Spring Break 2006: My Odyssey

So I've returned from Spring Break, and it was indeed an incredible time. I'll try to recount everything that happened as best I can, but it might be hard to recall all details for the entire week and a half. I have over 400 pictures to unload from my camera and then upload to Flickr, so the visual aids might come at a slightly later time. I might repost this entry with hyperlinks if I find the time, but I can't make any guarantees at the moment. Here it goes

Wednesday night (12th), Eric and I arrived in Amsterdam on the late side. We sort of left without any kind of planning whatsoever. Basically, we forgot to write down which airline we were flying on, how to get to the hostel once we arrived, and even which hostel we were staying at (there are 3 different locations for the one we booked). We ended up having to take a taxi which was ludicrously expensive, and the driver took us to the wrong Flying Pig (our hostel). Rather than blowing more money on another taxi, we navigated our way to the other location on foot, which was downtown. We arrived sometime before 1am, and found an extremely tired, jetlagged Greg waiting for us. He had been in Amsterdam since 7am, and had been walking around all day already. He quickly went to bed, while me and Eric stayed up for a bit and enjoyed our new surroundings.

The Flying Pig was incredible. By far the most professional, well-run, yet extremely fun hostel I've ever stayed in. It was voted as one of the best hostels in the world by the www.hostelworld.com website, and it totally surpassed my expectations. There is a bar when you walk in as well as an area with carpets and pillows where you can sit on the floor. Drinks were cheap, not that I was doing much of that anyway. In the basement was another "happy room" as it was called, as well as a huge flatscreen TV. There was also free internet, breakfast, and linens. The entire place was huge but really well kept. It was cleaned daily and kept in incredible shape. The beds were surprisingly high quality too, which isn't something I'd generally expect from a hostel. They also provide you with comprehensive guides on how to get around and what to see in Amsterdam. They really had everything you could possibly need. If you ever visit Amsterdam, I would highly recommend staying at the Flying Pig Downtown.

Anyway, we went to bed and got up at a semi-decent hour. We checked out a coffee shop/breakfast place called Barney's Breakfast Bar. I got a full English Breakfast which was incredible and hit the spot perfectly after not having eaten a real breakfast since I left the States almost 4 months ago. We proceeded to check out the city in earnest.

Amsterdam is a beautiful place. I was really blown away at how much character it had, despite being overrun with stoned tourists. It really all seems like a hazy fairytale dream with the cobbled streets, snaking canals, and thousands upon thousands of bikes everywhere. I was reading that the roads in the city were designed with bicyclists in mind first and foremost, and this is easily seen as everything is bike paths, bike paths, bike paths. It's a bit scary because half the time you think you're safe on a sidewalk, but then suddenly there will be 5 bikes flying at you (they just ring their stupid little bells at you instead of braking), the notoriously soundless Tram will zoom past your face, or you'll be standing in the middle of the road since it´s at times impossible to tell the difference between sidewalk and street. Crossing the street was a very harrowing experience often and required us to be on guard constantly.

Besides taking in the generally cool ambiance and the friendly coffeeshops, we looked at the Van Gogh Museum. Eric thought he saw faces in all the paintings, but me and Greg are pretty certain he's full of shit, as we lacked his discriminating eye. We also checked out a cool park, and did more random wandering around. We didn't have much time in Amsterdam, so didn't really get all that much accomplished. It was also pretty easy to get stuck in the hostel, as it's uber-comfortable atmosphere, along with an odd (haha) total lack of motivation, made it a desirable place to just park ourselves for long periods of time. We took a quick jaunt through the red-light district just to say we´ve seen it, but decided against making any rentals.

Next stop, Rotterdam - 1 hour train ride.
We arrived at night sometime after 9 or 10 to a cute, but pretty ghetto budget hotel. It´s not that there was anything wrong with it, but it was just really old and... budgety. The people running it were nice enough, though, so we were comfortable there. Greg was feeling beat, so me and Eric headed off to bar in the area and relaxed with a few beers. At this point Eric´s friend, Ryan, met up with us but it was getting late and we decided to just get a kebab and go to bed.

The next day we were up and started off by just wandering around Rotterdam on foot following some weird Dr. Seuss looking map that Ryan picked up, which outlined many of the cool cultural and parkish type things to see and do. Notoriously absent from Rott was the coffeeshop culture so prevalent in Amster, but this didn´t bother us much as we actually felt like we were in a real city, not just some carefree tourist paradise. At night we found this incredible place to eat at that had a live band. I got an amazing stew and we went back to the hotel full and happy that night. I think we walked for over 8 or 9 hours that day, and at the end of it, Greg´s legs were hurting him bad which forced him to rest in the hotel the next day when we decided to check out Keukenhof, near Leiden (halfway between Rotterdam and Amsterdam).

