometimes the password would end up locking you out until you got another one. That wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that reception was way understaffed. There were either a ton of people waiting in line to talk to one person, or there was no one at the front desk. And the front desk could be completely empty for quite a few minutes. That happened several times and I was not impressed. And then reception closes things down at 11pm. They kicked us all out of the common room right at 11… and that meant there was no chance in hell of getting wifi reception anywhere else. It sucked in the lobby, but was non-existent elsewhere.
So, they shut down in the middle of the day for 4 hours. No 24 hour reception… they don’t open until 7:30am. They have a 100 euro credit card limit (plus a 1.5% transaction fee). Their Wifi sucked. Front desk was under- or no-staffed. On top of that, the showers drained horribly. If you let it run for too long the thing would definitely have flooded. The room we had was facing one of the busiest streets in Brussels, so it was loud all night. That night was also really warm and I woke up sweaty in the morning. Someone stole a bottle of beer Charles had cooling in the refrigerator. The lobby and common area shut down at 11pm. All in all, the 2G04 Quality Hostel sucked balls. It is supposed to be one of the hippest, trendiest places in Brussels. There aren’t many hostels in Brussels to begin with… that may be why. How can it be hip if the place shuts down at 11pm? I would not recommend it to anyone. Definitely not worth the price. And they didn’t even have breakfast included. You also had to do a 10 euro deposit for the key card and sheets. Since we didn’t have that in cash, we used our passports.
After we got kicked out of the common area, we took showers (which almost flooded several times) and then went to bed. I was not impressed with Brussels, and especially not the hostel. I am glad we only spent part of a single day there. Why wasn’t I impressed? It had a confusing maze of streets, just like Paris. It had a lot of modern architecture and felt like NYC. And I hated NYC. The other sights it had were interesting, but the rest of the city detracted from them. Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day, but Brussels really did not sit well with me. Bruges was much more my style and I would say Bruges has more to offer than Brussels, regardless.
Another thing which was interesting, and I’m not sure if it was just the area, was the number of homeless people or vagabonds we saw in Brussels. It had to have been several times what I’ve seen in any other city.
Trip Photo Albums – Week 2
It’s been a while since I posted links to pictures, but I’m doing that now!
Here they are:
The original posts have the picture links at the very top now as well!
Day 24: Bruges
Slept in until around 9am today. Music was so loud in the bar downstairs last night you could feel the floor vibrate with the bass. Rather annoying. Ate the free breakfast here at the Bauhaus and then showered. The showers are a bit weird here. The toilets are also extremely cramped. But they get the job done.
We took our time getting ready because Bruges isn’t a huge city. We’d have plenty of time to see what all we wanted to see. We did eventually set out on a journey to conquer the city… or at least see it.
As we set out we went past a store dedicated to metal music! It was glorious! There were a lot of bands I had never heard of, but it was still fantastic to see that metal is alive here in Europe! Right next door was the grocery store, Smatch, which I said I would get some stuff from later.
We walked to the Berg, which has some pretty awesome buildings. We went inside a church that is supposed to have a chalice filled with the Holy Blood of Christ, but I am not sure if we went in the right area to see it. We did get to see some statues and paintings though.
From there we went to Markt again. There was a huge event going on in the plaza because there were trucks and stands all over. We walked to the Belfry courtyard and got some pictures but we didn’t go up the tower since it cost 4 Euro. We are running very short on cash right now and need it for food. It would have probably been a cool sight to see, but I’ll do it when I’m not visiting on such a budget!
Bruges is actually a very cool place. The buildings are small and quaint but have great architecture. The roads are cobble stone or brick. Canals lace through the city, and lace stores also abound. Waffle and fry stands are frequent as is greenery and churches. It’s not a very large town, which is nice. Much less hectic, but there are a ton of tourists in areas.
We walked around quite a bit of the city today. We saw a lot of the churches and plazas and bridges. We even saw this hard-to-spot cannon which sticks out of the ground by its muzzle. We saw a guardhouse with a bronze skull on it which is the replacement for the actual skull of a traitor. Nearly all of the town is old buildings. There is one new building: the opera house. It’s ugly though, with a plain red brick facade. I love the Belfry tower and the other buildings in that square.
