Tuesday, November 16, 2010

European Vacation

A guest entry, courtesy of my beautiful son, who is a gift -- and one of my precious rewards ...

Well, we arrived in Paris at slightly after midnight. We met E---- just outside his apartment and walked up his six flights of stairs to his box of an apartment. It's small. Like, seriously small. Imagine Erin's but half that size. He had bought some bottles of wine, so we drank a bit at his, and then made our way to the bank of the Seine, where we met up with some of his friends from Paris. We basically sat there until five a.m. drinking wine and catching up, nothing too extravagant. 

The next day, we awoke to pouring rain and absolutely miserable cold. Regardless, we took a 5 hour walking tour around Paris, which is a great city. I accidentally paid 4.50 euro for a Coke and learned not to order anything without a price list. One of life's little things. We then, following our marathon tour, went to visit some friends from T-------- who are studying abroad there. They have an amazing apartment down near Mouffetard, which is a great area, except it makes you hungry all the time due to its awesome food stands and restaurants. So we had sausage bolognese and drank tons of wine. Content to keep drinking, since it was only eleven or so, we tried to find a liquor store open, but to no avail. In response, we ducked down into the hookah bar down the street and smoked there for another hour or so, until the place closed. Very fun stuff. 




The next day, we woke up pretty late, but met two of the girls from the night before, Emma and Alice, and went down to the Louvre. We walked down through the ridiculously huge and gilded gardens around the Louvre and up to the 3000 year old Egyptian obelisk that Napoleon took and placed in Paris. It was pretty spectacular, but I estimate that was his intent, the short bastard. So we continued down the road through the main shopping district to get to the Louis Vuitton building, which was hosting a great, creepy re-interpretation of the Peter Pan story. Outside the entrance was the art of this guy who dissects children's toys and stitches them together, or splices them in half and knits the exposed organs. I'll try to find you a link, it was pretty interesting, if grotesque. The highlight was the bisected Mickey and MInnie Mouse and reconnected them up the middle. Anyway, we get into the building and took a sensory-deprivation elevator up to the exhibit, which was quite awesome. Almost convinced me I need to build one, they are really relaxing! So we get up to the top floor, and there is a crazy tunnel that starts out completely painted like a black and white forest, but as it goes on, the trees turn into piles and piles of corpses. This all leads you into some kind of meh video-exhibition. However, two really stood out. The first is just a video of young children picking up piles and piles of golden coins. But, when you move in front of the projector, demonic and disturbing faces creep out of your shadow. It was pretty spectacular. However, the best one was another sensory deprivation room and in the middle was a spinning hologram of the faces of the children from Peter Pan. The whole room was filled with the ticking of a clock, and for each click the heads would rotate maybe 45 degrees, until the back was exposed as a clock. When it would go 360 degrees, the face would change, all the while, creepy childish voices repeated phrases like "but we have to grow old!" and "you will never die." It was really awesome. I'd go again just to see that last one in a second. That night we met up with a Parisian guy from T-------- for a beer or two, but went home for an early night.

The next day was kind of nothing spectacular. A girl named Claire from film class came over and we chilled with her, walking around a rainy Paris once more. We went into a really cool cinema and say Ridley Scott's The Duellists, which is about Harvey Keitel and some other dude who, over the course of twenty years in Napoleonic France keep dueling each other, each time unable to kill the other. It was great. Then we visited some cool stores, then just came back to E----'s. E---- and T---- had a concert to go to that night, so they went, and I hung out with Claire and her friend at the dorms for the night, then we met back up with the guys and went to bed.

So we woke up the next morning and had to go to Brussels. Great, we figure. Can't be that bad. We try to overestimate how long it will take to get there, since we cut it really close on the flight to Paris. We stop in McDonalds for... wait for it... a Royale with Cheese! Had to be done. Because of the metric system. So we get there like, an hour and a half before our train is scheduled to arrive. Then, it is delayed. For an hour and a half. So three hours of pissing around the coldest, most boring train station ever, we get onboard and get the lovely message "due to a problem with the tracks, we won't arrive in Brussels for double the expected travel time." Three hours later, we pulled into Bruxelles Zuid, the shittiest train station in the world. It was disgusting. Felt like a Terry Gilliam movie. So instead of arriving at 2:45, we got into Brussels at 8:00, which left us with no time to explore the city. So we got our ticket to Leuven, the small town where Jacinta is studying. Forty minutes later, we get into a quaint little train/bus station and J------- greets us with hugs and green curry in an apartment that feels like a mansion compared to Evan's.

