Author: drdan

The British Invasion or the Norman Conquest?

Volume 2, Day 44.1

Once again I must confess that my actions do not confirm to my original intentions. Why on earth would I visit England on a language learning odyssey? I already speak English. The collective weight of several England-based friends and the revelation that one could easily cross the channel by boat swayed me to change my mind and add a small UK detour to the European travels. I had found a ferry service connecting Le Havre and Portsmouth for what appeared to be a very reasonable 30 pounds, even covering the overnight ferries. I didn’t want to put the fee on my credit card so when I first arrived in Le Havre, M accompanied me into the ferry terminal to inquire about buying the tickets. It was good that M was there because I am not sure how much English the French ferry staff spoke. Unfortunately, it appeared that the price of the overnight ferry on my intended departure date was well over 100 euros, quite a bit more than the 40 something I vaguely remembered. The difference was because I had to separately pay for a cabin on that particular ship, but if I left on Thursday night or took the Friday afternoon boat, it would be the normal price…still quoted to me at north of 70 euros. It need not even be said that I did not make any hasty purchases at the moment.

Upon further research the next day, and cross references bus times and accommodation prices in Portsmouth and Oxford, I was able to do all my booking online: 35 pounds for a reserved seat on the overnight ferry on Thursday, a Megabus from Portsmouth to Oxford leaving one hour after the ferry arrival, and a night in a hostel in Oxford. With all that taken care of, I was able to enjoy the rest of my time with M and his family in Lillebonne.

On Thursday night, they drove me to the ferry terminal with us arriving barely 20 minutes before the 11pm boarding time (and required to check in 15 minutes prior to boarding time). I was a bit anxious about being late, but even more so felt guilty for keeping them up so late. Even after dropping me off, they’d still have a 30 minute drive home. I thanked my host profusely and bid him farewell.

Check-in took all of 30 seconds and I had a few minutes to sit in the waiting area with the dozen other foot passengers. At boarding time, the ticket counter staff donned their security vests and transformed into boarding staff (just like the ferries in Asia). There was a halfhearted security check with an agent rooting through one persons small duffel bag, but when he saw the size of my suitcase, he just waved me through. The passport control procedures were just as perfunctory. We boarded a bus which literally drove us onto the boat. There was an unhitched transport trailer that took our “checked luggage” to be locked up safely for the night and we climbed the three flights of stairs to the fifth deck. The reception area was on the other end of the boat from the stairs/elevator, so it was a long walk down a hallway to find the familiar sight.

Since I was in a chair, I skipped right past check-in to find me reserved seat. Apparently, the procedures for assigning seats packs everyone sequentially. Of course, since it wasn’t remotely crowded, people found a way to naturally spread out. The ship was pretty well stocked with amenities, which is strange given an overnight sailing time of 11:45-7:00, or a 3-4 hour day time sailing time. There was a movie theater with current movies available at some ungodly cost per ticket as well as a shop, bar, and restaurant. Considering we were sailing to England, I shouldn’t have been surprised that people were guzzling draft beer like it was going out of fashion. The facilities remained open until 11:30 England time, and the bright overhead lights were eventually dimmed.

The large and otherwise comfortable seats barely reclined and massive armrests made it impossible to spread out across multiple seats. I managed to sleep, but it didn’t help that I had lost my headphones, leaving me with only the far less comfortable Bluetooth set I use for exercising.

They woke us up about an hour before arrival. Having access to shipboard wifi, I checked the maps and realized that the bus terminal was a good 3 km from the Brittany Ferries terminal. Bloody hell. I started to get worried because I didn’t have any British money and I didn’t know how long it would take to get off the boat and through British passport control. The way ferries work is they have all the pet owners get their dogs out of the way, then all the other drivers, then the bikers, and finally the pedestrians. A British bus came rumbling up the ramp to pick us up among the various scurrying about of crew members moving bits of metal from point A to point B then back to point A. I feel this British/French ferry lacked the polish of the East Asian ferries.

I sailed right through passport control after answering two questions: purpose of visit and how long. Stumbling out into the arrival hall, I had no choice but to change a bit of money at the Travelex counter which gave a bad rate and charge a 5 pound fee. Welcome to England! The sky was gray, it was cold, there was a constant drizzle of rain. Google Maps had details on public buses that could get me to the Hard Interchange, but when I saw the row of taxis in from of the terminal, I pondered how much could it cost to go a mile and a half. A lot, apparently. The meter ticked up 20 pence every 20 seconds. Whatever.

I had actually arrived at the Interchange a good 25 minutes before my departure time. There was free wifi and free bathrooms, though having consumed nothing since dinner the last night, I was empty. I scooped a little water from the bathroom tap to get the parched taste out of my mouth and gawked at the 2+ GBP cost of coffee from a vending machine.

Unlike Flixbus, the Megabus did arrive well before its scheduled departure time in order to board, so I guess I was justified in getting there as fast as possible. If I had attempted to walk (in the rain), I may well have missed it. I tried to sleep on the bus, but my headphones died and they don’t work when they are charging.

Brittany Ferry35 GBP
Taxi7.2 GBP
Megabus8.05 GBP
Total:50.25 GBP
(501.5 RMB)
(USD 72.87)

Running Total: 16226.5 RMB (USD 2357.85)

Le Havre

Volume 2, Days 41-43

After a few days in the capital, the next stop on my European tour was to head out into “the provinces” in order to visit a good friend–M–in his rural hometown for a couple of days.

The Flixbus ride (through a third-party operator) from Paris (Bercy Seine) to Le Havre was largely uneventful and the scenery from the highway on this side of Paris wasn’t much different than the scenery heading into Paris. But, to be honest, I wasn’t really looking out the window much. Given the long delays on the ride into Paris, I was pleasantly surprised to find us arriving in Le Havre a few minutes ahead of the scheduled arrival.

Le Havre is a fairly major port city, and though it was traditionally on the industrial side, the economy has diversified somewhat in recent years while a university brings in young blood. I never got a chance to explore the city, but it looked nice enough to me.

I rendezvoused with M and his dad drove us to the family home in the countryside. It wasn’t completely remote, there were at least a half dozen houses together, but it was still some distance from the nearest town.

