Well, I haven't written here in about 15 days, so this will be a bloody long catch-up blog. I know everyone who reads this is just drooling over all the elaborate details I include of my travels, but you'll have to forgive me for sumarising my last 15 days or so as briefly as I can (although I'm quite shit at being brief). Geez, Idon't even know where to start. Well my last days in Hamburg were spent doing more sightseeing and getting to spend another day with Sandra. I visited the dowtown and the red light distrrict some more times, checked out the harbourfront some more, went to the spice museum, a really posh English Language cinema, the student-boho area, the biggest and oldest cemetary in Hamburg, and a bunch of other stuff that is apparently eluding my mind right now. Before leaving Hamburg Iswitched CS hosts for a night and spent a night at a man named Jörg's house. It was really amazingly fab to spend the night at his place, because he took me to a super posh spa where he had a pass and I went swimming and had a sauna and a steam. Sauna's are a huge part of German culture in the big cities, especially in Hamburg, so it was realy great to go. I felt very pampered and relaxed. Then afterwards we went back to his place and he´cooked me dinner and we had a bottle of gluwein. I really enjoyed spending so much time in Hamburg and getting to know the city. It is really unique in that it has 2 lakes in the middle of downtown, and a river. There are more canals in Hamburg than Venice, which makes for a really crazy city layout. In my frantic search for work I stopped only applying for work in Germany and began sending out resumes to everyone and their brother. I finally (FINALLY) found a job at a fancy litle Inn in Cobham, England. It's a small town South-West of London and the Inn is very historic (over 150 years old) and beautiful and had just lost of bunch of staff, so they were anxious to get me there right away and I booked a flight on the 8th from the Hamburg-Lubeck airport to the London Stansted Airport. The morning of my flight I woke up early to double-check all my luggage and then took a train to the Hamburg train station, then a train to the Lubeck train station. The thing about buying tickets from the cheap flight airlines is that you never fly from the major airports, and the "Hamburg Lubeck" airport was actually an airport outside of Lubeck, which is a town almost an hour outside of Hamburg. I had time to kill before my evening flight so I did a bit of sightseeing in Lubeck, which is a really adorable German town. At the Lubeck train station I had my last glass of German Gluwein then took a train to the airport.
I took a plane to the Stansted airport outside of London and went to the customs desk (like everyone) to get through border patrol to the UK. The guard at the patrol desk asked all the standard questions and I gave my usual answers ("where are you planning on going?" "oh well you know, just taveling around" "when do you plan on leaving" "I'm not sure yet, I'm just sort of adventuring around" etc).' I got worried when he started asking more and more questions, and then called over another customs officer to ask me questions as well. They eventually said that they needed to know more things and they asked me to wait to be interviewed by another customs officer. I tried not ot panick, but when they brought me into a "holding room" (aka: jail) where a customs security officer expained what would happen in my questioning. Over the next 5 hours I was detained, questioned, had my bags searched and some of my posessions temporarily confiscated, was fingerprinted, questioned, and made to wait in the holding room for a long time (aka: purgatory). The customs security officers were really nice and gave me tea and a sandwich, and the customs officers were pretty much Satan and questioned me about the most outlandishly invasive personal things, and made me feel more criminalised than I've ever felt in my life, including when I was doing things that were actually illegal! The worst thing was that this one walrus of a woman who kept questioning me would say over and over "you know, we're not trying to punish you for being young and impulsive, but..." and it took all of my willpower not to yell at her, "that's EXACTLY what you're punishing me for!" After 5 hours of detainment and questioning I was informed that I would be rejected from the border (on the grounds of not having prvided enough information about my travels and not having a return ticket home to guarantee I would be leaving the UK) and placed on a 6:30am flight back to Hamburg. Until the flight I was forced to stay in the holding room with the other rejectees. Around 2 am I crampedly curled up on the bench and tried to sleep a bit, but there was a South Afican man who was detained (I eventually found out) because he had forged his passport, and he kept yelling about the injustice of him being detained and fingerprinted and trying to argue his way out of there ALL NIGHT! At 6:30 I was put on the plane back to Hamburg via the Lubeck termnal and arrived there having no idea where to go or what to do. I took the bus back to Hamburg proper feeling dazed, tired, and thouroughly pissed off. My only comfort was the realisation that I did the exact opposite of the Beatles and was ejected from the UK to Hamburg instead of the other way around (only I wasn't arrested). I eventually made up my mind that the only way for me to stay in Europe for longer was to work, and I would get my shit in order and try again to get through the UK border so that I could work at the job that was lined up for me (by the way, by this time I had talked to the Assistant Manager at the Inn, Fiona, and told her what was going on so they knew not to expect me right away). I found an internet cafe and managed to book a flight to London (another 50 Euros wasted) but it wasn't until the next day, and after all this giant wasting of all my non-money I decided I couldn't afford to stay in a hostel for the night and would instead just stay awake (again) instead. I did some research into different flight companies that fly from Europe to Canada to find the cheapest possible flight home. You can only stay in Europe for 3 months out of 6 and the UK for 6 months out of 12 and both hose times simultaneously end around March 28th, so I looked for a ticket near then. I bought a return ticket to Canada from London (March 26th) for actually a pretty good deal, and then spent hours printing out banking information, tickets, emails from friends in the UK, and other such proof that I wouln't secretly immigrate to the UK and drain all their resources (or something). I spent the majority of the night in a Kebab restaurant chain-drinking coffee and writing delusional thoughts in my journal. The next morning I dragged my haggard carcass onto the bus to the airport, and when through all the motions of the flight again. At the UK border I presented my portfolio of documents suggesting that I am a lovely person and not a terrorist and this time I (FINALLY) got through. The airport was really crowded and I had to wait in line for over an hour for a bus to London holding my giant backpack on my back the whole time (groan, death), then I took a bus to the London train station, then a train to Cobham. The Cedar House Hotel sent a taxi to the train station to pick me up. The hotel was in chaos because they were holding a wedding (then dinner then dance) and had to people call in sick and were understaffed in the first place. Despite the fact that I hadn't slept in 3 days and was legally dead, I went to my room (small but nice) to shower and change, and then worked from 3 to about 10:30pm at which point I actually did die. Since then Ive been working at the restaurant at the Inn, getting to know and make friends with the other staff members, and explore the adorable town of Cobham where the Cedar House is. Some fun facts: The Cedar House Hotel was built in 1450 and is beautiful and old and very fancy. Cobham is a really precious old town that kind of reminds me of an historic, British, more adorable Gravenhurst. It is located in the Surrey County (South-West of London, near Kingston), which is famous for being the most posh county in England and has a very uppity native accent. The Cedar House Hotel has a small staff of really great people that I'm enjoying spending time with . My new friend here named Tytti is staying at the hotel too, and she's a gyminst! Cool! I've had 2 days off so far, and have spent them visiting London, seeing some sights, and hanging out with Nikki again (yay). When cruising around the Covenant Garden market area looking for used bookshops, I found the London China town! It was right smack dab in the middle of Chinese New Year's, so the place was all decked out in lanterns and streamers. I was really excited to walk around the place and eat in one of the really deceently-priced-considering-it's-London-Restaurants. I liked it so much that when I came back to London on my next day off with Tytti and Goshka (2 girls from the Cedar House) and two of Tytti's Finnish friends in town for the day, I took them to China Town so we could all have lunch there. London has FANTASTIC Chinese food! I also had dinner the first night with Nikki at an amazingly cheap and great Indian restaurant in the southern (aka:more ghetto) part of London. The restaurant is BYOB so we bought a bottle of wine to go with dinner, then pigged out on yummy curries and naan. I got to see Big Ben at night for the first time; it's so pretty all lit up and gothic looking. Basically I've done a lot of great London exploring on my days off, and on my days on I've spent time hanging around Cobham and reading one of the many books I purchased in London. I love that I don't have to worry about carrying everything on my back right now so I can buy as many books as I damnwell please. The most exciting bit of news, however, is that today I managed to get a Cobham library card so that I can come to the library (like right now for instance) and use their internet, and also borrow books. I've borrowed some books on England so I can read up about my surroundings and decide what I want to visit on my off days of adventuring. So, despite my harrowing peril at the UK border, I'm actually the most settled I've been this entire trip, and will be living and working in my cute little Inn, and still managing to adventure around as much as possible.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
We interrupt this blog for breaking news!!!
