November 28, 2009

Pavers

(above: rain on the pavers in Brussels, Belgium)
We're home in our 6th floor walk-up apartment after having experienced the most amazing week of our lives. I live superlatively (as many will remind me) but this is a genuine declaration in calling the week most amazing. I've been toiling over how to recap the trip in an organized, clever, amusing and yet emotional fashion, however I, ever the self-proclaimed writer, have come up with nothing. I suppose I could have snatched up a course on travel writing at some point prior to the vacation, but seeing as I did not, I've decided to let my sense of stream of consciousness roll this out, and ideally my memory will have captured what is left unsaid.*Amsterdam is secretly (as I type this out loud??) the most favorite place of mine that I've ever, ever visited. Ever. New York City, you know that I love you and you will always be my top U.S. destination. Maine, you live on in beautiful mystery in my mind. England: a great way to get our feet wet traveling across the Atlantic because, well, no language barrier exists. But Amsterdam? And I haven't even reached the point where I can describe Paris, but we just left that stunning City yesterday, therefore I need time to absorb.*In Amsterdam, as I mentioned, the cyclists own the streets and even at times the miniature 2' wide sidewalks patterned out for pedestrians to walk primarily single-file. Imagine having these senses at once stimulated: Sight: brightly colored window shutters, extreme structural leans of the architecture (at times appearing almost unsafe, but people live and work in these buildings!), the endless spinning of bicycle wheels as well as the timeless appearance of some of the most beat up bikes (the majority of them). Smell: marijuana. Plain and simple. The scent permeates everywhere, but it's faint, practically an ideal fragrance for such a laid back town. "Coffee shops" can be found on every corner, where locals smoke wide ranges of weed at every hour of the day and night. Sounds: again, wheels spinning. A minute or two walk without the sound of oncoming or passing spinning wheels is rare. Even some of the smallest side streets find cyclists heading home, or to work or to play. Then there's the taste of Amsterdam. We were informed prior that Dutch food is notoriously bad. I'm an ever-evolving foodie, but I knew up front that our trip to Europe, with the exception of France, would not be food-centric in nature. The first day in Amsterdam, we navigated our way to a small bi-level eatery called Pancakes! Amsterdam. Yes, with an exclamation point! Pancakes! How else can you say the word?? PANCAKES! We found this establishment via our friend Alison's cousin Kiara, who lives with her husband in Amsterdam. At first, we could not get a seat. I was itching to eat there, so we swung across the street for a beer in the Jordaan (we stayed in this neighborhood, and I would recommend it to anyone traveling to Amsterdam, as it was charming and perfect.) After our first beer in Amsterdam, we returned to Pancakes! and lucked out with seats upstairs. I ordered a savory pancake(!) with spinach, garlic, oil and goat cheese. Craig ordered a strange sweet-laced pancake(!) with caramelized bananas, bacon and red pepper (the latter which he claimed he barely tasted) and we each drank coffee. I fairly generally relied on espressos and cafe cremes and lattes and cafe con leches to keep my jet lag at bay the entire week. Heck, it worked! Following our Pancakes!, which were delightful and which kicked off a whole week of dining wherein I should have ordered for Craig, because he consistently preferred my dishes to his!...we toured the town. For those who are adept at entertaining themselves with sights, Amsterdam is it. The nooks, the canals, the winding streets with their severely leaning architectural structures (almost as if the buildings are bending toward one another in conversation), the friendly residents and their easygoing style - picturesque and charming are understatements. And in fact we were blessed, if not miraculously bestowed upon with the host who housed us for our two night stay. Peter runs a Bed and Breakfast from his home, Boogaard's Bed and Breakfast, with exquisite rooms, plenty of common areas to be shared with other guests (such as the pleasant older Israeli couple David and Beth, and two Australians from England that we met the first morning around a table of fresh rolls, butter, fruit, fresh juice, homemade bread pudding, cheese plate, yoghurt, granola, delightful coffee served in charming mugs, and the aforementioned phenomenal light quiche in a likely homemade flaky crust!) and Peter and his home offer just the most sophisticated, yet warm and inviting elegance you could ask for. He's so friendly, and his partner Tom was also a treat, although we didn't spend as much conversation time with him as with Peter. Peter is probably one of the most well-rounded individuals we've ever had the pleasure of meeting: he's a singer who has performed on Broadway, he received a certificate of Design from Parsons, he's multilingual, runs this stunning B&B, serves just splendid breakfasts, all homemade, cooks food for the entire week for his grandparents each week, is well-read, articulate and generous. He's got two dogs named Curly and Pepe, both of which hung around in the mornings with us. He's completely enchanting with an International flair. We loved our bed, the shower, the comfort and the ease of our stay! He offered to do some of our laundry. He offered to "post" our postcards given that we were leaving Monday morning for Brussels and had a train to catch from Amsterdam Centraal early (which was a swift 10-minute walk from his B&B!) The entire Amsterdam experience, while too short, was perfect, with the exception of two quite minor mishaps, one involving my shared space with a biker wherein we tangled and she rode off annoyed leaving me with a nice eggplant-colored bruise on my arm (we knew that inevitably one of us would dance with a cyclist!) and the other is another story for a totally different time, one which found us in circles after leaving a weird antique store where we met a man from Africa and drank strangely bitter coffee! Finally, we did stumble upon the famous "I amsterdam" sign which is the city's statement, and didn't shoot a photo and never found it again! No matter though. Amsterdam provided us with a perfect intro for our trip.