I had barely enough time to settle in, before I was on the back of M’s motor scooter heading over to a friend’s house to go for a run. From the bus to the car to the motorbike to on foot, one gets to closer and closer to the picturesque scenery–traditional timber framed houses with thatched roofs that look like they might topple at any moment, fields with bales of hay arranged like a Van Gogh painting, black and white cows chewing their cud. I could see the appeal of country living, though one would have to get used to having to drive a bit to get to a store.

After our run, which I realized was my first run in nearly 2 weeks (since Bremen!), we hopped in the shower at the friends’ house and changed back into street clothes. M and I played a quick board game before dinner, which consisted mostly of a cold “salad” of rice, corn and tomatoes. A basket of sliced baguette is always present on the table and a collection of cheeses brought out at the end of every meal (except breakfast). In Normandy, it is also traditional to drink apple cider and the bottle of homemade cider was dry, strong, and I swear had a smell like a cheese (perhaps it was a “natural” cider). After a round of coffees, the four of us settled in for a board game (Ethnos). My friend, M, is an avid gamer and makes friends with fellow gamers. It was quite late by the time the game finished and a cold ride on the motorbike back home.

Metro1.9
Flixbus6.16
Total:8.06 EUR
(62.9 RMB)
(USD 9.15)

I didn’t wake up until 9am the next morning, which might be the latest I’ve slept in for quite some time. M had only arrived back from China two days ago and was waking up super early from the jet lag. In the main house, there was coffee and a simple breakfast of crackers (toasted baguette slices from a package) with butter, Nutella, or jam. I had about an hour to finish up some work on my computer before the whole family piled into the car to head into Lillebonne for the weekly market. While M’s mom and dad did their shopping, M and I took a stroll through town. The market was much like the various other one’s I’ve been to, though given the much more rural nature of the setting, the market goers were noticeably whiter and older. The stalls provided mostly locally sourced foodstuffs or cheap stuff from China being marketed by North Africans. After two loops and pingponging between the two cafes in town, we grabbed an available al fresco table and had an espresso. Like every rural town, the market is centered around the church, but Lillebonne is unique in that a massive Roman theater was discovered during construction work a few decades ago. The whole region retains the memory of Vikings and Romans and the countless wars between England and France.

Crossing the Seine

After our coffee, we met up with the parents and drove to Lower Normandy (the more agricultural region west of the Seine). To cross the Seine, we drove on a ferry. Our goal was to have lunch in a town dubbed “the Venice of Normandy,” but whose name went in one ear and straight out the other. Some of these French town names are impossible to spell and even more impossible to pronounce. The town was charming and touristy, but delivered on its canals. We headed straight to the restaurant, which I presume is a family tradition and ordered off the menu (blackboard) as opposed to a la carte. M helped translate the menu for me and the meal was both delectable and educational.

One starts with an aperitif (vermouth in my case) and an entree (i.e. appetizer, e.g. ham and melon). Mussels were the specialty, and I had my bucket in the “a la Normain” (cream sauce). A plate of french fries came on the side and we shared a carafe of rose. To finish, we had a round of “cafe normal” (i.e. espresso) and dessert (“chocolat lieg-wah” — fudge, chocolate ice cream and whipped cream). It was an absolutely fantastic meal. We had a stroll around town afterwards and M showed me the statue of Joan of Arc (Jenanne d’Arc) in the church currently undergoing renovation. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake somewhere in the region.

Yep, just like Venice

We drove home afterwards and I was introduced to Johnny Hallyday–the “French Elvis.” There were beach towels of him for sale in the market and it was explained to me how famous he was in France. I only had enough time to watch one song from the concert DVD before M and I headed out again on the scooter to go have a coffee at another friend’s house and play board games. Fortunately for me, the friend was an English teacher so he spoke good English. We played a game he designed himself, where the players race to defeat the Minotaur in the Labyrinth and followed up with Masquerade. I was reflecting to myself how the second game could have easily been played in French, since it just required declaring “I am the…” or “No, I am the…”

M and I played Nintendo Switch for a while in his dad’s “Man Cave” (a den with a big screen TV, car racing simulator, and shrine to Johnny Hallyday) before dinner, which was a light meal of salad, bread, and a selection of pate. M’s mom joined us for the evening board game session, starting with a Sherlock Holmes themed murder mystery that required me to learn how to ask “Who has a skull?”, “How many pipes do you have?”, and the 9 different symbols involved in the puzzle solving math game. Since we were also drinking calvados (a strong twice distilled apple-based liquor), I was at a definite disadvantage and lost badly. After trying one other game, I hopped in the shower and we went to bed earlier.

It was cold and rainy on Thursday, perfect weather to hang around playing games all day, which is what we did: video games, board games (one appropriately called Le Havre), and deck building games. I was also well taken care of with home cooking, very traditional Norman comfort food. Lunch was barbecue with foil wrapped potatoes cooked amid the burning wood while sausages (merguez and regular) cooked above. There was a cream sauce that went with the baked potatoes that was quite nice. Dinner was even more traditional with boiled potatoes, eggs, and a cream sauce that one mashes all together to eat. After dinner, and midway through an old French comedy about the Resistance, M’s dad drove me back to Le Havre to continue my journey.

Honestly, these 3 days/2 nights are a highlight of my trip so far. It’s too bad I had to leave a day early when I was originally planning to spend 3 nights there. It was so relaxing, like being on holiday. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be taken care of so well.

Running Total: 15725 RMB (USD 2286.55)
Daily Average: 365.7 RMB (USD 53.18)

Paris

Volume 2, Days 38-40

French is not on the list of languages I am trying to learn in this year long experiment of linguistic immersion, and given my general indifference to the country I would just as soon have left it off the itinerary. But, I happen to have some friends who live there and this middle section of the European travels is primarily oriented about visiting friends.

The bus from Luxembourg to Paris was nearly an hour late arriving to the bus station. Of course, I had arrived nearly thirty minutes early, timing out the local bus and discovering on the way that public transportation within Luxembourg city is actually free. If I had known that, I would have done a lot less walking.

I napped a lot on the bus to Paris and about midway through the journey, as I was getting in touch with my Paris-based friend we discovered a miscommunication, wherein I was under the impression that I would have somewhere to sleep provided and that it was in fact not the case. Scrambling to find accommodation heading into Bastille Day weekend in Paris wasn’t much fun, but I ended up getting a studio apartment through Airbnb. When the cleaning fees and services fees were factored in, it still pains me to think of the price, but I guess one can take refuge in the romantic notions of having a little flat in Paris for the weekend.