Tons of tourists flock around the canals for boat rides or some gardens for horse drawn carriage rides. I hate tourists and it embarrasses me to be one. At least Chuck and I don’t stick out as much. We’re a small group and we’re not all decked out in traditional tourist clothes. Thank Zeus. Otherwise I’d jump off the Belfry.
We walked around for several hours, even going through one of the parks, when we decided to head back. The plan was to find some food, but the restaurant here is only open for lunch for two hours. Gah! Europe, you’re killing me! We napped instead. We woke up at 6 and checked to see if the restaurant had spots available for dinner. Like last night, they were booked full. I think if your restaurant is booked full for the entire night, you’re too damn small. You lose my business and respect.
After consulting our guidebooks, Chuck and I settled on “The Hobbit.” That’s right, it’s a restaurant here in Bruges! Don’t get too excited though. The themeing has very little to actually do with The Hobbit or LOTR. The food was really expensive for small portions. The music definitely did not fit with a Hobbit theme. I can imagine neither Bilbo nor Gandalf listening to whatever it was. Right across the street is Bistro Tolkien, but it was closed so we couldn’t check it out. Nice idea, poor implementation. I’m also really tired of not being able to get tap water at restaurants. No, I don’t want to drink mineral water; no I don’t want a beer; no I don’t want a pop – I want regular old water. Why is that impossible to get here in Europe? I ended up having to pay $1.90 for a really small cup of coke. And then they have a 30 Euro limit for paying with credit card. That is also annoying. I like how in America you can pay for a .30$ item with credit card. I don’t like carrying cash, but that doesn’t fly so well here. I’ve honestly found dining in Europe to be very stressful.
On my way back I wanted to stop at the local super market to get some soap and deoderant, but they freaking closed at 8. 10 minutes before we got there. Most stores in Europe also close incredibly early. When do people do their shopping? I love shopping at 11pm at Kroger. You can avoid the crowds, for sure. Oh well, I’ll pick some up tomorrow before we go to Brussels.
We’re here in our room right now. I’m uploading some pictures to facebook, so I’ll try to update those posts soon. I don’t expect we’ll do much more this evening. Drinking is too expensive, and I’m tired anyway. I plan on reading and heading to bed early. I think part of being in Bruges is the relaxed atmosphere. There isn’t the “Go go go” mentality, which is nice.
We’re going to do a little more sight seeing tomorrow before we take a train to Brussels, where we’ll spent the night. Then the next day we head to London for 5 days before heading back to America. We’re in the home stretch. Less than a week left.
Feel free to fill me in on what’s going on back home! Also, is the new Harry Potter movie good? I think Chuck and I are going to see it in London.
Day 23: Berlin and Bruges
Here we’re starting off in Berlin. We woke up around 7am and quietly-as-we-could got ready to leave. We showered last night, so that saved us quite a bit of time. With our packs stuffed with the food we bought last night we headed down to check out. Checkout consisted of just putting your cards in a box. Things like that always make me worry that they’re going to charge me for another night some how.
We then made our way on the S-bahn back to Hauptbahnhof for the day train to Bruges. The Hbf in Berlin is absolutely huge! There are at least 5 floors, each, I think, with trains running on them. It’s a pretty open structure which makes it even more impressive. It’s an 8 hour journey and we had originally planned to make it an overnight train, but it turns out that, from 2008 to 2009, CityNightLine decided to cancel all the night trains. This means we have to spend a good chuck of today traveling on a train instead of doing other, more touristy things. It’s actually a bit welcome though because I am thoroughly exhausted. All these weeks and weeks of traveling, broken sleep, and constant walking have really worn me out. Taking the day off and getting to rest, even if on a train in a stiff seat, seems pretty nice right now.
And we’re on the train right now. I’ve just written the posts for Day 21 and 22 and am starting Day 23’s. I don’t think much more will happen today. We don’t get in to Bruges until 5pm or so, which will likely be after most things close. We should be able to get a good amount of stuff in tomorrow though!