Keukenhof is this giant perennial flower park/display/exhibition that runs 2 or 3 months out of the entire year. We heard good things about it so decided to check it out. On the whole, I found it to be pretty disappointing. It was nice and all, but not all of the bulbs had bloomed yet, there was a ludicrous number of tourists (it was actually Easter Sunday, so this may have contributed to the fact), and the arrangements were all-around plain and repetitive to look at. It was still cool to see, I suppose, and I probably won´t ever see an entire field of tulips again in my life, but it wasn´t quite what I was expecting. After this, Ryan and Eric chilled in Leiden for a while, and I headed back to Amsterdam, since we really hadn´t spent much time there (only two nights and a little less than two days). I managed to get back into the hostel and I chilled with some people there for a while, and then did more exploration, checking out a few more areas that we has skipped earlier. After I decided I had my fill, which was much quicker than I expected, I got on the train back to Rotterdam where I met up with Eric. Ryan had to head out, as he only had the weekend to spend with us (he is studying in London). Eric, Greg, and I hit up a bar near our hotel, grabbed a few beers, then hit the sack (not a terribly innacurate way to describe our mattresses).

The next morning we checked out this Hidden Garden we found on the Dr. Seuss map, which was extremely chill. It is basically a privately kept wooded park area that is open to the public daily for several hours. It was fairly small, but we spent a good amount of time in there just snapping pictures and enjoying the greenery and beautiful weather we had luckily been graced with. Soon after this, we decided it was time to catch a train to Brussels.

I suppose it´s worth noting that Rotterdam was just as bike-friendly as Amsterdam, although there weren´t nearly as many people using the paths there. We found Rotterdam to be much more multi-cultural than Amsterdam (it´s apparantly the largest port city in the world, not that anybody travels by boat these days), and there was a much wider spectrum of demographics there in general. I was quite surprised at how similar Dutch and English are to one another. Apparantly, Dutch is the closest language to English, even more so than German. The result was that absolutely everybody, including the bums muttering at us to give them money, spoke English. Even in Rotterdam which is much less of a tourist city, we never had any issues getting by with English. Even if someone spoke in Dutch, it´s actually not that hard picking up the jist of what their saying, even with no prior knowledge of the language. It was always surprising when watching TV in the hotel and suddenly a sentence that translates perfectly would pop out. It made me really want to learn Dutch despite my complete lack of a need for it, as I can imagine it´d be even easier than Spanish. Having spent the last months learning Spanish, I definitely have been paying extra attention to other languages, as it´s interesting to see how much I can absorb rather than to just shut my ears and try to get by with English. Next stop...

The Land of Beer - Brussels - about 2 hours away on train
Our hostel was only a few blocks from the train station, and was - for entirely different reasons than the Flying Pig - an incredible hostel. It actually felt more like a hotel than our budget hotel in Rotterdam did. It was entirely furnished by IKEA, but it was kept spotless by a crew of maids (something the hotel didn´t have), and was a very cool place to be in general. It also had a great location, as the city center was only a few blocks further down the road. It had a very "new dorm" feeling to it, but for the price I don´t think it could be beat.

Something to know about Belgium is that it is roughly half French-half Flemmish (people who speak Dutch), and there is quite a bit of rivalry between each. Brussels is mainly a French-influenced city (as of the mid 1800s), so that´s the language people use primarily (Flemmish people in Brussels bitterly lament this fact). While I enjoyed hearing Dutch all the time in Holland, Greg´s French-speaking skills helped us a lot in Brussels, which was definitely preferred at the end of the day. Greg had lived in France for 3 years when he was younger, and although he was rusty, he had more than enough to be able to get us around and not make us look like complete jackass tourists. We decided to take advantage of the French-influenced cuisine and sought out Moul Frite (mussels in garlic sauce with french fries). These were exceptionally delicious, and because of a good tip from the hostel owner, didn´t set us back terribly much. Also on his suggestion we checked out the mecca of beer bars, Delirium.

**as a warning, the rest of my post about Belgium will be pretty beer-snobby as me and eric and even greg to an extent are all big beer snobs. sorry, that´s just who we are**

Delirium deserves its own paragraph, as we did spend all four nights there trying to get through the 2,004 beers they had available. According to the Guinness Book, they hold the record for most commerically available beers. The menu, which was actually a book (and not a thin one), held 2,500, but they always guaranteed to have at least 2,004 in stock since inventory is a bit tricky in such an establishment. This bar not only managed to house a gigantic selection of beer and be rather huge in general, but also had an incredibly laid-back atmosphere. The bartenders were very cool and quite knowledgeable, the dress-code extremely casual, and the clientele ranging mainly from late teens to low 30s, with a few 40, 50 and even 60 plusses chilling around from time-to-time. We were there each night from Monday to Thursday, every day getting increasingly busy as the weekend drew closer. On Thursday there was a live blues/rock band that was managing to hold its own pretty well with a decent set of rotating musicians. It was awkward hearing the blues sung with a French accent, but was still highly entertaining. I can imagine weekends get pretty crazy there.