2 things:
Firstly, I now have a return ticket to Canada. I'll be landing in Toronto's Pearson Airport on March 26th at sometime in the evening I can't be bothered to remember right now. No, I don't have plans for when I come home.
Secondly, I have an address!!! So all you lovely people that I'm sure have been writing me letters whilst you weep over my absense can actually mail them to me! The address is below, so copy it down and mail me letters. Mail them now! Right now!!!
Kendall Malchuk
c/o The Cedar House
Mill Road
Cobham, Surrey
United Kingdom
KT11 3AL
Firstly, I now have a return ticket to Canada. I'll be landing in Toronto's Pearson Airport on March 26th at sometime in the evening I can't be bothered to remember right now. No, I don't have plans for when I come home.
Secondly, I have an address!!! So all you lovely people that I'm sure have been writing me letters whilst you weep over my absense can actually mail them to me! The address is below, so copy it down and mail me letters. Mail them now! Right now!!!
Kendall Malchuk
c/o The Cedar House
Mill Road
Cobham, Surrey
United Kingdom
KT11 3AL
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A Pirate´s life for me
Once again, I haven´t updated this in a while, so here goes another long episode of the wild and crazy adventure that is my life. On boxing day Nikki and I actually maanged to get up super early, get the good breakfast, shower, pack, organise our stuff in luggage, and be otherwise very industrious before sitting down to the consuming task of smoking the rest of our weed. Here´s a tip: don´t get high before doing anything improtant. After some time in the smoking room, we went to the train station to inquire about trains to Hamburg, because I still didn´t technically have a plan for what I was doing that night. The train was crazy expensive, so we had to negotiate the ridiculously complicated (when high) metro sytem in AMsterdam, to get to the bus station and inquire about bus prices. The bus was half the cost of the train, so I bought a ticket on the spot, and we wentback tothe hostel to spend our last hours together. We spent them in the smoking room. Good times.
I departed for my 3pm bus, and then spent the next 8 hours sitting on the bus, listening to music, reading the Scarlet Letter, and sobering up. It´s kind of sad that in 3 days I reached a state where it was really wierd to not be high. Oh wait, did I say sad? I meant awesome!
Anyway, when I arrived in Hamburg, I stil hadn´t heard from my friend Sandra who lives here, so I found a hostel to spend the night. I made buddies with the reception guy, and we went and got food at a restaurant in Hamburg´s giant and wicked red light district. I had a baked potatoe and he taught me some German words. The hostel was really clean and nice but had a creepy, sterile, hospital-like vibe that really freaked me out, so thenext day I stored my stuff at reception and went to an internet café in search of better conditions. I emailed about a million couchsurfing requests, and stalked Sandra a bit more. I fianlly got a hold of her, and we met up for coffee. Sandra is anotehr one of my German friends that I met when she was working at Taboo in G-Hurst. It was SO good to see her again, and we had a big run and hug moment when we first saw each other at our predetermined meeting point. It turns out that Sandra is still brand new to Hamburg and hadn´t been able to find a place, so is stayig in very cramped staff housing at the moment andcan´t take in a guest. She kept saying she felt so bad that she couldn´t tkae me in, but I was like, "dude, no worries, I´ll figure it out" and as fate would have it, I got a response from a German fellow with a couch to spare, and had somehwere to go that night. So long creepy sterile hostel! Hello crazy German apartment with a bathtub on the balcony! Oh yes! Sandra and I spent some hours together catching up and then I met up with my new CS host Jens. He gave me a driving tour of Hamburg, then took me to his crazy apartment where we hung out and watched movies. Hamburg is a really crazy city. It´s very historical, but giant patches of city were obliterated in WWII, so it also has lots of newer development areas. It´s a very chaotic mix of new and old, industrious and seedy, quaint and noisy. It has the largest, most historical, and most famous harbour in Germany and is definitely a pirate city. Ya´rr!
The next day I searched all the Beatles in Hamburg sights online and did a homemade Beatles tour. I saw the clubs they played, the apartment they lived in, and the neighbourhood they used to hang in. All very, very exciting for me! Another Bealtes pilgrimage. After that I wandered the red light district (which is bigger than Amsterdam´s and Paris´) and then scooted over to the harbour to watch the sunset. Sunsetover nothing but harbour as far as the eye could see- very magical. Add a cup of glüwein in my hand (which I did add) and it was friggin fantastic! Then I met up with Sandra and a friend of hers for late dinner in the red light district. After that we poked around some pubs to see if I could drum up some work, then back to Jens´flat for more movie watching. He has a huge projection screen in his livingroom so it was like being in a private theatre. Very cool.
The next two days were spent almost entirely at the computer sending out resumes like rapid-fire. I am in super huge need of income right now and I´m trying my ass off to find work. Not surpirsingly, this was incredibly boring and monotonous, so I decided to take the bus to Berlin for New Year´s eve to give myself a little break and a lot of fun.
A little information: Berlin has one of the world´s largest New Year´s eve parties. They close down about 8-10 city blocks, erect 3 huge stages, put up party tents, bar tents, and close to a hundred vendors of food, drinks, drinks, drinks, and random stuff. It is fucking crazy! I met a German man and his Mother on the bus to Berlin that were heading to the party, so they helped me find my way there. On the walk over more and more people joined the huge group all walking to the main event. Germans are obsessed with New Years and also very obsessed with fireworks, and all of New Years Eve day and night everyone, everywhere was setting off fireworks in the streets. As they were walking, people would light fireworks and just drop them on the road behind them. I´ve never seen anything like it! Or heard anything like it! It sounded like you were walking through guerilla warfare. Crazy Germans!
I arrived at the big street party (finally) and started pushing my way through the crowd (between glasses of glüwein, of course) to get to the main stage for the big countdown. It took an hour for me to get within eyesight of the stage, and at the countdown I was smushed into a bunch of people and still not quite at the stage crowd. At midnight there was about 15 minutes of fireworks, which were beautiful, and then I finally made it to the main stage and got my dance on. I made friends, lost friends in the crowd, drank glüwein, bought chips, bumped into strangers, danced, danced, danced. I did a tour of the rave tents, drank more glüwein, and had a crazy night. At 6am I took a cab to the bus station for my 7am bus back to Hamburg. I had a broken sleep on the bus and arrived at 10am in Hamburg, bleary-eyed, cold, smelly, and tired. I stumbled off the bus and my first daylight sight of the new year was "fuck you" graffitied on a bus sign in front of me. I laughed heartily and took it as a sign of something very cosmically funny.