When the bus was still 30 minutes from Paris, a small passenger sedan thought the highway was a game of bumper cars, and bounced off the bus after trying to change lanes. How the driver did not notice the double decker bus is beyond me. I witnessed the whole incident as I just happened to be looking out the window at the moment and it struck below me. We sat on the side of the highway for thirty minutes while whatever reporting was being conducted.

The exhausting journey wasn’t over yet. I had to navigate the Paris metro to get over to my Airbnb, which fortunately was located very close to a station, if not exactly in the center of town. The Paris Metro is quite convenient and affordable, with standard tickets costing 1.9 euros a piece. I briefly debated buying a pack of ten tickets for 14.9 euros, but in the end, I didn’t take so may trips. There are tons of metro lines crisscrossing the city and the intervals between trains are quite short. Unfortunately, as several buses dropped off load after load of travelers near this one metro station, the queue to buy a ticket at the two functioning ticketing machines reached all the way out into the street. A third machine was “out of tickets,” but to the best of my knowledge could still be used to reload the reusable metro pass. After waiting 45 minutes and I was at the head of the queue, a pregnant woman cut in front of me.

My Airbnb was to the south of the city, just outside Paris city limits in the town of Malakoff. It was a quiet sleepy town, that pretty much just looked like whatever the Parisian version of suburbs would be. After dropping my stuff in the apartment and having a quick coffee, I headed back out to find my friend in the 15th. Emerging from the metro station, it was like being smacked in the face — ah, this is Paris!

Just the tip

We took Blue, a 10-month old husky, over to the Champ de Mars, and had a small picnic in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, though it was mostly an evening of keeping Blue from eating our food or — worse yet — running over and stealing other people’s food. This captures how I spent most of the weekend — dogs and picnics. I think owning a dog might be a shortcut for language learning, you get to stop and chat with everyone else who is out walking their dog. There was a bit of a concert under the Eiffel Tower, though the main show would be on Sunday night.

After one insanely priced beer at a streetside cafe, I bid adieu to my friend and headed back to my suburb apartment. I decided to try it by foot and I covered the 4 km distance in a cool 45 minutes. The intervening neighborhoods were definitely on the safer side of Paris, long sections were bustling with life while others were completely quiet. The entire walk was lit by a nearly full moon and the sparkle of fireworks shooting into the sky from the south and the west. As I reached the flat and headed up the stairs, it was Midnight in Paris.

Paris on Fire
Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

Luxembourg

Volume 2, Days 36-37

I think I can honestly say that just a few days ago I knew literally nothing about Luxembourg apart from the fact that it was a country in Europe. Now, my brain is brimming with knowledge about the small “island nation” wedged in between Germany, France, and Belgium. It would have escaped my radar except for the fact I had a friend spending two weeks there on an extended business trip and invited me to come over. It’s wonderful how things sometimes just work out.

After that wild night (at least by my old man standards) in Antwerp, I dragged myself out of bed early enough in the morning to pour two cups of coffee down my craw. I finished off the cheese and crackers from “dinner” and staggered over to the Flixbus stop in front of the train station. I was caught off guard and forked over a euro to a bum. I hadn’t realized just how many homeless people are milling about central Antwerp, mere minutes from the heavily fortified diamond district. While waiting for my bus, which was late, I had to fend off another two or three panhandlers making their rounds. The bus finally arrived and I was dying to clamber into my seat and fall back asleep, but there was some issue with the driver’s passenger list and not finding my ticket. The issue was the same with the other two passengers, so after some consideration, the driver just waved us aboard. It was a nearly empty bus heading to Luxembourg with a few stops on the way–including a 30 minute break (where we have to exit the bus) some 20 minutes outside of Antwerp.

When we were back on the road, I dozed off and when I become conscious of the landscape again, it was immediately apparent that this was the “real” Belgium. Rolling forested hills had replaced the flat lowlands. After passing through the Belgian province of Luxembourg, we finally arrived in the independent country of Luxembourg. The bus stop was on the outskirts of town, while my friend’s hotel was on the clear other side in the … let’s call it international relations district. A bit too far to walk, but I hopped on a local bus handed over two euros and rode past the train station, the old town and across a major bridge to the new district.

How Green Was My Valley

Luxembourg is quite the fairy tale land, sitting on a confluence of two rivers which have cut deep gorges, the landscape creates the natural fortress that determined 1000 years of history as a military outpost. Though the fortifications were intentionally destroyed and removed in the late 19th century, any vantage point capturing the three dimensional terrain gives the immediate impression of a medieval castle.

Castle ruins

The fairly lifeless new section (Kirchberg) houses the philharmonic, a museum of modern art, the European investment bank, and the European Convention Center, where my friend was busy with the ongoing Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank conference. Since L was in a meeting, I sauntered up to the front desk of the hotel and nonchalantly asked for a key card.

I chilled in the room for a while, enjoying the luxury of a nice hotel, before deciding to head out for some sightseeing. Being a Thursday and having done my research, I knew that some of the museums had extended hours, so there was no reason not to start sightseeing. I worked my way down the hill behind the MODAM (modern art museum) past the ruins of two distinct fortresses. There appeared to be a couple different walking routes which had signposts at various places, but to be honest, were not really easy to follow. Reaching the bottom of the valley, I crossed the river and headed back uphill towards the City History Museum.

War and Peace

I entered through the back entrance and was surprised to find a total lack of ticketing or signage about tickets. I knew it should cost something like 5 euros, but the reception desk was on the third floor, so I figured I would deal with it later and just work my way through the museum. In brief, Luxembourg housed Romans at one point, was under the control of the Spanish Netherlands, was invaded by France in the Napoleonic wars, joined the Prussian federation, and only became truly independent when the king of Holland (who had always also been the Duke of Luxembourg) died and there was some technicality blocking his successor from taking on the duchy. There was a time when Luxembourg might have been absorbed into Belgium, but much like Singapore and Malaysia, some factors separated them. The museum was pretty good (including an interactive display fully explicating how the government works), and I walked out past the front desk without buying a ticket. I later learned that the museum offers free admission from 6-8pm on Thursdays, so I wasn’t really doing anything unethical.