So after a tranquil first night in Delirium, we headed back to the hostel and slept for a long, long time as we were still exhausted from all the walking we had done in Holland. Since we had a late start, we didn´t get a whole lot done the next day, but we managed to take the best brewery tour I´ve ever been on: Cantillon. While the brewery is only a little over a century old, the building it was housed in was extremely old and had a very cool, homey atmosphere. Everything was hand done in small batches of course, and their process of brewing - while I won´t get into it here - was a bit different than your average brewery´s. The resulting beers they produce, Guezes, Lambics and Krieks can be compared more closely to wine than beer with their fruity flavors and sour after tastes. Deliciously different. I even bought a 3 pack to take home with me.

We did more walking around, got some supposedly famous frites at Fritland, although I thought the ones we got at some random shop in Amsterdam were better, and then headed back to rest up before we went out for the night. We met a group of Americans who were studying in France, and decided they´d be cool to go out with. We checked out another beer bar called Bier Circus, which while sporting a nice selection of beers (especially aged ones), seemed blatantly geared towards 30-something business types, so after a couple drinks we decided to make a move for Delirium. A very fun night was had, and we went back to the hostel happy again, with a slight hiccup along the way that doesn´t need detailing, as everything ended well.

The next day we got up pretty early and decided to check out Brugge, a city in Belgium that everybody and their mother told us to visit. It was a short, yet extremely expensive train ride there, and is apparantly the number one daytrip spot in Belgium, because it was packed to the brim with tourists, especially those gigantic groups from various Asian countries. The city itself was gorgeous. Almost all of the architecture was medieval and interlaced with canals. There was a picture to snap around almost every corner, assuming there weren´t a million people in frame to mess it up. We took a boat tour of the canals and just walked around enjoying the city. It was definitely marred a bit by the huge number of foreigners (not that I can say we were helping that problem), but I´m still glad we got out to see it. Apparantly at night, the locals of Brugge come out and reclaim their city, and generally don´t take too kindly to any foreigners who stick around to try to experience the nightlife, but we were back in Brussels before sunset.

Greg, who apparantly loved Amsterdam more than me and Eric combined, departed Brussels early that night because he wanted to get two more nights in while he was in the geographical vicinity. Eric and I continued on with another fun, yet mostly uneventful night at Delirium. The next day we checked out the History of Brussels Museum which was slightly on the dry side. We also saw the famous statue of the stupid little kid pissing. Also not terribly impressive, at least not after all the buildup we got about it. We decided to walk out of the center and check out some parks and the EU buildings (the European Union is based out of Brussels). It was cool to see something so important, but once again, there was nothing terribly riveting about any of this. I liked doing all of it at the time, but strangely, looking back, none of our last day in Brussels seemed that interesting. Maybe that´s why everybody I talked to doesn´t like Brussels. I don´t need to tell you what we did that night, as you already know.

The next morning we got some brunch, bought some chocolate and beer for the road, and went our seperate ways. Eric went off to France to meet back up with Greg, and I headed off to see my limey friend, Matt, in Southampton.

Southampton - 45 minutes to London by plane, 2 hours to Southampton by bus.
Finally nice to be back in country where English is the primary language and refreshing that 90% of everybody you meet is at least slightly witty. Matt was car-less because some assbag crashed into it a couple weeks back, destroying his front suspension enough to total it, so he was with Gema who graciously agreed to drive us around. We went to Matt´s parent´s house where we ordered a delicious curry, something my mouth has been watering for since that last time I was in England a year and a half ago, then hit up the neighborhood pub for a few hours and just caught up.

The next day I kinda of lazed around the house and hung out with Matt´s little brother, Nick, while Matt was out running some errands. We tossed the frisbee around for a bit and caught up. After, I went with Matt, his dad, and his grandfather to watch Nick´s roller-hockey game. They got spanked real bad, but it was cool to watch some hockey anyway. Afterwards, we gathered up all our stuff, and headed over to Matt´s house, which is closer to the University. All of his housemates were just returning from Easter Break so we decided to make a night of it. One of their parents decided they wanted to clean out all the crap they didn´t want from their liquor cabinet, and donate it to the poor students of Southampton University, so we had an entire table full of sketchy old assorted fruit brandies, schnappes, and a bunch of other crap I´ve never even heard of. Thus the night began with "dodgy bedroom cocktails" and pretty much everything took off from there. We met up with more of Matt´s friends before going to a really cool bar, and needless to say, it was an incredibly fun night. We all had an excellent time, and only half of us woke up the next morning with blistering hangovers. Having gone the entire time in Brussels without one, apparantly my body decided I was due, so my Sunday was a bit rougher around the edges than the others´.