One of the pitfalls of public transportation, or really anything public is the other people. On the S-bahn today I had this older guy who absolutely reeked of body odor. It was horrendous: every break I took was pungent and stale. He finally got off and I could breath free again. And then when we got on the train some little kid was bawling his face off a few seats up. Kids and traveling very rarely mix well. Where’s the Cone of Silence when you need it? Those of you who get that reference, please post in a comment!
Alright, I am going for now. I want to do some more reading in Hyperion. I finished the Priest’s and Soldier’s tales and am half-way through the Poet’s! Interesting book so far. And just a note, my laptop battery is at 50%% which is pretty impressive because it’s been on for 2.5-3 hours now on top of last night and I even copied pictures from my camera card to the hard drive and then to another backup card. This thing is great! Can’t wait to have some wifi later to post this stuff.
Rest of the day:
Our trip to Bruges consisted of three segments. The first was from Berlin to Cologne. On this ride I actually saw quite a few wind power generators. They are quite impressive and you know that the turning propellers are making clean energy! I also saw a cooling tower for a nuclear reactor, but I couldn’t tell you where we were at the time. The cooling towers look so awesome!
We had to transfer at Cologne to another train to Brussels Once we got to Brussels we got on a train for Bruges, but we must have hit at rush hour. The car was completely packed. We had to stand arm to arm in the area where you get on the the car. There wasn’t even room to get into where the seats were. One of the stops in between was Gent and there the car basically emptied. It seems there was a group of boy scouts on the car who took up all that room. From Gent on to Bruges we had seats.
We got to Bruges and took a bus to our hostel: St. Christopher’s Inn – Bauhaus. We quickly checked in and set our stuff in the room. We then looked at the map and decided to head out to do some sight seeing. We got to the Markt square pretty quick. We took some pictures but the lighting was not very good as a result of the stormy clouds. Did you know French Fries started here in Belgium? Neither did we, but we did decide to get some from a vendor in the square. Lo and behold as soon as we get the fries, it starts raining. I finished mine off quick because I got them first and then Chuck and I walked back with his. So it decided to rain just as we got out… eeriely like Vienna. Conspiracy? I think so.
We just hung out in our hostel room for a while and then met our roommates. They were a few girls from Hungary also traveling around Europe. And that’s how we spent the night: talking to them about Hungary and of course how we miss peanut butter! They had a good time making fun of us for that. And all I could do was want peanut butter. We went to bed late and slept with our ear plugs again! Wonderful silence!
Day 22: Berlin
Started the day off with no alarm and a good shower. Even though I slept around 10 hours I still woke up at 9:30. Yeah, we went to bed early the night before! Breakfast was actually really good. One of the best things about the Generator hostel. We had cereal with milk, rolls with honey and fruit spread, some juice, and rolls with meat and cheese on them. We even made a few sandwiches to eat later.
Since the hostel we stayed in is so far from town, we hopped on an S-bahn and took a few connections to get to the East Gallery. This is actually a 4.2 km section of the Berlin wall which still stands. Instead of a barrier, it’s now a canvas on which artists voice their opinion. Right after the wall border restriction was lifted, people flocked to the wall and painted over the graffiti which is like itself a large collage of art. There are several famous paintings here and we did get some pictures.
After that we took the S-bahn again to an area north of town to see a recreation of the death strip. The Berlin wall evolved from a barb-wire fence to concrete giant. There was a wall for each side and in between was a barren area. Here, guards were given shoot-to-kill orders for anyone attempting to cross the wall. The sand was raked so footprints of escapees could be seen. This wall was seriously fortified. It originally had bared wire along the top, but people could actually grab it and use it to scale the wall so it was replaced with sewage piping which proved very difficult to grip. There was a tower we walked up so we could see inside the wall and what the death strip looked like. Next to the memorial is another memorial to a church which was actually torn down because it fell in the death strip between the walls. There are plans to extent the memorial by 2011, so make sure to visit it if you’re there in two years!