Ducal Palace with adjacent Parliament

Now in the heart of the old district, I passed by the palace and wondered around some streets and plazas, one of which was simultaneously under construction and setting up a stage for a rock concert. Some streets in the town were completely packed with people in short strips of bars/cafes with the tables spilling out to the middle of the street, while other streets were nearly barren. Signs concerning the AIIB conference were everywhere, and a heavily armed police unit was protecting the space in front an old building where a president (who?) would be giving an address that night. Of course, the rest of the plaza was flanked by restaurants and a polka band in a gazebo was belting out classic rock tracks.

I needed to get some dinner and looked at some restaurant menus (including Tex-Mex fav Chi-chi’s), but was pretty shocked by the sticker prices. Food in Luxembourg appears to be at least 25% more expensive than the Netherlands, which was already more expensive than Germany. I miss Germany so much — definitely the best of Europe so far. Since I haven’t had any (chain) fast food yet in Europe, I decided to get McDonald’s. 8.35 for a value meal is still a bit too much for my tastes, but I cobbled together a better meal from individual items for basically the same price: sweet Thai chili double chicken burger, nachos (so stingy on the cheese sauce), and a chocolate milkshake with hot fudge. I have to admit McDonald’s is rocking the desserts with standard 2-ingrediant McFlurries and double flavor milkshakes.

I walked back to the hotel by means of the Pont Rouge bridge because I didn’t want to go up and downhill. Having basically digested my light dinner by that point, I headed to the gym for a short workout, then showered, and read.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Antwerp

Volume 2, Day 35

I haven’t ridden a Flixbus in a week. All of my intra-Netherlands transport was accomplished by their train system. But now to leave the country I am back on the budget bus. I want to see Belgium, but I don’t have any time to explore the country as I have to rush to visit people in Luxembourg and France. However, due to the distance between Rotterdam and Luxembourg and the way bus routes work, it made more sense to stop over one night in Antwerp. The idea is that I can loop back around in a couple weeks to take a proper tour of Belgium and subject my liver to its 100s of varieties of beer.

My Flixbus was headed to Paris and fully packed, so packed in fact, that the driver had my sit in the copilot seat. He offered my a free soft drink or snack from the bus’ on board shop, but I felt like it was a bonus to sit up front. The border between the Netherlands and Belgium was basically invisible and I couldn’t see signs that there had ever been passport control along the highway. I really want to punch any Brexiters I meet because it is incomprehensible to me that any one can be against the seamless integration of the European states. Of course, the existence or lack of a border between the Netherlands and Belgium is a fairly artificial construct as the two countries have been unified at various points in history and Antwerp looks just like another Dutch town.

Overall, I like Antwerp, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone visit there for at least a year. It seems the entire city is under construction. Several of the top (free) tourist sites (e.g. cathedrals, castles, etc) are wrapped up in scaffolding, while subway construction on the major thoroughfare turns the central intersection into an unnavigable strip mine. My hostel was right up on the street with the construction, that oh so helpfully begins at 6 am. More inconvenient is the extra five minutes of walking time to get around the construction in order to go anywhere.

Though I arrived at the hostel just before noon, they were able to check me in early and let me drop my stuff in the room. The room is a bit cramped, but the hostel has an enormous kitchen and common space for people to cook, eat, meet, and mingle. This is also the first hostel I’ve seen with a properly installed key card security system. I always find it ridiculous to have to swipe a card to use the elevator when open stairs are right next to it, but ASH has an electronic lock on the stairwell.

My main tourism target for the day was the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Located in a old house/printing shop, the building itself is a UNESCO world heritage site. The house belonged to a family of 16th century book printers and many of the portraits in the drawing room were by none other than Peter Paul Rubens, a native to Antwerp. I highly recommend the museum which lends out a very thick booklet with information on each of the 30-40 rooms in the complex. The museum houses dozens of books printed in the 16th century and some of the oldest existing printing presses.

Because I had skipped breakfast and lunch, my stomach was starting to growl by the time I finished the museum. Having passed some waffle shops, I got onto the free city WiFi to look up recommended waffles, and found that the top choice was the same shop that had caught my eye. With a cup of mediocre coffee and a gooey chocolate coated waffle to power me, I did my best to meander through the old town, strolling along typical cobblestone lanes with old buildings and streetside cafes and random public art works. I’m taking my sweet time rambling about Europe, but its all blurring together anyways. How is it for people who visit 5 countries in 7 days? Do they see sharper contrasts between the cities?

The Sint Pauluskerk was open to visit and its good to be back in more Catholic areas. At least the tortured statues are interesting to look at. I headed to the shipping quarter next, and not quite inadvertently passed through the red light district, which made Amsterdam look like Disneyland. I was not expecting to see so many half naked women or casually sauntering Johns at 3pm and I turned on my tunnel vision to get out of there as quickly as possible without getting harassed.

Just on the other side of those two seedy blocks (appropriately named “Old Man Street”) was an inner harbor for small sailing boats and the Museum aan de Stroom. The building was artfully done with the same curved glass I saw in the Hamburg symphony hall. Similarly, though I didn’t buy a ticket for the exhibitions, the top floor is open to the public for a panorama view of the city.

I headed back to the hostel afterwards, passing by the University of Antwerp but not seeing anything of note. I grabbed a tote bag and almost immediately headed back out to take a quick tour of the diamond district. As advertised, there were Indian banks and Hasidic Jews. The scariest thing about the Holocaust is that it sort of succeeded. Will the Jewish population in Europe ever come close to what it once was? I see (and obviously one can’t really know by outward appearances) 100 Muslims for every Jew. And this is why the far right movement has gotten so much traction in recent years. After enjoying the fruits of Nazi imposed “ethnic cleansing” without any of the guilt for 50 post war years, Europeans who only paid lip service to diversity are now being confronted by a new visible other and the dormant xenophobia is awakening. It can happen again.

I grabbed a couple of classic Belgian beers (Leffe, Duvel, La Chouffe) from a Carrefoure Express (I must be getting closer to France) and sat in the astroturfed backyard of the hostel with a book. I only read the first two chapters of “The Big Sleep” before I got distracted by the chatting of backpackers. There was one solo British traveler in his late 20s who was quite the social butterfly and went about talking to everyone. My plan was to enjoy the beers, go find some French fries and have an early night. That is not what happened.