I took the subway to Jens´place and picked up my (heavy) bags, then took the subway to central station to go to my new CS host´s place. Unfortunately on the way over I lost my directions my new host Andreas´house. I had the address and phone number and nothing else. I called from a payphone, but the German phones are crazy expensive and I got cut-off before I could get the directions down. I eventually had a lightbulb moment, and sought out the tourist office, where they looked up the road, printed me a map of the area, showed me the subway stop to go to, and were otherwise awesome. I finally made it to Andreas´house at about 2pm, dumped my stuff on the floor, and collapsed. He had a polish-german couple staying with him for one more night, and they were in hte guestroom still sleeping off the effects of partying. He was really hungover and I was half-dead, so after talking for a bit, he went back to bed and I napped on the couch.
Tht evening I met the couple staying there when they eventually got up, as well as Andreas´neighbour. The day was spent recovering, chatting, then eating yummy homemade pizza. The next morning I got up early and did some sightseeing with the couple before their afternoon train home. We took a ferry (hilariously covered in Jagermeister adverts) to the beach and walked around. We also walked around the historical Storage City that used to be a seperate country from Germany so that people could ship lots of goods and store and sell them without paying taxes. Sneaky German pirates! The couple took off for their train and I went to the Mseum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg central to see the Lichenstein exhibit they had going on. The museum is incredible! Loads of different exhibits, big enough to be awesome, but small enough not to be overwhelming. I loved it! On the way back to Andreas´ place I picked up some food for dinner and a big bottle of glüwein. Andreas remember me professing my love of glüwein and also bought some whilst I was away (haha). So after I spent a few hours online looking for work, we cooked, drank 3 litres of glüwein between the two of us (oh my poor liver), cooked food, and watched a movie on Picasso.
The next day, after sleeping off the glüwein, Andreas and I went to a big outdoor fleamarket that they have in the artsy area of Hamburg on Saturdays. After poking around for an hour or so, we warmed up over coffee, then went to the Parliment building dwntown so I could see it. It´s a beautiful, old, ornate building, covered in statues and detail-work. Then went to an Indian supermarket to get curry fixings and a rice cooker for Andreas. When we got back to his place Andreas felt a cold coming on and laid down whilst I cooked curry and read a wicked book he loaned me. I spent the rest of the night looking for work online, then reading. The next day Andreas felt like absolute death, so I set out alone to go sightseeing. I went to the famous Hamburg tunnel- underwater walkway- and walked around it for a while. After that I poked around downtown, then went out for coffee. When I got back Andreas was sequestered in his room for the rest of the night, so I cooked, drank tea, and finished reading the book.
Today after breakfast and such I´ve come right to an internet cafe to check emails, find a new place to stay, and look for work. Adreas´computer is in his room and he seems upset that he has to host someone while being sick, so I´m trying to make myself scarce right now.
I departed for my 3pm bus, and then spent the next 8 hours sitting on the bus, listening to music, reading the Scarlet Letter, and sobering up. It´s kind of sad that in 3 days I reached a state where it was really wierd to not be high. Oh wait, did I say sad? I meant awesome!
Anyway, when I arrived in Hamburg, I stil hadn´t heard from my friend Sandra who lives here, so I found a hostel to spend the night. I made buddies with the reception guy, and we went and got food at a restaurant in Hamburg´s giant and wicked red light district. I had a baked potatoe and he taught me some German words. The hostel was really clean and nice but had a creepy, sterile, hospital-like vibe that really freaked me out, so thenext day I stored my stuff at reception and went to an internet café in search of better conditions. I emailed about a million couchsurfing requests, and stalked Sandra a bit more. I fianlly got a hold of her, and we met up for coffee. Sandra is anotehr one of my German friends that I met when she was working at Taboo in G-Hurst. It was SO good to see her again, and we had a big run and hug moment when we first saw each other at our predetermined meeting point. It turns out that Sandra is still brand new to Hamburg and hadn´t been able to find a place, so is stayig in very cramped staff housing at the moment andcan´t take in a guest. She kept saying she felt so bad that she couldn´t tkae me in, but I was like, "dude, no worries, I´ll figure it out" and as fate would have it, I got a response from a German fellow with a couch to spare, and had somehwere to go that night. So long creepy sterile hostel! Hello crazy German apartment with a bathtub on the balcony! Oh yes! Sandra and I spent some hours together catching up and then I met up with my new CS host Jens. He gave me a driving tour of Hamburg, then took me to his crazy apartment where we hung out and watched movies. Hamburg is a really crazy city. It´s very historical, but giant patches of city were obliterated in WWII, so it also has lots of newer development areas. It´s a very chaotic mix of new and old, industrious and seedy, quaint and noisy. It has the largest, most historical, and most famous harbour in Germany and is definitely a pirate city. Ya´rr!
The next day I searched all the Beatles in Hamburg sights online and did a homemade Beatles tour. I saw the clubs they played, the apartment they lived in, and the neighbourhood they used to hang in. All very, very exciting for me! Another Bealtes pilgrimage. After that I wandered the red light district (which is bigger than Amsterdam´s and Paris´) and then scooted over to the harbour to watch the sunset. Sunsetover nothing but harbour as far as the eye could see- very magical. Add a cup of glüwein in my hand (which I did add) and it was friggin fantastic! Then I met up with Sandra and a friend of hers for late dinner in the red light district. After that we poked around some pubs to see if I could drum up some work, then back to Jens´flat for more movie watching. He has a huge projection screen in his livingroom so it was like being in a private theatre. Very cool.
The next two days were spent almost entirely at the computer sending out resumes like rapid-fire. I am in super huge need of income right now and I´m trying my ass off to find work. Not surpirsingly, this was incredibly boring and monotonous, so I decided to take the bus to Berlin for New Year´s eve to give myself a little break and a lot of fun.
A little information: Berlin has one of the world´s largest New Year´s eve parties. They close down about 8-10 city blocks, erect 3 huge stages, put up party tents, bar tents, and close to a hundred vendors of food, drinks, drinks, drinks, and random stuff. It is fucking crazy! I met a German man and his Mother on the bus to Berlin that were heading to the party, so they helped me find my way there. On the walk over more and more people joined the huge group all walking to the main event. Germans are obsessed with New Years and also very obsessed with fireworks, and all of New Years Eve day and night everyone, everywhere was setting off fireworks in the streets. As they were walking, people would light fireworks and just drop them on the road behind them. I´ve never seen anything like it! Or heard anything like it! It sounded like you were walking through guerilla warfare. Crazy Germans!
I arrived at the big street party (finally) and started pushing my way through the crowd (between glasses of glüwein, of course) to get to the main stage for the big countdown. It took an hour for me to get within eyesight of the stage, and at the countdown I was smushed into a bunch of people and still not quite at the stage crowd. At midnight there was about 15 minutes of fireworks, which were beautiful, and then I finally made it to the main stage and got my dance on. I made friends, lost friends in the crowd, drank glüwein, bought chips, bumped into strangers, danced, danced, danced. I did a tour of the rave tents, drank more glüwein, and had a crazy night. At 6am I took a cab to the bus station for my 7am bus back to Hamburg. I had a broken sleep on the bus and arrived at 10am in Hamburg, bleary-eyed, cold, smelly, and tired. I stumbled off the bus and my first daylight sight of the new year was "fuck you" graffitied on a bus sign in front of me. I laughed heartily and took it as a sign of something very cosmically funny.
I took the subway to Jens´place and picked up my (heavy) bags, then took the subway to central station to go to my new CS host´s place. Unfortunately on the way over I lost my directions my new host Andreas´house. I had the address and phone number and nothing else. I called from a payphone, but the German phones are crazy expensive and I got cut-off before I could get the directions down. I eventually had a lightbulb moment, and sought out the tourist office, where they looked up the road, printed me a map of the area, showed me the subway stop to go to, and were otherwise awesome. I finally made it to Andreas´house at about 2pm, dumped my stuff on the floor, and collapsed. He had a polish-german couple staying with him for one more night, and they were in hte guestroom still sleeping off the effects of partying. He was really hungover and I was half-dead, so after talking for a bit, he went back to bed and I napped on the couch.