*I don't want to hurt Brussels' feelings, but I doubt I will: we had an unfortunate stay in Belgium. It was bound to happen that we'd happen upon incremental weather so late in the fall, and we returned to the US lucky to have only found one seriously awful day of rain there in poor, sad Brussels (we left cursing its name however in retrospect, I'm certain the city and country had little to do with the downpours!) We rolled into Brussels around noon. A taxi picked us up at the Midi station and dropped us at our nearby Hotel Floris. At first glance, the place was impeccable and modern. We couldn't check into our rooms yet, too early, so we left our luggage in a room near the front desk and traveled on foot to visit the Manneken Pis, a miniature yet famous statue of a little boy relieving himself into a fountain. Across the street we ate at a touristy pub. I ordered a "cheese plate" which arrived as a "cheeseburger" because in French Europe, "plat" is a main dish and I failed to emphasize "fromage" therefore the waiter took my language to mean cheeseburger. I'm not one to send anything back, so I ate it (despite its curiously un-cheeseburger like qualities!) Craig had an unbecoming beef stew with french fries (beginning his long adventure with the pomme frites, which likely remains his favorite experience in Brussels.) What more can I say? It rained, rained, and rained some more. We drank a few beers, returned to Hotel Floris to check in, then headed out to the Grand Place (Plaza?) which later would be trumped - nay, its ass got KICKED - by the Louvre in Paris (details to follow eventually.) The hotel wasn't too terrible, except that Craig woke in the middle of the night to hydrate and for the life of him could not get anything but scalding water to come out of the bathroom faucet. He clothed himself and left the room in search of some sort of bottled water, but in vain. He came back cursing, just cursing the hotel, and the water, and the room and Brussels and in the morning, we ate breakfast (cheeses, salami, ham, tomatoes, bread and coffee) downstairs after showering, then battled our luggage down to the lobby to wait for our alleged reserved taxi to drive us back to Midi. Our train would depart for Paris at 9:46, and our taxi was ordered for 9. Needless to say, as if things could not get any less inviting or attractive there in Brussels, by 9:15 our taxi had not shown itself, so the gentleman at the front desk advised us to walk to Midi (approximately 10 minutes away.) The rain was spitting steadily and we were both averagely panicking, nothing too severe, because our train tickets between countries were reserved seats, like purchasing plane tickets, so if we were to miss our train to Paris, who knows how many euro it would set us back or how long it'd take to get out of Brussels! So we darted down the street, manhandling too many bags (word to the wise, after lesson learned, do not overpack for an International adventure! Pack 3 similar plain colored shirts, few pants, and accessorize to change things up a bit!) and about halfway to Midi, the rain really, really came down on us. I had an umbrella but Craig had ditched his due to high winds which rendered the thing useless the day before, therefore he was quite soaked when we reached Midi. Finding the right car and seats proved somewhat simpler after a confusing spell of trying to find our seats on the Thalys back in Amsterdam (strange system), and with a rough Belgian experience behind us, we were off to Paris! Bonjour, bon soir, oui, merci, en anglais, s'il vous plais, au revoir! Paris and other stories to follow. For now, it's after 8 on a Saturday morning - I've been awake since 6:30 because my body believes I'm still in Paris. Sleep could be interesting this weekend. I've got hundreds and hundreds of photos to paw through. I'm still not 100% set on using Photoshop. I've tackled half of "Bridge," the viewing platform, but must apply some organization to the photos before I can even begin to process RAW files. And our apartment looks like someone threw up stuff everywhere.*Final few shout-outs to Europe: the euro goes a lot farther than one would think. We saved together 1,000 USD which translates at the current exchange rate to 750 E. That 750 E not only paid Peter the 230 E for the B&B, but also got us through Amsterdam and half the day in Brussels. I withdrew from my own saved spending in Paris on the first day - a mere 400 E, which is exactly 600 USD. We returned to the States with way, way more cash than we imagined we would! That was quite happy for us! And traveling in Europe is one of the most educational experiences one can imagine. Different countries do so many things so differently. But if one can shove all traces of xenophobia aside, it's a breeze. It really is! Tourists are everywhere. We're all in this together. And it's brilliant to be able to share our cultures with one another. Proost! Sante!

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