J, the Brit, gathered together a group of people to go out to a bar and I got shanghaied into that. Having finished four beers, I was let’s say easily persuadable. The plus side is I got to enjoy the evening sky, which after being thoroughly blanketed in somber gray clouds all day, opened up enough to catch the colorful display of the setting sun. We stopped at one bar/cafe, sitting outside. The prices were reasonable and I tried a local Antwerp beer (just so-so). After a shot of Jagermeister (ugh) and another round we moved to a bar which was doing karaoke. That was fun, though I wish the rest of the world could catch up to China on karaoke technology. I’m not a caveman, I don’t want to have to pore over a telephone book sized list of songs (sorted by year for the love of all that is holy!) and write down a code on a piece of paper. After karaoke, they went dancing and I went home.

I’m starting to think its pretty good that so many hostels are a bit anti-social, I don’t think I’d survive if I was having experiences like this every day. But, I am glad to have them every so often. The hangover the next day was worth it to stand on a stage and belt out a tune.

Flixbus7.07
Hostel151 RMB
Plantin-Moretus Museum8
Waffle and Coffee4
Beers and mini-sausages7.94
Lidl (cheese, crackers, beer)4.34
Round at bar15
Total:512.5 RMB
(USD 74.51)

Running Total: 12940.2 RMB (USD 1881.25)
Daily Average: 369.7 RMB (USD 53.75)

Rotterdam

Volume 2, Day 34

It’s supposed to be my lucky year

It was finally time to move on and I packed up quickly and quietly in the morning. By chance, C had an appointment in Rotterdam so we planned to go together in the morning. I didn’t have a particular schedule, but having only one night in Rotterdam and a fairly early bus the next morning, I needed to get there early enough to drop off luggage and explore for the day. I had even specifically booked the hostel closest to the central train station for minimal carrying of luggage. While the easiest way have been to take Leiden Centraal to Rotterdam Centraal, we took a different route that involved three transfers. I don’t know. It was confusing, but there is an app that helps with all the schedules in the Netherlands. The key advantage of going with C together is that I could hold onto the OV card until the last minute, saving me 1 euro in fees for a one time use card. Ultimately, it didn’t really matter.

Rotterdam Centraal is an artistic architectural centerpiece, though come to think of it, most of the train stations I have seen are quite interesting. In the Netherlands, they go for very modern designs and Rotterdam is rife with architectural experimentation. I headed the one block over to my hostel, which happened to be at the entrance of Chinatown and literally owned by the “Chinatown” restaurant next door. The hostel staff were exceptionally friendly and as I was dropping off my stuff, I found out that the one museum I wanted to visit was closed. Its a real shame, especially considering it is considered one of Europe’s finest. While the building is being renovated the masterpieces are all out on loan to dozens of other museums, so I may have already seen some of the works without realizing it. In any case, the woman running the reception counter pulled out a small tourist map of the city and marked a bunch of places that would be interesting to see. Rotterdam is pretty big (the second largest city in the Netherlands) and the various cool districts are sometimes a bit spread out, so without some specific targets in mind, the typical wander blindly strategy is less than optimal.

I headed out to the east through a commercial zone to find the Markthalle, which is a giant hanger with a painted ceiling and a food court. On the way, I noticed a Decathalon and decided to pop in for a minute to have a look. So, the trekking backpacks for sale in Decathalon are much more reasonably priced than the name brand ones sold in specialty shops. I don’t like the idea of putting all that weight on my shoulders, but if the suitcase continues to disintegrate, its a good fallback. I agreed to spend the day thinking about whether or not I want to switch over and return before it closed at 7pm if so. Of course, I also happened to pass a reasonably priced luggage shop and the weekly market had several people also selling luggage. So, Rotterdam is already presenting me with tons of options to replace my suitcase. Ultimately, I bought some more superglue and some tape because it is better for the environment to do my best to repair the suitcase instead of just throwing it away.

Markt and Market

The weekly market was impressive, firstly for being on a weekday rather than the weekend and secondly in terms of its scope. I stopped twice to buy food from stalls, a giant stroopwaffle and something called a loempia, which was basically a spring roll. It was a stall selling exactly two items, bought fried and as far as I could tell the only difference was in the shape. As there was also a fairly long line, it was exactly the kind of thing I stop to try. It was fine.

The Markthalle was really cool, but as I looked at the prices of the typical food counters, I was glad I had already sated my hunger because it was a little pricey. Something interesting I noticed is that Rotterdam seems to be having some sort of ethnic utopia where Muslim women are grilling bratwurst, Dutch people are stir-frying in woks, and Chinese people are selling cheeses. Everything is mixed and matched as if it didn’t really matter. Rotterdam is a very international city and I immediately took a liking to it.

Impractical living spaces

There is some very famous architecture also near the Markthalle that I wandered over to take a quick picture of. I headed over to the water afterwards, finding myself at the Maritime Museum. Though I really enjoyed the maritime museums I visited in Japan, I had no desire to pay the ticket to go inside Rotterdam’s. Luckily all the best stuff (I can only assume) is outside and open to the public. A long stretch of the harbor was punctuated by various shipping equipment from various stages in history, not just a collection of old boats in the water, but cranes, train cars, lighthouses and the like.

Not really a functional harbor

It was a fairly long and uneventful walk over to the museum quarter where I briefly entertained the idea of visiting the modern art museum. I walked through the park connecting all the museums and returned to the hostel where I made a cup of coffee and worked until it was time to check in. When my energy dipped in the afternoon, I took a quick nap and went down to the lounge to have another coffee and read a book for a bit before heading out again to explore more of the town. While downstairs, I got to chatting with a girl from Hong Kong, who was working (volunteering?) at the hostel and had already lived some years in the Netherlands after originally coming to study art. We shared some views on language and differences between Europe and China. It was a good talk, but I needed to not just hang around all day.

When I went back out, I saw the ultra hip “Witte” district on my circuitous way to Erasmus bridge. I crossed the bridge to an island which most notable was the launching spot of trans-Atlantic cruise ships (i.e. Holland America Line) and cross a small bridge to another island where some old warehouses have been renovated into a fashionable foodie forum. If I lived in Rotterdam, I would probably enjoy going there for some craft beers and whatever artisanal bites are available, but it had no appeal for me right now. I also found the view of the harbor/city skyline to be completely unremarkable despite how much is remarked upon it. I was pretty beat by that point, so I headed back to the hostel, grabbed a tote bag and went to a grocery store to pick up a salad. I also bought some hummus and a baguette.

