Germany to Holland!
***I know it has been a long time and I have a lot to cover still, but I wanted to update everyone a little bit. Unfortunately, I lack the technology right now to post up photos. So my text might seem a little boring without the eye candy. You will just have to use your imaginations for now. It might be easier to read if you copy/paste the text here into a word document and print it out to read... It is easier on the eyes that way. I hope you enjoy!!***
7.12.06 Plane to Germany
While waiting at the Santander bus station we were just talking about how excited we were to move to Germany. I saw a girl sitting on the bench and helped put her bag up in the bus. She was German and we happened to be on the same flight to Frankfurt. Her name is Carolyn Sauer. She is a Special Ed. teacher in Madrid and is going home for summer vacation. I sat next to her on the plane and she told me how to say a bunch of things in German. Things like…”One more Beer please” (Noch ein bier, bitte) and “You smell bad like Bratwurst,” (Du riechst schlecht nach Bratwurst). I showed her some good raggea from the US and I said I would email her some good songs.
Aaron was meeting his relative at the airport to go and stay with them. Upon arrival we met Linda Murphy and she offered to let all of us stay with them instead of paying for food and a hotel. An offer we couldn’t refuse of course. She offered to cook us any food we wanted. They lived on an American military base so she could buy pretty much any American food. We settled on Burritos for tomorrow night.
While driving to her home in Darmstadt, I looked out the window and noticed that Germany looks completely different from Spain. I feel like we literally ended one trip and started the next.
We arrived and Linda offered us some beer! So we sat out on the patio and drank our first German brewskees. Her son and husband, Brian and Mike, arrived home from their Midievil practice. Midevil is a sport where they actually re-enact the battles of the renniassance. I asked Brian if I could try on his gear, so he hooked me up with his metal armor, helmet, and gave me a wooden sword an shield. He told me to stand still and proceeded to slam me with his wooden sword. It’s amazing how the metal dispersed the hit. He even took a full swing to my head and it still didn’t hurt. My ears were ringing pretty bad though. It was cool because you normally would think about how heavy those old armor plates were. You had to be one strong and tough dude to go into battle with all that armor on, and have enough energy to swing your weapon and beat down your opponent. This sport has an entire system set up. There are kingdoms depending on where you live that you would join. There are Kings and Knights and all sorts of different status levels that one can obtain, but they are only attainable through word. For example, if someone of higher status than you notices you have some serious skill in battle, then he can knight you and raise your status. It is based on a total honor system. The king believe it or not was Mike! He was King of the entire Kingdom of Europe. There only a few Kings, one in America and Africa and so on. In order to become King you must challenge him to a fight and win. Mike has not been defeated.
We sat down and Mike brought out some of his finest whiskey and rum collection. I tried some really hard stuff that night. He gave us a nice little introduction to Germany. It was a very nice night for conversation.
7.13.06
Walked through downtown Darmstadt. It was so quiet. We were downtown with cars and people and you could hardly hear anything more that a whisper! It was a little strange to me. Brian explained to me that the Germans respect and enjoy silence. There is a national quiet hour curfew at 9pm and they are very strict about it. He said that the cops are so strict that they could hit you if they wanted to. Another interesting fact is that if someone owes you money and you haven’t gotten it in a while then, on courts order, you can go into their home and take whatever you deem of value to what they owe you.
We stopped at our first Bier Garten (Beer Garden) and I had a Weisner Hell. This is a social area to go and drink a lot of beer. We talked to some local Germans and they all seemed very friendly. We continued walking and we went right by this lake with people sunbathing and swimming. There is nudity everywhere! The Germans definitely don’t consider the human body as something to hide. But besides the nudity, I find the best thing about Germany so far is the Gummy Bears. They are so chewy and they started in Germany so you know you’re getting the real deal. I had my first Bratwurst and mustard. It was packed so tightly that it seemed to burst in your mouth when you took a bite. I’m drooling right now just thinking about it.
That night we had a nice family dinner with the Murphys. Linda made excellent burritos. She takes pride in them because she lived in New Mexico for 30 years. I could tell because the burritos were so spicy my eyes couldn’t stop watering. We bought a lot of beer for them to show our appreciation and thank them for their hospitality. That night we spent at the house just hanging out and watching movies. I think that in a way this house seemed like home for us, and we wanted to enjoy something that a lot of us haven’t felt in a while. So we had a little sleepover, but unlike when we were 12, we had an entire stockpile of Weisner beer. This eventually led to massive consumption of Macaroni and Cheese. Anyway it was a lot of fun to be back in a more familiar environment.
7.14.06 Road trip to Berlin!
We took a train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt to rent our cars. While waiting a girl approached Mike and I. She is American and was traveling solo for a year as well. She was going to Summer Jam in Cologne, Germany and asked us if we wanted to tag along with her. We had our own plans though and had our own music fest to hit up…the Love Parade.
It was really fun to drive across Germany. We each took turns driving so we could say that we drove the Autobahn. I started out as the navigator which proved to be very stressful. I couldn’t read or pronounce any of the street names and the streets were just sprawled out in every direction. A lot of these towns were not constructed on a grid system like in the states. On top of that, the guys in the back were being loud and obnoctious as hell. This gave me a flash into the future when I have my own kids yelling in the back when I’m trying to get the family somewhere. Are we there yet??? Anyway, we stopped and had some more brats and drinks on the side of the road. I tried some Saurkraut and it was awesome! Now I know where my Dad became a fan of Saurkraut and now I discovered how great it is.