Tht evening I met the couple staying there when they eventually got up, as well as Andreas´neighbour. The day was spent recovering, chatting, then eating yummy homemade pizza. The next morning I got up early and did some sightseeing with the couple before their afternoon train home. We took a ferry (hilariously covered in Jagermeister adverts) to the beach and walked around. We also walked around the historical Storage City that used to be a seperate country from Germany so that people could ship lots of goods and store and sell them without paying taxes. Sneaky German pirates! The couple took off for their train and I went to the Mseum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg central to see the Lichenstein exhibit they had going on. The museum is incredible! Loads of different exhibits, big enough to be awesome, but small enough not to be overwhelming. I loved it! On the way back to Andreas´ place I picked up some food for dinner and a big bottle of glüwein. Andreas remember me professing my love of glüwein and also bought some whilst I was away (haha). So after I spent a few hours online looking for work, we cooked, drank 3 litres of glüwein between the two of us (oh my poor liver), cooked food, and watched a movie on Picasso.
The next day, after sleeping off the glüwein, Andreas and I went to a big outdoor fleamarket that they have in the artsy area of Hamburg on Saturdays. After poking around for an hour or so, we warmed up over coffee, then went to the Parliment building dwntown so I could see it. It´s a beautiful, old, ornate building, covered in statues and detail-work. Then went to an Indian supermarket to get curry fixings and a rice cooker for Andreas. When we got back to his place Andreas felt a cold coming on and laid down whilst I cooked curry and read a wicked book he loaned me. I spent the rest of the night looking for work online, then reading. The next day Andreas felt like absolute death, so I set out alone to go sightseeing. I went to the famous Hamburg tunnel- underwater walkway- and walked around it for a while. After that I poked around downtown, then went out for coffee. When I got back Andreas was sequestered in his room for the rest of the night, so I cooked, drank tea, and finished reading the book.
Today after breakfast and such I´ve come right to an internet cafe to check emails, find a new place to stay, and look for work. Adreas´computer is in his room and he seems upset that he has to host someone while being sick, so I´m trying to make myself scarce right now.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Amster-dam that´s good times!
Well, in 4 days I went from having been to 7 European countries, to having been to 9 European countries. How cool am I? (the answer is way cool). My Amsterdam flight was very early in the morning, and I had to wake up very, very early to get a ride from Corinne (bless her little heart for driving me) to the airport in Basel, about an hour and a half away from Zurich. Once it got to about midnight I decided the best course of action was to stay up all night rather than sleep for only a few hours. At 4am we left Corinne´s, drove to the airport, and I got myself all organised and checked in. Waiting for the plane was torture because I started to realise how tired I was, but the flight was pleasant and I got the unique pleasure of seeing the sun-rise over Holland from above Holland. Very cool. The Amsterdam airport is insane! It´s huge and it was packed, and when I went to the info desk to find out where my hostel is I found out there were 2 hostels with the same name and I didn´t know which one Nikki was reserved at! Eep! I took a stab and went to the downtown one, which wasapparently the right one because Nikki was in the lobby! Yay! Now our Amsterdam Christmas adventure could really begin!
Now follows the censored version of our Amsterdam adventure:
Amsterdam was nice. We went to the Anne Frank museum and the Van Gogh museum. I had a good Christmas.
Now follows the uncensored version of our Amsterdam adventure (read at your own risk):
Amsterdam is tits!!! After getting checked in we imediately found a coffee shop near the hostel and (get this) ordered weed off a menu! No matter how many times I heard people say they did this in Amsterdam, it did not prepare me for the incredible awesomeness of doing it in real life! Off a menu! Fantastic! We got baked and did a bunch of walking around the red-light district, then around the china-town area, eventually leading us to get some really tasty asian food. After that there was more walking around the red light district. Nikki was nervous about walking through the main red light streets with all the hookers because ti was now dark out, but I was like "dude, this is a tourist city!" there was a gift shop sandwiched between two hooker windows. How much more tame can you get? What was really interesting was the looks on hte different hookers´faces in the windows. Some looked really excited to be there, some bored, some impassive, some challenging. It was very crazy ans surreal. Afterwards we went back to the hostel for more weed, dinner, and then ventured out one more time to go to the highly graphic "Sex Museum". It had a collection of pornography, ancient sex symbols and statues, mannequinns, cartoons, erotic novelties, and lots of paintings and pictures of naked people. A good way to spend an hour in Amsterdam if there ever was one! Next we returned to the hostel again for our horrible collapse of tiredness at around 11pm. We both were running on little (or in my case no) sleep.
The next morning was Christmas eve day, and we decided to pakc in the majority of our sightseeing because we figured nothing would be open on xmas day. We started the day sober (gasp I know!) in order to go to the Ann Frank museum. It was really incredible to see the apartment they hid in, the original diary, and a ton of other stuff from the family, including video footage of her father after the war (heart-breaking). After a few hours in hte museum, we were feeling pretty heavy, so we decided that the best plan was to commence the hostel´s reccommended "coffee shop tour" and get baked. We went to a coffee shop called the "rock café", which had a really bitchy girl working there. After getting high and playing cards for a bit, we continued with the tour, which took us from North to South Amsterdam through many of the busy roads, including hte posh shopping area. The best suprprise of the walk was when we passed over a bridge and saw a man on a small motor-boat, decked out in ribbons, playing a peddle-powered organ with a foot-pedal, and accompanying himself on hte french horn then trumpet, all whilst boating around in circles. We watched him for many minutes and could discern no reason for him doing it, other than accute awesomeness. It was incredible!
We veered off the tour in search of the Van Gogh museum (a must-see if you´re in Amsterdam and even remotely like art). It turns out that they advertise the off-site museum gift-shop with several signs in giant, red, block letters. You can see the gift shop from a block away. The museum itself is across the park from the gift shop, behind a large building, and with the world´s smallest and saddest sign ever! Because of this and the fact that we were still high, it took us about half an hour to find the museum, even though we asked for directions 3 times. What a terrible system! The Van Gogh museum is really amazing. There are 3 floors of art and one floor with info and toilets, etc. The top floor is all Van Gogh paintings, hung beside info panels with snippets about his life. All the paitings are in chronogloical order, so you can really see his progression as an artist. Favourite painting? Toss up between the sunflower painting (holy friggin wow) and a painting he did of a skeleton smoking a cigarette (that´s just hilarious). The next floor down is paintings from throughout his career juxtaposed with paintings by artists of his time that worked with him or otherwise inspired him. The best thing about this floor was that you could directly see which of his paintings were inspired by whom in his early career, also they had a ton of Gaugin´s work and I friggin LOVE Gaugin! There was also tons of info panels here. The bottom floor was random art that had nothing to do with Van Gogh, but is cool anyway, only by the time we got here the museum was closing, so we had to rush through.
After this it was getting to be late-ish and we were cold and hungry, so we took a tram back to the hostel to make dinner. Before dinner we chilled out in the smoking room of the hostel (it used to be you could smoke weed anywhere, but due to recent laws, there has to be a smoking section in a residential-type building... guess which room was the most popular?). In there we met a boisterous Edinburgh lad and American girl, who told us that there was a Christmas Eve pub crawl happening that night and that we would be fools not to go. Damn fools even! I could not possibly resist the hilarious novelty of going on a pub crawl on Christmas Eve in Amsterdam, so we rushed dinner and then went out of the town. The deal was that you pay 15 euros and get free admission into every bar, a free drink at each bar, free all-you-can-drink shots at the first bar, and shots upon entering most bars. I was excited for the free liquor, because poorness means that I couldn´t afford to buy any drinks at the bars. Unfortunately the shots were really watered down and sugary, and the free drinks were small, so it took forever to actually get drunk. I did, however, fully abuse the free shots rule at the first bar.