Hotel New York

I ate back in the hostel while some middle aged Chinese women were cooking their separate noodle dinners. I didn’t let on that I spoke Chinese, and neither of them were eager to be sociable. Even when their two other friends came down, there was nearly silence as each person just looked at her own phone. I was somewhat mesmerized by the TV which was playing Rotterdam travel videos (muted with subtitles). It was weird to see fairly slickly produced (even by Instagram standards) videos showing off how cool the city is. I’ll admit Rotterdam is pretty cool, but my eyes nearly fell out of my head I was rolling them so hard. The two guys who are I guess professional travel vloggers and Instagram influencers really annoyed me.

After cleaning up my dinner mess, I laid out on the couch and finished “Player Piano.” The hostel unfortunately did not have a library for a book swap, so I’ll just have to carry it with me a little longer. I wasn’t drinking and though the hostel was comfortable, I was a bit bored. I headed upstairs quite early to shower and play on my computer until it was time to sleep.

Payback for train tickets and bike rental30
Cookie and orange juice4.1
Glue and tape2.5
Stroopwafel1.5
Loempoa2.9
Hostel167 RMB
Dinner (Aldi)5
Total:525.8 RMB
(USD 76.53)

Running Total: 12427.7 RMB (USD 1808.93)
Daily Average: 365.5 RMB (USD 53.20)

Utrecht

Volume 2, Day 33

After a fairly chill weekend (in which I guess I did some “touristy” stuff), it was time to start gearing back up to travel around. C had a mega long class on Monday and would be out all day, so I was left to my own devices. It was suggested that I catch a train east to see the medieval town of Utrecht. I didn’t really trust myself not to be lazy if I stuck around Leiden, so I decided to do that. I still had a leisurely morning reading and only headed over to the train station at 10 am. Luckily for me, there was a much closer train station on the east/west line which I could walk to in about five minutes (as opposed to 20).

Station might be a bit of a misnomer as it was much more of a single platform with no roof or control gates. One had to be careful to “check in” to the train by tapping the OV card against a reader. I pondered for a while if it was possible to “forget” or if there was an honor system in place. Well, the Dutch are either untrusting or untrustworthy because the train conductor vigilantly checked every person who stepped onto the train.

It was a fairly long journey to Utrecht, and I worked vigorously on my computer during the ride. The trains in the Netherlands have Wi-Fi, which is nice, but of the quality one would expect for a moving train.

Can I fit anymore into this picture

I pulled into Utrecht’s massive central station and I had no idea what my plan was. Though I have a collection of travel guides, I don’t have one specifically for the Netherlands and the regional section in a Europe-wide book only covers Amsterdam, The Hague, etc. There was a tourist information desk at the station, but after a brief pause, I decided I didn’t really care to inquire as to what there was to do. It was Monday anyways, so all the museums would be closed. I would just wander around the old town and see what I stumbled across.

I didn’t notice the trashcans

Based on my walking around, it appears the highlights of Utrecht include its canals, which are “deep” compared to the other canals one sees in the Netherlands. The water is below street level, so on the main canals there are stairs down to the water level embankments which host restaurants and cafes. The other highlight is the cathedral (also called Dom in Dutch, though obviously Protestant). The tower was scaffolded up for renovation and I didn’t want to 15 euros to go up. It seems the cathedral was either damaged or unfinished because the tower was separate from the main body of the church. I stuck my head inside the massive church, but it was completely stripped of any decoration or ornamentation. How boring. A third highlight would be that Utrecht is the birthplace of “Miffi,” a Hello Kitty like bunny figure. Even if the museum wasn’t closed, I would have still passed.

This is Miffy

The sky was mostly cloudy. Though the sun broke through at times, it also looked like it could rain at any moment. I’m really surprised at the chilliness of the weather. Since Hamburg, the highs have barely gotten into the 20s (under 70 Fahrenheit).

After a loop around town, my stomach was starting to growl, so when I returned to the most bustling section I grabbed a slice of a bread pizza from a popular streetside establishment. I specifically ate just a bite because I was thinking about some sort of pastry or ice cream later on. I found a cafe in the student area near the university and sat there for a while reading and working on my computer. The third time they came around asking if I wanted “something to drink” (what a difference the word “else” can make), I got the hint and cleared out. Mind you, when I entered the cafe there were only two customers and both of them were working on laptops. Since I only had a (watery) chai latte at the cafe, I could still get a “proper” dessert. After careful research of the dozens of ice cream shops around, I picked one and enjoyed a cone of chocolate and pistachio.

After a bit more aimless rambling, I noticed it was time to head back to the train station (where there was only one train to Leiden every half hour). I needed to load more money on the OV card and had spent the day paying for everything with paper money in order to amass a collection of coins. I plugged enough coins into the machine to bring the card balance up to 20 so I could get on the train.

C was home from class by the time I got back. We were both pretty exhausted and at a loss for what to do. When C suggested we go out for dinner, I reminded her that we had leftovers in the fridge. Boredom more than hunger prompted us to reheat/refresh the food for dinner. After we finished eating, C got a message from her boyfriend that he was coming over. Whoops, we could have waited for him and done something different with the available food.

Instead of a puzzle, the quiet evening at home involved Legos. A puzzle would have been easier because at least all the right pieces are together in one box, unlike Legos in which a dozen sets are divided at random into a handful of plastic containers. Its been 20 years since I really played with Legos, but other than triggering happy memories, it was more like a chore to spend minutes at a time rooting around for a particular piece.

Pizza2
Chai Latte3.5
Ice cream (2 scoops)2.5
OV topup (roundtrip = 19.6)7.2
Beer 2.2
Total:17.4 EUR
(135.7 RMB)
(USD 19.71)

Running Total: 11901.9 RMB (USD 1728.81)
Daily Average: 360.7 RMB (USD 52.39)

Weekend in Leiden

Volume 2, Day 31

It was a pretty low key weekend overall, so this should hopefully be pretty short as I don’t need to go into all the details repeating myself on daily rituals.