Things were remedied to a degree once we got some Real English Breakfast in me. Real English Breakfast is so goddamned good because you get 7 or 8 different foods on your plate, most of them extremely greasy and/or salty. It´s really an excellent way to cure a hangover and a generally good way to start your day at least every once in a while. It´s by far one of my favorite aspects of British culture. I also got to meet Naomi, Matt´s girlfriend, who was very chill. We spent the day doing relaxed Sunday things like going to the park and sitting around Matt´s house watching TV and napping. We got an all you can eat Indian buffet that night which was fantastic, and guaranteed I got my fill of curry while in England. Monday, we got up and Matt had lectures so I followed him and sat through his Quantum Mechanics class which entirely and wholly flew over my head. After some lunch, I gathered my things and caught a train to Gatwick, where I flew back to Alicante. I got in damn late, and had class at 9 the next morning, which was pretty much zero fun, but ho hum.

All and all it was an amazingly great Spring Break, although my bank account might disagree with me. I really wanted to do some post-program travelling to places like Prague and Budapest, but it´s looking to be a financial impossibility at this point, so I might just settle for Granada, and maybe one other Spanish location. Being abroad and seeing so many different places made me realize how much I miss Boston, as well as how much I like living in Spain.

Also, being in England made me realize how much I want to live there this summer. Since the job I applied for in Barcelona doesn´t seem to be going anywhere, I´m going to attempt to find work in Southampton and stay in Matt´s house over the summer. Right now the biggest issue seemes to be finding out whether or not I will need a work visa, and if I do, whether or not I can find a job that will look the other way if I don´t have one. I started to look into what I needed to actually get a visa, but I don´t think I can go through the British Embassy/Consulate in Spain since I´m not a Spanish citizen, and doing everything by mail for the one in the US will take too long and might not even be possible in the first place without my physical prescence. Matt said he is asking around different places about the need for a work permit/visa, and he said he´d get back to me soon, so I´m crossing my fingers.

While living there, I might be able to check out one of the BBC´s offices and maybe, maybe even get myself an interview. Talking to Matt so much about graduating and finding jobs has had me thinking a lot about what I´m going to do when I´m done in school in December, and I think aiming for a job at the BBC would be an excellent first goal in my career path. Besides, it´s one of the only huge media companies that I don´t think is completely corrupt and morally bankrupt yet, so I wouldn´t have too many personal qualms working for them. While I know they have offices in the US, I´d much prefer to see if I can rope myself a job in the UK on a temporary work permit/visa, and after a few years decide if maybe moving out of the US permanently would be a good decision for me. An additional plus would be that with the exchange rate, paying off my college loans will be that much easier. I know it all seems like a long shot pipe dream at this point, but it´s the first realistic planning I can manage that would take me in a direction I want to head in. Having Matt´s support has been hugely helpful as he´s been pushing me along all throughout. He said he´ll continue to do everything he can to help me, and I owe him loads for that.

So although it sounds like my Spring Break was nothing more than a bingefest, it truly wasn´t. Sure we enjoyed ourselves at night, but I got to see a ton of stuff in 4+ cities, talk to lots of interesting people, and truly broaden my view of Europe. I think I´ve thoroughly been infected with the travel bug, now I just need to go make some more money so I can feed the virus.

It definitely feels great to be back in Spain, although the mountain of work I´m facing is more than a bit worrying. I´m hoping around halfway through my first 10-pager, some sort of paper-writing wall will come crashing down in my brain, and I will just be able to flow onto paper. The rest of this week and the following Monday is vacation days, so I´ll need to resist just sitting on the beach all day under the beautifully blue cloudless sky. It is sorta refreshing to come back from break to a place that is wholly warmer than the places I visited. Being in England, however, made me remember how green a place can be, and how nice Spring can be after a cold gray winter. Definiely a sharp reminder of Massachusetts.

Alright, that´s about it for now. I said I probably won´t get much posting in during the next few weeks, but I might get a couple short ones in if I get too frustrated with work and need to vent into a keyboard. Any questions or inquiries about further details of my trip can be directed towards the comment board, or emailed directly to me.

In the words of the indelible Tom Waits:
Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my cham friends.

-Dani

P.S. I promise to inject more smartass sarcasm into my next post, really.