Again, the S-bahn zipped us downtown and to the Berlin Zoo. I am not a fan of pets whatsoever, nor am I very big on animals. So why did I go? The Berlin Zoo is one of the oldest in Europe and is known for its large, open animal areas. We did get to see some interesting animals. Lots of monkeys and apes, bears and lions and tigers, birds, sea lions, and rhinos. I got pictures of quite a lot of animals, so you can see them too! We did get to see Knut, the famous Eisbäre (polar bear), after much wandering around looking for the exhibit. It was impressive being so close to the animals. In a lot of areas not more than a small moat of water or a ditch separated us from them. Hell, we even got to pet a penguin because it swam in the water right next to the glass wall. We could reach right in and pet it as it swam by us. How many of you can say you’ve gotten to touch a penguin!? (If you have, don’t say anything. I want to live in my little delusion happily, thanks!)
It was 9 Euro to get into the park and then they have the nerve to ask you pay 30 cents each time you go to the restroom. There were no attendants to enforce this rule, so I, of course, did not pay. How ridiculous a policy. It’s not like I peed all over the walls which they’d have to clean. I used the urinal and flushed. That water does not cost 30 cents. Not to mention, Chuck and I are running low on cash, so we need all the change we can muster! No pay restrooms for us. If we *have* to pay, we’ll hold it instead.
After the Zoo we walked around a bit and came across a church which had been partially destroyed in WWII. The day before we had actually seen this same church made out of chocolate in the window of a chocolatiers shop. The place looked beautiful, probably even more so because of the almost artistic, archaic feeling of the dilapidated structure. Again, we couldn’t get inside because of the time, but we got to walk around it. Right next to it was some building I could neither guess nor see the name of. It looked like a religious structure though.
After that we rode up one stop to the Tiergarten. We walked for a little bit through the garden, which seemed spacious and nice. There were even concrete ping-pong tables for people to use. I hadn’t ever seen that before! We made our way along the path to the Victory Tower. It’s beautiful! Tall, gold-gilded, and epic. We walked through a tunnel to get to the island on which it sat. Well, it was an island in the midst of the roadway ocean. We wanted to walk up some stairs to the platform but I guess we got there too late because a cleaning lady told us, “Gescholssen,” which just so happens to mean “Closed.”
We made our way through the tunnel and Garten back to the Tiergarten stop. We took the S-bahn all the many stops and transfers back to the hostel. I have not seen anyone get asked for their train ticket on these trains, let alone been checked myself. If you wanted to risk the 40 Euro fine, I’d say you could get away with riding without paying. Not that I’m condoning it… just saying.
We ate our sandwiches and some of the other snacks we had and then asked where the local grocery store was. The receptionist didn’t understand “grocery” (which I had used before with a German-speaker) so chuck saved the day with “Supermarket.” She then directed us toward the Kaufland which was several blocks away. You can tell you’re in the middle of nowhere in a large city like that when the nearest food market is so far away. But anyway, we made the walk and found our way in the confusing parking structure of the Kaufland. It was a huge store with many things we haven’t seen in forever. I did forget to check on soap and deodorant. I have enough to last me for a few days, but I need to get some before I actually run out. Note to self: Remember this! We got some more Nutella, chips, and granola bars since we were running short. Chuck even got a bottle of the Czech-imported beer called Budweiser Budvar, which they can’t call that in the States because it interferes with the American Budweiser brand name. There it’s called Czechvar.
So we headed back to the hostel. We took showers that night so we wouldn’t have to in the morning. I also got some of my pack done up so I wouldn’t have to make a ton of noise in the morning. I try to creep around as silently as I can so I don’t wake others since I hate when people do that to me.
Oh, I almost forgot: I did get some string at the Kaufland. You see, I had meant to bring string so we could use it as clothes line and have our towels dry in the windows but forgot it. And now the plastic holder thing on my water bottle had also broken, so I needed some string to make something to hold it by. Luckily they the large store had some, so I took advantage of it. A little late in the game for use as a clothes line, but it did wonders with the water bottle. I’ve got it set up with 4 strings as a connector from the bottle to the lid so I can carry it again. Even learned a few knots from Chuck! I am so proud of how well it turned out!
Anyways, after the showering we just went to bed. Had to wake up at 7am to get ready and travel to Hauptbahnhof for our 9:45am train to Bruges. That tale is next!