C didn’t get back until around noon on Saturday and I had spent the morning on my normal activities. Though I had tried a few lessons of Dutch in Duolingo, there is no point in learning that particular language (sorry!) and I have started reviewing bit of French. I’m surprised by how intuitive the language feels. I haven’t really studied French before, but I guess there is enough French used in culture that it is hard to not absorb a little throughout the course of an education.

View from the top

It was a cloudy gray day with intermittent rainfall. C and I walked into town, briefly passing the weekend market, where she picked up some nuts. She took me to some hill, which is where Leiden the town began before we settled into a coffee shop attached to the public library. The library or cafe closed at 5pm, and the weather was in between a drizzle and a light rain. We didn’t have umbrellas, but walked briskly through the market to get a fresh stroopwaffle, which is an amazing food item. We huddled under a canopy eating the thin wafer-caramel sandwiches. The drizzle stopped and we hurried back home afterwards.

A giant caramel cookie

There was supposed to be some sort of circus and fireworks out in “the dunes” and that was the original plan, except the weather seemed to make it less than ideal to bike out there. So by means of a backup plan, C cooked up a pasta dinner and we did a 1000 piece puzzle. That took the whole evening.

Stroopwaffel3 EUR
Total:23.4 RMB
(USD 3.4)

Running Total: 11614.5 RMB (USD 1686.72)
Daily Average: 374.7 RMB (USD 54.41)

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Sea Tooth

Volume 2, Day 30

The internet already has high definition closeups

My original plan was to spend 2-3 nights in Leiden and then continue moving southwards, but I’m such a good guest that it takes more than a couple days to wear out my welcome. It was suggested to me that I use Leiden as a base to take day trips to neighboring cities. Specifically, given the proximity of The Hague to Leiden, it is a reasonable day trip that doesn’t require too much time or money in transportation.

After a couple cups of coffee and some toast in the morning, I packed a day bag and biked over to the train station. In order to get to the Hague and back, I’d need to put money on the OV card which left me with much the same difficulty as buying a train ticket from scratch, i.e. the OV card service machines wanted me to use what I can only assume was a Dutch bank card to transfer funds over. That really kind of defeats the purpose of a transport card. There was a human staffed service desk and I was able to load 10 euros using cash, but I had to pay a 50 cents surcharge. I’m not sure if that extra fee is a penalty for using cash or for speaking to a human. Either way, I’m pretty fcking fed up with Dutch finances.

The train to the Hague took a little while because I got on a sprinter rather than an intercity train (the sprinter stops all all intermediary stations). Also, in terms of starting the day in a bad mood, the Leiden Centraal platforms were so long that they are split into A and B, which created a bit of confusion since several trains were supposed to be heading in the same direction from the same platform, but they are all running late. At some point several minutes after the train should have arrived, I noticed that all the people near me started running up the platform to the train stopped there and I followed the crowd to catch that train.

I made it to the Hague eventually, and was overwhelmed by its large and shop-filled train station. There was construction immediately outside the station, but the center was just a block away. The Hague is a good size and ideal for tourists with tons of narrow streets full of shops and cafes spilling out into any available plaza. I had one prinicple target to see in the Hague, namely the Mauritshuis–a palace turned into a museum. If I had the time and temperament to see a second museum, I would track down the MC Escher Museum.

The Hague is “Hai3ya2 (sea tooth)” in Chinese

I didn’t head straight to either museum, instead opting to wander some of the central streets, and since it was nearly lunch hour, to track down the “Chinatown” to see if I could find something cheap and delicious to eat first. Though the Chinatown had gates, there wasn’t much of a real draw to it apart from a handful of dimsum restaurants. However, I found a cluster of fast food restaurants around the corner from Chinatown and just south of the main commercial drag. Though I looked long and hard at one Chinese fast food joint and a pizza/doner shop that called itself Los Angeles street food, I ended up getting roasted chicken, an Indonesian curry and rice for an affordable price. The herring sandwich (a local specialty didn’t even tempt me slightly).

No justice, no peace

While I was eating, it occurred to me that The Hague also means “The Hague,” i.e. those UN bodies for dealing out justice on war criminals or settling international disputes. So I looked up the International Court of Justice on Google Maps. It was a bit out of the center, but the walk was scenic, passing through a semi-enclose shopping mall (dubbed the “Passageway”), past parks, and palaces to reach the Peace Palace. I wouldn’t be able to join a tour, but I appreciated getting a look at it and taking a quick pass through the visitor center. Afterwards, I turned around and headed towards Binenhof, which is the seat of the Netherlands government and in the heart of the center of town.

Not quite a reflecting pool

The Mauritshuis was on the far end of the lake, and though it was a bit pricey, I was almost relieved to find that the museum collection was reasonably small. There was a special exhibit on Rembrandt collecting pieces known to be by the master, those suspected to be fakes, and those thought to be by his students. Oh, and most important, this is the home of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. It’s nice, but I’m still not particularly interested in ever watching the movie.

The Mauristshuis ticket included admission to the Galerij Prins Willem V, so I cut through the Binenhof (hof in Dutch as in German means a courtyard) to visit the single room gallery containing over 100 paintings stacked floor to ceiling. If I had really wanted to get a tour inside the government buildings, the ProDemo tourist office next door would have been able to handle that. I had read you have to book in advance, but I passed by a group of tourists on their way over. It’s clear that The Hague is the real capital of the Netherlands although Amsterdam is nominally the capital. It was put to me that the rest of the Netherlands goes along with the fiction so as not to hurt the feelings of Amsterdam. I think its more that so many foreigners and tourists just assume Amsterdam is the capital, that the Dutch are too polite to be constantly correcting everyone and thus just went along with it.

It was warm and I had seen my fair share of mobile gelato vendors. I haven’t splurged on ice cream since Germany, and it is good to know that Holland shares the same love of sweets. I was seriously contemplating something cold, sweet, and/or caffeinated, but I wanted to check the movie times in the IMAX first.

Since Spider-Man: Far From Home had a 4-July release in Europe, the long wait was finally over. My plan was to watch it in Leiden in the evening, but since The Hague had an IMAX, I figured it might be worth splurging a little. My timing was basically perfect. There was a showing in 30 minutes, so I headed up the escalators to buy a ticket. I need to check how much I paid for Avengers: End Game in Japan, but wow it was expensive, especially as I had to buy 3D glasses. It was a real IMAX though with an enormous screen, and I satisfied my craving for sweet with an (overpriced) icee at the concession stand. As for the movie itself, there weren’t any real surprises. It was fun and enjoyable, but ultimately probably going to be forgettable. Still, I hope they make another four or five Spider-Man movies.