We were supposed to be in the first pub for an outrageous amount of time, because the crawl leaders wanted to wait for stragglers to show up. So after our free drinks were done and the shots ran out, Nikki, the Scotsman, an adorable asian named Shumpei, and an Indian guy whose name I forget, and I, decided to deek out of the pub and head to a nearby coffee shop to kill some time. We wound up going to the first ever coffee shop in Amsterdam (the Bulldog), buying 4 pre-rolled joints, and smoking on of them. In a much better mood we returned to the pub crawl. The crawl was awesome and included much drinking and dancing, meeting lots of cool people, and smoking the otehr 3 joints. The 2 coolest things in the night, was when it turned midnight and officially Christmas, white snow-like confetti exploded on everyone from the ceiling. The other amazing thing was at one pub they had fire breathers! The bartenders were just working away, making drinks, then suddenly each of them picked up a torch and a big liquor bottle and blew back-and-forth fire balls for about 10 minutes. It was insanely cool! At the end of the night we followed a brother and sister from Montreal home to our hostel, after getting thouroughly lost first, and crawled into bed.
Christmas morning we accidentally slept through breakfast and weren´t allowed in the kitchen to make coffee because of after-breakfast clean-up, so I read in the smoking room while Nikki stayed in bed nursing a hangover (ah the Christmas hangover, a classic!). Eventually she got up, we got coffee and a healthy breakfast of cookies, and recorded our Christmas video in the lounge area before getting stoned (not that you could tell from the video). The whole Christmas day was spent in between the smoking room and the lounge area, getting high, watching movies, looking up internet comics, meetings Australians, and eating junk food. Also, I spent the whole of Christmas wearing a santa hat and my batgirl t-shirt (happy batmas). We went outside only once, to go to a coffee shop called "Ben" and get chips with garlic sauce (way better than ketchup!). The night culminated in a back-to-back viewing of the Big Lebowski and Yellow Submarine (guess which one I brought). All in all it was a great Christmas, and I was really glad to spend it with Nikki because she is a dear friend of many years past.
Frig that was a lot of writing! Well, we´re all updated until Christmas and I´ll write the rest later.
Now follows the censored version of our Amsterdam adventure:
Amsterdam was nice. We went to the Anne Frank museum and the Van Gogh museum. I had a good Christmas.
Now follows the uncensored version of our Amsterdam adventure (read at your own risk):
Amsterdam is tits!!! After getting checked in we imediately found a coffee shop near the hostel and (get this) ordered weed off a menu! No matter how many times I heard people say they did this in Amsterdam, it did not prepare me for the incredible awesomeness of doing it in real life! Off a menu! Fantastic! We got baked and did a bunch of walking around the red-light district, then around the china-town area, eventually leading us to get some really tasty asian food. After that there was more walking around the red light district. Nikki was nervous about walking through the main red light streets with all the hookers because ti was now dark out, but I was like "dude, this is a tourist city!" there was a gift shop sandwiched between two hooker windows. How much more tame can you get? What was really interesting was the looks on hte different hookers´faces in the windows. Some looked really excited to be there, some bored, some impassive, some challenging. It was very crazy ans surreal. Afterwards we went back to the hostel for more weed, dinner, and then ventured out one more time to go to the highly graphic "Sex Museum". It had a collection of pornography, ancient sex symbols and statues, mannequinns, cartoons, erotic novelties, and lots of paintings and pictures of naked people. A good way to spend an hour in Amsterdam if there ever was one! Next we returned to the hostel again for our horrible collapse of tiredness at around 11pm. We both were running on little (or in my case no) sleep.
The next morning was Christmas eve day, and we decided to pakc in the majority of our sightseeing because we figured nothing would be open on xmas day. We started the day sober (gasp I know!) in order to go to the Ann Frank museum. It was really incredible to see the apartment they hid in, the original diary, and a ton of other stuff from the family, including video footage of her father after the war (heart-breaking). After a few hours in hte museum, we were feeling pretty heavy, so we decided that the best plan was to commence the hostel´s reccommended "coffee shop tour" and get baked. We went to a coffee shop called the "rock café", which had a really bitchy girl working there. After getting high and playing cards for a bit, we continued with the tour, which took us from North to South Amsterdam through many of the busy roads, including hte posh shopping area. The best suprprise of the walk was when we passed over a bridge and saw a man on a small motor-boat, decked out in ribbons, playing a peddle-powered organ with a foot-pedal, and accompanying himself on hte french horn then trumpet, all whilst boating around in circles. We watched him for many minutes and could discern no reason for him doing it, other than accute awesomeness. It was incredible!
We veered off the tour in search of the Van Gogh museum (a must-see if you´re in Amsterdam and even remotely like art). It turns out that they advertise the off-site museum gift-shop with several signs in giant, red, block letters. You can see the gift shop from a block away. The museum itself is across the park from the gift shop, behind a large building, and with the world´s smallest and saddest sign ever! Because of this and the fact that we were still high, it took us about half an hour to find the museum, even though we asked for directions 3 times. What a terrible system! The Van Gogh museum is really amazing. There are 3 floors of art and one floor with info and toilets, etc. The top floor is all Van Gogh paintings, hung beside info panels with snippets about his life. All the paitings are in chronogloical order, so you can really see his progression as an artist. Favourite painting? Toss up between the sunflower painting (holy friggin wow) and a painting he did of a skeleton smoking a cigarette (that´s just hilarious). The next floor down is paintings from throughout his career juxtaposed with paintings by artists of his time that worked with him or otherwise inspired him. The best thing about this floor was that you could directly see which of his paintings were inspired by whom in his early career, also they had a ton of Gaugin´s work and I friggin LOVE Gaugin! There was also tons of info panels here. The bottom floor was random art that had nothing to do with Van Gogh, but is cool anyway, only by the time we got here the museum was closing, so we had to rush through.
After this it was getting to be late-ish and we were cold and hungry, so we took a tram back to the hostel to make dinner. Before dinner we chilled out in the smoking room of the hostel (it used to be you could smoke weed anywhere, but due to recent laws, there has to be a smoking section in a residential-type building... guess which room was the most popular?). In there we met a boisterous Edinburgh lad and American girl, who told us that there was a Christmas Eve pub crawl happening that night and that we would be fools not to go. Damn fools even! I could not possibly resist the hilarious novelty of going on a pub crawl on Christmas Eve in Amsterdam, so we rushed dinner and then went out of the town. The deal was that you pay 15 euros and get free admission into every bar, a free drink at each bar, free all-you-can-drink shots at the first bar, and shots upon entering most bars. I was excited for the free liquor, because poorness means that I couldn´t afford to buy any drinks at the bars. Unfortunately the shots were really watered down and sugary, and the free drinks were small, so it took forever to actually get drunk. I did, however, fully abuse the free shots rule at the first bar.