The following day, J------- had class for a few hours, so she left us to our own devices. Bad choice! She shouldn't have told us that they have the most consecutive bars in a square in pretty much the known world. I think we counted thirty. So that meant a challenge had been levied against us: drink our way around the square. I thought it could be done, but it turns out Belgian beer is actually delicious AND 7-8%. So, with good intentions, Pepper and I made our way to the square. We walked past J-------'s library, which features a giant sculpture of a beetle impaled upon a sewing needle. I didn't get it. We got a huge portion of french fries and mayonnaise to pad our stomachs and entered the first bar. It still had its decorations from Halloween up, including a fifteen foot tall Batman. Anyway, to cut a long, repetitive story short, we made it through seven bars before J-------- managed to find us, with a friend of hers named Matt. Pretty cool Australian guy, we played darts. Good times. Went back home to set aside the money for the hostel the next day because lord knows that would have been spent. After that is done, we head back out to another bar, where I get to try Kreik, a beer that is served in a glass with a large, perfect orb on the bottom with an interesting stand that you have to insert it back into after every sip. Not ideal nine beers in, but I liked the concept. Finally 11 o'clock rolled around, and we were told that a huge bar was offering bottle of Stella Artois for one euro. You read that right. And so did I, because the beer flowed like wine. Amazing time. We went to a club shortly after, which was decent, but it claimed Pepper's bank card. Thus, the night ended kind of early-ish as P------ made a drunken phone call to cancel his debit card.

We awoke early the next day and made the journey into Amsterdam. Unlike from Paris to Brussels, our tickets and passports were checked. Must be those ruffian smugglers they need to catch. Anyway, we pulled in and it's, yep, raining again. And bitterly cold and windy. We walked down the streets and realized Amsterdam is just one big, artificial tourist attraction. Baudrillard would be proud. It makes Disneyland look authentic. Anyway, we searched desperately for the hostel, which was number seven on some crazy street name. As we stood between six and eight, we saw on a tiny little buzzer, written in pencil, "Stardust Hostel". At this point we were like "okay?" So we ring up, and out came this big, scary Eastern European bloke wearing motorcycling gear. He asked me if I'm A---- and I replied in the affirmative. He said the apartment is somewhere else in the city, but he'd call and pay for a taxi which will take us there. Now we were shitting ourselves. We'd all seen Hostel, and now we can't stop thinking that some psycho Japanese business man is going to pay like fifty grand to kill us. We waited outside for the taxi for ten minutes, and when it arrived, a big, fat Dutch man who spoke no English let us in. The Eastern European guy said that some girl named Kate would be at the apartment to let us in, which was even more creepy. Being naïve kids, we got in. Thankfully, John, J------'s Scottish friend, spoke Flemish, which is surprisingly similar to Dutch. He had a conversation with the driver. I still don't know what it was about. Anyway, we show up at 55 Falckstraat, our apartment. We got out and rang the doorbell, and a cute little twenty-something came out and welcomed us into the plushest apartment I'd ever been in. This place was spectacular, and if one or two people lived in it it would be absolutely ideal. So we got Thai food and some weed (I know, I know, but when in Amsterdam, do as the tourists do) and chilled back watching Dutch reality TV shows. Which was surreal. Imagine Jersey Shore, but with the weirdest language in the world and Eurotrash gangsters.

The next day was our touristy day, so the first thing we did was wander the streets lost, as one does. Finally we got our bearings, and made a bee-line for the Van Gogh museum. It was pretty cool, but when I realized Starry Night was in the Louvre, I lost a bit of interest and regretted not going into the Louvre. Overall pretty good though. Although, I still think Van Gogh is a bit overrated. If he didn't pioneer impressionism he'd not be so famous. But that's my opinion. Next we took touristy photos at the giant I Am Sterdam sign. I was too chicken to climb up on the 'I', but maybe that's why I'm alive today, who knows. Midway through the day, our drinking and devil-may-care lifestyle caught up to P------ and I, and we both came down with the aches and coughs. We called it an early one, and cuddled up and watched Discovery Channel.

The next days consisted of us wandering some more, mostly trying to feel better. However, at the end of the day we decided it was time to man up and make our way into the Red Light District. No family-friendly trip would be complete without it. Let's just say I felt completely dirty afterward. It was the complete opposite of sexy. I know it's hard to comprehend, but it was like a MORE depressing zoo. Except the animals are skanks. They just sit there looking depressed, occasionally winking or knocking on the windows. The organize them by fetish, so one section was fat black women, another was old women and, no lie, another was all girls who looked not a day older than fourteen. It was COMPLETELY fucked up, if you'll pardon my language. We almost went into a sex show for the hell of it, but when he said forty five euro we struggled not to tell him to go to hell. So we wandered around a bit more, checked out all the obvious pickpockets scouting for marks, and then left.

The last day, P------ and I now properly felt like shit. Barely able to move and coughing like crazy. So, in a united decision, we went out and got food and drinks and sat in watching Sixteen and Pregnant on MTV until we left for our flights at 3:45. It was a great day too. 

No comments:

Post a Comment