After the movie, I headed over to Den Haag Centraal to catch the train over to Leiden. Taking an IC train this time, I realized that it takes less than 15 minutes to reach Leiden. I grabbed my rental bike from the parking lot and was about to head home when I spotted an Aldi. I stopped and bought stuff to make dinner. Today was actually C’s boyfriend’s birthday so she was going to be busy with that. It would have been better if there was a big birthday party, but having the house to myself for a night was a decent consolation prize.

I was surprised to find C still home when I got back. The cheesecake she made for the birthday was taking up space in the fridge, but cracked open a beer and package of pretzel sticks to relax with a book after a long day out. I threw a pizza in the oven before she headed out to meet him for ramen. I’m not quite sure how I spent the evening. I ate and watched a youtube video or two and by 10 o’clock I was ready to fall asleep.

OV Top up (Train ticket = 7.4)10.5
Spicy Chicken6
Mauritshuis15.5
IMAX ticket (incl 1.5 glasses)17
Slurpee “Large”4
Aldi groceries13.3
Total:66.3 EUR
(517.1 RMB)
(USD 75.17)

Running Total: 11591.1 RMB (USD 1684.85)
Daily Average: 386.4 RMB (USD 56.16)

The Fourth of July and the Third of October

Volume 2, Day 29

For the next couple of days, I was planning to visit a friend, C, in Leiden. Leiden is a small canal town to the southwest of Amsterdam and birthplace of one Rembrandt van Rijn. The town is charming and quaint and also completely dominated by the university there. Leiden first appeared on my radar when I started my PhD oh so many years ago and a friend forwarded me a job posting (for a PhD candidate) at the Max Plank Institute of Psycholinguistics, which is based in the University of Leiden. Reading the description of the ideal candidate as if I was looking at myself in a mirror, I began building a fantasy of doing a post-doc in Europe as a way of transitioning back to the West from my career in China. Needless to say, that is not a path I am taking. That is mostly because the institute turned towards research directions that I am less suited for and is not looking for postdocs. Nonetheless, a significant part of the reason of these European travels is to satisfy this itch that has been building in me the past six years and to have a glimpse at a life I may have had in an alternate dimension.

I met C, a native of Leiden, when she was teaching Dutch as a foreign language in Shanghai. Her immense love of her hometown also fueled my curiosity as to how great can the town really be. So, when I knew I was headed to Europe, I arranged to visit.

So, in the morning, I was in no particular hurry to move on to the next town nor did I have any compelling reason to hang around killing time. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, packed up, bid farewell to my roommate and headed over to the train station to go to Leiden, which is small enough to not be covered by Flixbus. That is somewhat unfortunate because the trains in the Netherlands, though efficient and green, are both a litle pricey and infuriating.

The train ticketing machines only accept coins and credit cards. I luckily had a pocketful of coins, but not quite enough to scrape together the 9.8 euro ticket price. Why they can’t accept a 10 or 20 euro note when the train tickets cost 10-20 euros is some sort of Dutch logic. I found a kiosk and bought a packet of M&Ms in order to get enough change to buy the ticket. Now, the ticket also has a 1 euro surcharge because … reasons? The Netherlands has a nationwide public transportation card system–dubbed OV–but is literally the worst system I have ever experienced. If you want a “permanent” card, you have to pay 15 euros for it. Those 15 euros are not a deposit, but a fee. And the card expires after 5 years. And if you don’t register your name (so that the government can track you), you don’t get any possible discount on transportation. Single use tickets cost 1 euro on top of the full fare. Again, that euro isn’t a deposit, you can’t turn in the card for recycling even though the fee is because they system is based on RF chips.

When I plopped down in the train for the half hour ride to Leiden, I started to relax until the conductor came by and wanted to fine me 50 euros for sitting in the first class section on a second class ticket. They look the same and having never ridden these trains before, I didn’t know to look for the tiny little “1” or “2” marking the separate sections.

C was waiting for me at the train station when I arrived. She lent me a spare OV card and topped it up to 20 Euros, which at first seemed like a nice thing until she explained that you must maintain a balance of 20 Euros, otherwise the card doesn’t work. Goodness grief, they just keep inventing new ways to screw people over, don’t they? Anyways, she rented a public bike (which should cost something like 4 euros a day and is a bargain compared to the 15 euros a day that hostels like to charge) and after a lot of fiddling with my luggage, we walked the bikes over to her flat on the other side of town.

It is a thing to eat bread with sprinkles in the Netherlands

She had some lesson plans to do and I always have work I need to be doing,(Honestly, how many days behind am I at this point?) so we biked over to the more commercial part of town and hung out in a cafe for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, neither of us got much work done because we kept talking.

I had originally suggested she invite some friends over for the evening to have a minor Fourth of July celebration, but her friends had all come over the day before for a little party. Nevertheless, I offered to cook something up and after a visit to a supermarket, I made fresh guacamole and fajitas. C is vegetarian so I put fake chicken in the fajitas. As I was cooking, I realized that the cashier at the grocery store has short changed me.

So, apparantly, the Netherlands does not accept 1 or 2 cent Euro coins. That explains why I noticed the cashiers rounding up every time I was buying something, but this time I had the exact 7 cents that was displayed on the cash register. Between the refusal to accept said money and scrounging up different coins, the cashier “forgot” to give me a 2 euro coin in change. C suggested that because everyone uses cards for everything in the Netherlands that cashiers no longer know how to count or handle money. Like history’s greatest trading people and inventors of the modern stock market could forget how to use money.

After dinner, C and I went on a very minor pub crawl, hitting two bars and walking around a bit of town in the process. The good thing about the Netherlands is that the bars are very heavily tilted towards the Belgian beers, so one doesn’t necessarily have to go to Belgium to enjoy them.

Despite all the inconveniences throughout the day, it was good to be visiting a friend and I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

M&Ms1.25
Train ticket9.9
Groceries20.05
Beer9.7
Total:40.9 EUR
(319 RMB)
(USD 46.37)

Running Total: 11074 RMB (USD 1609.55)
Daily Average: 381.9 RMB (USD 55.50)