We were supposed to be in the first pub for an outrageous amount of time, because the crawl leaders wanted to wait for stragglers to show up. So after our free drinks were done and the shots ran out, Nikki, the Scotsman, an adorable asian named Shumpei, and an Indian guy whose name I forget, and I, decided to deek out of the pub and head to a nearby coffee shop to kill some time. We wound up going to the first ever coffee shop in Amsterdam (the Bulldog), buying 4 pre-rolled joints, and smoking on of them. In a much better mood we returned to the pub crawl. The crawl was awesome and included much drinking and dancing, meeting lots of cool people, and smoking the otehr 3 joints. The 2 coolest things in the night, was when it turned midnight and officially Christmas, white snow-like confetti exploded on everyone from the ceiling. The other amazing thing was at one pub they had fire breathers! The bartenders were just working away, making drinks, then suddenly each of them picked up a torch and a big liquor bottle and blew back-and-forth fire balls for about 10 minutes. It was insanely cool! At the end of the night we followed a brother and sister from Montreal home to our hostel, after getting thouroughly lost first, and crawled into bed.
Christmas morning we accidentally slept through breakfast and weren´t allowed in the kitchen to make coffee because of after-breakfast clean-up, so I read in the smoking room while Nikki stayed in bed nursing a hangover (ah the Christmas hangover, a classic!). Eventually she got up, we got coffee and a healthy breakfast of cookies, and recorded our Christmas video in the lounge area before getting stoned (not that you could tell from the video). The whole Christmas day was spent in between the smoking room and the lounge area, getting high, watching movies, looking up internet comics, meetings Australians, and eating junk food. Also, I spent the whole of Christmas wearing a santa hat and my batgirl t-shirt (happy batmas). We went outside only once, to go to a coffee shop called "Ben" and get chips with garlic sauce (way better than ketchup!). The night culminated in a back-to-back viewing of the Big Lebowski and Yellow Submarine (guess which one I brought). All in all it was a great Christmas, and I was really glad to spend it with Nikki because she is a dear friend of many years past.
Frig that was a lot of writing! Well, we´re all updated until Christmas and I´ll write the rest later.
Monday, December 22, 2008
One week in Switzerland! I´ve had a great time staying with Corinne and her boyfriend Sebastian. They´re both cooks and they´ve made really delicious food for me every day; I´m now officially crazy-ass spoiled! I´ve gone to the little mountain near Zurich, and today I went with Corinne and Sebastian to the Alps a few hours away. The Swiss alps! Switzerland is so incredibly beautiful and ADORABLE!!! I really love it here. There are many things that I´ve come to love about this country during my stgay here, and I will briefly list them now.
1) No war, that´s just good times! However, I already knew that about Switzerland, so I will now only list things that I have newly discovered about the country I now love
2) Or real 1) They sell Glüwein at stands on almost every street and it´s so delicious!
New 2) All the houses are short and have big, pointy roofs- even the apartments and hotels are house-shaped with big, pointy roofs
3) They have big, coloured steeples with pointy roofs and clocks on all the churches
4) They sell liquor and porn almost everwhere
5) The country officially has 3 languages- how cool is that? German, French, and Italian
6) The chocolate and cheese is awesome beyond all reason!
7) There are tons of Chirstmas markets everwhere
There are probably more things, but that´s enough for now.
Corinne and her best friend Danica took me to the capital city Bern a few days ago. It is so incredibly cute!!! All the shops are teeny tiny and prefaced by beautiful arches. Most of the streets have really cute below-ground shops that open with cellar doors, and you have to walk down through the entranceway to get into the shops. There´s a really cute clock-work tower in the middle of the town with lots of amazing little fountains everywhere (one has a bear dressed in a knight costume- precious!), and every single street is made of cobblestone and is very narrow! We drove to the city in the evening and we found a market that sold glüwein, but it was crazy busy, so we walked around for a bit and found another outdoor market (of Switzerland is awesome) that was in a square in front of one of the parliment buildings and the church. We bought some glüwein and drank it in front of the parliment building, and then in front of the church. It was great! Afterwards we met up with two of Danica´s friends at a local Sheesha bar. I smoked my first ever hit of sheesha, followed by my first feeling like death from sheesha (god I hate tobacco), and so I´m never doing that again, even if it is cool and exotic and from a giant hookah. Anyway, after that we went to a drum and bass party in a town next to Bern. The DJ was insane, but the party was kind of lame because hardly anyone (excluding us of course) was dancing. How can you not dance to electronic music? After we left and dropped off the girls Corinne and I got back after 5am. I think I did the nation´s capital proud!
Another crazy, cool thing that´s happened in the last week is the other night I went with Corinne to her staff Christmas party. We weren´t told where we were going or what we were doing, we were just told the town that we were taking the train to. On the train her coworkers busted out the plastic cups and wine and we spent the long train ride drinking and talking. Drinking legally in public is awesome! Her coworkers are incredibly nice, but most of the night people were talking German, so it was a little hard to be fully in the festivites. Everyone was very accomodating, though. We arrived in the town and were brought to the house of the friend of Corinne´s boss where we all had a fondue party with tons of wine in a cool off-house room with a fireplace and big, glass doors. Very Swiss-rustic! We spent hours in the room eating the world´s most delicious fondue and drinking, and eventually poured ourselves back into the train and stumbled back to Corinne´s house.
I also had fondue a few nights before-hand at Corinne´s friend´s house. I am so friggin loving this Swiss fondue! It´s so creamy and delicious and traditional! Happy Kendall! It´s been great to try a bunch of traditional Swiss food while I´m here, especially since most of the food has been cooked for me by my Swiss hosts. Man, I love being spoiled! Anyway, that´s a pretty good overview of what my last week has entailed. Tomorrow morning in Amsterdam!
1) No war, that´s just good times! However, I already knew that about Switzerland, so I will now only list things that I have newly discovered about the country I now love
2) Or real 1) They sell Glüwein at stands on almost every street and it´s so delicious!
New 2) All the houses are short and have big, pointy roofs- even the apartments and hotels are house-shaped with big, pointy roofs
3) They have big, coloured steeples with pointy roofs and clocks on all the churches
4) They sell liquor and porn almost everwhere
5) The country officially has 3 languages- how cool is that? German, French, and Italian
6) The chocolate and cheese is awesome beyond all reason!
7) There are tons of Chirstmas markets everwhere
There are probably more things, but that´s enough for now.
Corinne and her best friend Danica took me to the capital city Bern a few days ago. It is so incredibly cute!!! All the shops are teeny tiny and prefaced by beautiful arches. Most of the streets have really cute below-ground shops that open with cellar doors, and you have to walk down through the entranceway to get into the shops. There´s a really cute clock-work tower in the middle of the town with lots of amazing little fountains everywhere (one has a bear dressed in a knight costume- precious!), and every single street is made of cobblestone and is very narrow! We drove to the city in the evening and we found a market that sold glüwein, but it was crazy busy, so we walked around for a bit and found another outdoor market (of Switzerland is awesome) that was in a square in front of one of the parliment buildings and the church. We bought some glüwein and drank it in front of the parliment building, and then in front of the church. It was great! Afterwards we met up with two of Danica´s friends at a local Sheesha bar. I smoked my first ever hit of sheesha, followed by my first feeling like death from sheesha (god I hate tobacco), and so I´m never doing that again, even if it is cool and exotic and from a giant hookah. Anyway, after that we went to a drum and bass party in a town next to Bern. The DJ was insane, but the party was kind of lame because hardly anyone (excluding us of course) was dancing. How can you not dance to electronic music? After we left and dropped off the girls Corinne and I got back after 5am. I think I did the nation´s capital proud!
Another crazy, cool thing that´s happened in the last week is the other night I went with Corinne to her staff Christmas party. We weren´t told where we were going or what we were doing, we were just told the town that we were taking the train to. On the train her coworkers busted out the plastic cups and wine and we spent the long train ride drinking and talking. Drinking legally in public is awesome! Her coworkers are incredibly nice, but most of the night people were talking German, so it was a little hard to be fully in the festivites. Everyone was very accomodating, though. We arrived in the town and were brought to the house of the friend of Corinne´s boss where we all had a fondue party with tons of wine in a cool off-house room with a fireplace and big, glass doors. Very Swiss-rustic! We spent hours in the room eating the world´s most delicious fondue and drinking, and eventually poured ourselves back into the train and stumbled back to Corinne´s house.
I also had fondue a few nights before-hand at Corinne´s friend´s house. I am so friggin loving this Swiss fondue! It´s so creamy and delicious and traditional! Happy Kendall! It´s been great to try a bunch of traditional Swiss food while I´m here, especially since most of the food has been cooked for me by my Swiss hosts. Man, I love being spoiled! Anyway, that´s a pretty good overview of what my last week has entailed. Tomorrow morning in Amsterdam!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Tag, Zurich!!!
So... I´m in another country...
Apparently I´ve been a very lazy bitch and haven´t written my blog in awhile, whilst so much has happened! When I last wrote I was just about to leave the house with Cesare and get some southern Italian pizza and wine. The rumour has it that Southern Italy has the best pizza in all of Italy, and I completely agree! Holy crap, yum!!! That night was spent eating pizza, drinking wine, and listening to music. The next morning I got up very early and spent another of my way-too-common full days of traveling. I took a train from Salerno to Roma, which was of course late, because of this I missed my connecting train to Firenze (Florence) where I was heading. Perhaps you will recall, oh devoted reader, that I was already in Florence for a day when I was staying in Pistoia. This is true, unfortunately my day in Florence was spent in the merciless grip of a flu-induced delerium, and the only thing that I remember clearly is seeing the David and feeling like death. So because of this I decided to do Firenze right- plus it was conveniently more or less on my way to Venizzia (Venice). Anyway, I missed my train, but I managed to find one leaving a few hours later, and arrived in Firenze more or less within the scope of reason.
In Firenze I spent the weekend with a delightful couple named Leornardo and Elisa. Leonardo picked me up at the train station and took me to their beautiful house in the burbs of Firenze. That night, when Leonardo had a soccer match, Elisa and I walked around Firenze at night, got some delicious Italian pizza, and the best friggin Italian coffee I´ve ever had (and I´ve had LOTS of coffee since arriving). Then we went to the Michelangelo point, which is a beautiful piazza with many statues and an amazing view of all of Firenze. After that we picked up Leonardo, went out for a drink, and headed back to their place. However, on the way home I was given a special treat, unique to Firenze. We stopped at an all-night pastry factory, where they make delicious pizzas and pastries. You could watch the two bakers making all the amaying Italian pastries, and then order the freshly made pastries for incredibly cheap. It was like food heaven! What an experience!!!
The next day I got up early and took a train into the centre of Firenze. I spent the entire day walking around the beautiful city. I´m so glad that I came back to Firenze! The city is amazing, with so many statues, churches, piazzas, and shops. I´m still pissed that they charge so much for all the churches and museums, but luckily there is so much art around the city that you can get a full cultural experience just walking around for free. That evening I went back to Elisa and Leonardo´s, and Elisa cooked a delicious risotto dinner, with an apple cake dessert, and many bottles of wine. I got to try a really fancy wine from the town beside Venizzia (Venice) and boy was it ever good! I´m going to have some big issues leaving Italian food and wine behind! Leonardo and Elisa invited a few of their friends over and we had a wonderful little party with drinks, music, and pleasant converstaion. So very Italian classy!
The next morning I was suppoed to take an 8:42 am bus to Venizzia, and I was woken up at about 8:15 by Elisa. Hungover and tired as hell from almost no sleep I rush-packed and got dropped off at the train station, with about 2 minutes to spare. I took a train to Bologna, then transfered to a train to Venizzia. I dropped my bags off at the outrageously expensive baggage storage and walked out of the station to see my first Venician canals! Yay! Man, Venizzia is beautiful beyond all reason. There are so many gorgeous canals, boats, gondolas, pizzerias, churches, and teeny tiny little roads. The only sad thing about Venezzia is that it´s barely a real city anymore, and has become almost exclusively a tourists destination. After walking around all the once grand streets that are now just rows and rows of shops it got a little weary after a while. The city is magical though; I really loved walking around and staring at all the amaying canals. There has been record-high rainfalls in Italy this year, so many of the Venician streets were flooded. It was hilarious to see really posh Italians wearing fancy clothes and wellies! Heehee. Also, there were lots of shop-keeps that would sweep the water away from the front of their shops with brooms. Only in Venizzia!
I took a 5pm train to Bologna, arriving at 8pm and having to wait until 11:30 for my overnight train to Zurich. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I stored my bags again and did a speed-tour of some of Bologna´s famous sights. It´s a beautiful city, covered in archways and fairy lights. I´m glad I got the chance to see it before leaving Italy. I got on the night train, exhausted beyond all reason, and was happy to find out I had my sleeper cabin to myself! I had washed my clothes the day before in Firenze, and some of them were still wet (and had been in my bag wet all day) so I pulled out the contents of my pack and spread them around the cabin, then went to bed. It´s very hard to sleep on a night train, especially if you´re a former insomniac, and once I finally got used to the noise of the other passengers and the train I found I would wake up every time the train stopped (which was often) or if the train made a sudden lurch (also often). So my night passed with me frequently waking up, and every time with the irrational fear that I would miss my stop in Zurich! Ah! I woke up in the morning and saw that we were stopped at a large, brightly lit station. I freaked out, thinking it was Zurich, speed-packed, and further freaked when the train started moving once I had finished packing. It wasn´t until we passed the sign saying "Bern" that I realized we still had a while to go. I found a porter and found out it was only 7am, and I had woken up at about 6:30 am with still 2 hours left to go in the trip. My freaking out had woken me up enough to not get back to sleep, so I sat up in my cabin drinking the complimentary coffee and watching the sun rise over Swiss alps and villages. What a sight! Switzerland is so cute, it looks like the inside of a snow-globe.
We arrived in Zurich at 8:40 am, meaning that in 24 hours (almost to the minute) I went from Firenze, to Venezzia, to Bologna, to Zurich, Switzerland. Wow! In Zurich I´m staying with my friend Corinne, but she had to work until 2:30, so I stored my bags at the station and went to the tourist office to get maps and info. The tourist board gives out maps with a recommended walking tour, so I spent my time doing the tour and exploring the centre-ville of Zurich. Zurich is a very busy little city, with many tall church-towers, a beautiful lake and river, and the second most expensive street in all of Europe! Wow! It´s true what they say about Switzerland, it´s expensive as hell! I´m very lucky to have a friend here. At about 3pm I met up with Corinne, went back to her place (very cute apartment with the hilarious eccentricity of having its shower in the kitchen!) and had my first shower in two days. Finally! Corinne cooked us a delicious pasta dinner (she´s a chef, lucky me!!!) and bought me my first bar of Swiss chocolate, which I actually just ate now. Holy crap it was so good! If Italy didn´t make me fat, Switzerland will.
After dinner we went to the train station where they have a Christmas market and got some Glühwein (which is the same thing as the Italian Vin Brule) with a couple of Corinne´s friends. Then we went to a bar for a traditional Swiss drink that´s like a mix between beer and lemonade, and not too shabby at all. After that we went to a Swiss club. It was really nice, but at this point I was on the brink of zombie-ness with almost no sleep in 3 days and so much traveling. We came back and I promptly passed out and slept forever. Today I woke up late, ate delicious pasta leftovers, watched a movie, and ate that amazing chocolate bar. A nice relaxing antidote to all my whilrwind traveling!
Apparently I´ve been a very lazy bitch and haven´t written my blog in awhile, whilst so much has happened! When I last wrote I was just about to leave the house with Cesare and get some southern Italian pizza and wine. The rumour has it that Southern Italy has the best pizza in all of Italy, and I completely agree! Holy crap, yum!!! That night was spent eating pizza, drinking wine, and listening to music. The next morning I got up very early and spent another of my way-too-common full days of traveling. I took a train from Salerno to Roma, which was of course late, because of this I missed my connecting train to Firenze (Florence) where I was heading. Perhaps you will recall, oh devoted reader, that I was already in Florence for a day when I was staying in Pistoia. This is true, unfortunately my day in Florence was spent in the merciless grip of a flu-induced delerium, and the only thing that I remember clearly is seeing the David and feeling like death. So because of this I decided to do Firenze right- plus it was conveniently more or less on my way to Venizzia (Venice). Anyway, I missed my train, but I managed to find one leaving a few hours later, and arrived in Firenze more or less within the scope of reason.
In Firenze I spent the weekend with a delightful couple named Leornardo and Elisa. Leonardo picked me up at the train station and took me to their beautiful house in the burbs of Firenze. That night, when Leonardo had a soccer match, Elisa and I walked around Firenze at night, got some delicious Italian pizza, and the best friggin Italian coffee I´ve ever had (and I´ve had LOTS of coffee since arriving). Then we went to the Michelangelo point, which is a beautiful piazza with many statues and an amazing view of all of Firenze. After that we picked up Leonardo, went out for a drink, and headed back to their place. However, on the way home I was given a special treat, unique to Firenze. We stopped at an all-night pastry factory, where they make delicious pizzas and pastries. You could watch the two bakers making all the amaying Italian pastries, and then order the freshly made pastries for incredibly cheap. It was like food heaven! What an experience!!!
The next day I got up early and took a train into the centre of Firenze. I spent the entire day walking around the beautiful city. I´m so glad that I came back to Firenze! The city is amazing, with so many statues, churches, piazzas, and shops. I´m still pissed that they charge so much for all the churches and museums, but luckily there is so much art around the city that you can get a full cultural experience just walking around for free. That evening I went back to Elisa and Leonardo´s, and Elisa cooked a delicious risotto dinner, with an apple cake dessert, and many bottles of wine. I got to try a really fancy wine from the town beside Venizzia (Venice) and boy was it ever good! I´m going to have some big issues leaving Italian food and wine behind! Leonardo and Elisa invited a few of their friends over and we had a wonderful little party with drinks, music, and pleasant converstaion. So very Italian classy!
The next morning I was suppoed to take an 8:42 am bus to Venizzia, and I was woken up at about 8:15 by Elisa. Hungover and tired as hell from almost no sleep I rush-packed and got dropped off at the train station, with about 2 minutes to spare. I took a train to Bologna, then transfered to a train to Venizzia. I dropped my bags off at the outrageously expensive baggage storage and walked out of the station to see my first Venician canals! Yay! Man, Venizzia is beautiful beyond all reason. There are so many gorgeous canals, boats, gondolas, pizzerias, churches, and teeny tiny little roads. The only sad thing about Venezzia is that it´s barely a real city anymore, and has become almost exclusively a tourists destination. After walking around all the once grand streets that are now just rows and rows of shops it got a little weary after a while. The city is magical though; I really loved walking around and staring at all the amaying canals. There has been record-high rainfalls in Italy this year, so many of the Venician streets were flooded. It was hilarious to see really posh Italians wearing fancy clothes and wellies! Heehee. Also, there were lots of shop-keeps that would sweep the water away from the front of their shops with brooms. Only in Venizzia!
I took a 5pm train to Bologna, arriving at 8pm and having to wait until 11:30 for my overnight train to Zurich. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I stored my bags again and did a speed-tour of some of Bologna´s famous sights. It´s a beautiful city, covered in archways and fairy lights. I´m glad I got the chance to see it before leaving Italy. I got on the night train, exhausted beyond all reason, and was happy to find out I had my sleeper cabin to myself! I had washed my clothes the day before in Firenze, and some of them were still wet (and had been in my bag wet all day) so I pulled out the contents of my pack and spread them around the cabin, then went to bed. It´s very hard to sleep on a night train, especially if you´re a former insomniac, and once I finally got used to the noise of the other passengers and the train I found I would wake up every time the train stopped (which was often) or if the train made a sudden lurch (also often). So my night passed with me frequently waking up, and every time with the irrational fear that I would miss my stop in Zurich! Ah! I woke up in the morning and saw that we were stopped at a large, brightly lit station. I freaked out, thinking it was Zurich, speed-packed, and further freaked when the train started moving once I had finished packing. It wasn´t until we passed the sign saying "Bern" that I realized we still had a while to go. I found a porter and found out it was only 7am, and I had woken up at about 6:30 am with still 2 hours left to go in the trip. My freaking out had woken me up enough to not get back to sleep, so I sat up in my cabin drinking the complimentary coffee and watching the sun rise over Swiss alps and villages. What a sight! Switzerland is so cute, it looks like the inside of a snow-globe.
We arrived in Zurich at 8:40 am, meaning that in 24 hours (almost to the minute) I went from Firenze, to Venezzia, to Bologna, to Zurich, Switzerland. Wow! In Zurich I´m staying with my friend Corinne, but she had to work until 2:30, so I stored my bags at the station and went to the tourist office to get maps and info. The tourist board gives out maps with a recommended walking tour, so I spent my time doing the tour and exploring the centre-ville of Zurich. Zurich is a very busy little city, with many tall church-towers, a beautiful lake and river, and the second most expensive street in all of Europe! Wow! It´s true what they say about Switzerland, it´s expensive as hell! I´m very lucky to have a friend here. At about 3pm I met up with Corinne, went back to her place (very cute apartment with the hilarious eccentricity of having its shower in the kitchen!) and had my first shower in two days. Finally! Corinne cooked us a delicious pasta dinner (she´s a chef, lucky me!!!) and bought me my first bar of Swiss chocolate, which I actually just ate now. Holy crap it was so good! If Italy didn´t make me fat, Switzerland will.
After dinner we went to the train station where they have a Christmas market and got some Glühwein (which is the same thing as the Italian Vin Brule) with a couple of Corinne´s friends. Then we went to a bar for a traditional Swiss drink that´s like a mix between beer and lemonade, and not too shabby at all. After that we went to a Swiss club. It was really nice, but at this point I was on the brink of zombie-ness with almost no sleep in 3 days and so much traveling. We came back and I promptly passed out and slept forever. Today I woke up late, ate delicious pasta leftovers, watched a movie, and ate that amazing chocolate bar. A nice relaxing antidote to all my whilrwind traveling!
Friday, December 12, 2008
We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog...
Ciao everyone! Well, it's almost that time of year, the christmas time. My plans are fully settled on going to Amsterdam for three days with my dear, old OSSSA friend Nikki. It should be jolly holidays for all, although I will desperately miss my family. Once again I need to remind everyone that under no circumstance is anyone allowed to buy me a present. The only material thing that I need in this world is a new camera (or my old one back, sigh). However, if anyone wants to give me money for the holidays, I'm way too broke-ass to feign indifference in this matter, and would welcome that gladly.
No one is in any way required to send me anything, but if you want to send me xmas money, you can send it c/o my Daddy, who is in charge of depositing my xmas cheques. His address is below:
(address removed)
And happy holidays!
No one is in any way required to send me anything, but if you want to send me xmas money, you can send it c/o my Daddy, who is in charge of depositing my xmas cheques. His address is below:
(address removed)
And happy holidays!
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