Arrived in Berlin and navigated through the S-Bahn and U-Bahn metro systems to our hostel. There wasn't much daylight left, so we went down to the hostel bar to talk. We met three film makers from Amsterdam who were here to film the Love Parade. We had some very interesting conversations about politics, religion, and all sorts of juicy stuff. I think I shed some light on why Americans voted for George W. because a lot of Europeans are baffeled for some reason as to how he got back into office. The most interesting conversation though was with this guy from Amsterdam. We got into the subject of WWII. I got a very unique perspective from a European youth that you can't find in a text in the states. He said that it pisses him off that the Germans fly their flag and pretend that nothing happened 60 years ago. He said that he saw a sign that some German soccer fans made and hung on the side of a bus that said, "We are German, friends of the world." He then told us how the Germans tortured his Grandfather and mad him work in the coal mines which eventually led to his death. His other Grandfather escaped from a German work camp and was shot in the leg while running away but he made it to this Dutch farmers house. He lived for a zear and a half in the pig pen, eating the pig food that the farmer fed his livestock with. The Nazis thought his last name sounded Jewish, which it wasn't, and they still tried to kill him. I could just see the anger in his eyes when he talked about his Grandfathers and the Germans. He said that the emotions run so deep that it will take a very long time to heal. The modern youth try to pretend it didn't happen or ignore it. They will say things like...we are friends to the world... but 60 years may not be enough time for some to let the Germans back into their lives. One thing that really made me feel good and was something that I've never heard anyone say before was this.
"My grandfather told me to give your respect to the Americans. They saved us. They left their homes to go to a land that most of them had never seen before and died to help us. Always respect the Americans."
I don't hear many good things these days about Americans here in Europe besides bickering and arguing about things that they themselves don't bring any solutions to. When he said that, something struct deep inside me. I didn't really think of it that way, but ya... My Uncle Jim and my Grandfathers went to war to a place unfamiliar to them. They won that war with the help of the Brits and those whom they liberated. But to hear someone, European, give their respect to mz grandfathers and their generation in this day and age was truly unique. He also said that one thing he respects about America is their constant drive to defend their country and values. He said it is inspiring to the smaller countries, like Holland, who don't have enough resources to do so. He said he is proud to be an ally of the US.
It is interesting to see both sides of an emotional trench in Europe. The German youth want to progress and work with the new world, while at the same time the new world isn't necessarily ready to work with them. He said maybe in about 200 years, but not 60.
7.15.06, the Love Parade
The Love Parade starts at about 2pm and goes until about 11pm. It is composed of an assortment of the worlds most popular DJ's and is considered to be the worlds largest rave. Over a million people parade down the long stretch of road between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, the Siegessaule.
While walking to the parade from our hostel, I couldn't help to notice a few things. The city is so contemporary. The tall, modern buildings are very well designed and gridded. We walked across a cobblestone line which I later realiyed was the former path of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Walll, that divided East and West Berlin. A very cold feeling brushed over me.
I planned on going to the Love Parade for half the day to photgraph and then return all of my stuff to the hostel and come back later to see the big DJ's around the Siegessaule. The music was so loud when we got there. People spread as far as you could see from the Siegessaule to Brandenburg Gate, where the infamous photos of the Nazi flags hung as the Germans drive and marched through. There were about 40 large semi-trucks blasting music from large speaker systems built into the front and back ends. In the middle of each truck there was a stage where 30 or so people danced and partied, kinda like the VIP ride. The trucks would slowly drive down and back from the Siegessaule to the Brandenburg Gate and the crowd would follow along the truck they liked.
I took tons of photos and Ryan got some great video. I’ve never seen so many weird people in my life. Some people dressed up like Aliens, etc. We returned back to the hostel after a while and walked back a different route. This time there was an actual chunk of the Berlin Wall standing up that we walked by. Just to touch the graffitied concrete sent shivers down my spine as to the millions of people held under its tyranny.
We replaced our beer bottles into large plastic water bottles because they wouldn’t let you bring glass into the park area and headed back to the parade. When it got dark, the masses gathered around the towering and intimidating Siegessaule. This was bulit in the 19th century but wasn’t placed in the center of Stern Grosser roundabout until Hitler put it there. The sides of the monument are decorated with the cannon barrels of victorious German battles. People climbed up onto the street lamps and stop signs and danced while the DJs played music from the base of the tower. The trucks started to circle only around the tower at this point and stopped driving all the way down to the Brandenburg Gate. The trucks circled round and round and had tuned their speakers to emit the main DJs music at the tower, so while they drove by the sound was magnified from both directions. The smoke and beams of light blasting up into the night were very cool. They flashed and pulsed to the beats. I saw some really famous DJs, including DJ Tiesto of Holland and Paul Van Dyk from Germany.
Afterwards, we all walked back to the hostel. It was about midnight and Mike and I drank some coffee to keep us awake to go out again. The others went to bed, but we walked the streets of Berlin pondering its disturbing history. We ran into a few Germans and tried to speak with them. I think the German accent is the most fun to listen to.
7.16.06
It seems like the younger generations of today need to mend the wounds and také responcibility for their older generations war. The international community will not let the Holocaust be forgotten. They must face the music, even though the modern youth had nothing to do with it. So Berlin is full of museums and monuments dedicated to the memory of wartime Germany and their actions. It can not and will not be forgotten, so they built these as an act of mending.
I walked through the Jewish Museum and learned about Jewish history. The museum was more like an educational place to tell the story of the Jews. The Holocaust was of course included in this, but it also shined some light on what Jews have done today and how they have influenced modern times.
I then took a walk to Museum Island and ran into the Lustgarten, which is an open grassy park that lye’s right at the doorstep of the Berliner Dom Cathedral and the Atlas Museum.
As I’m sitting here writing this, basking in the sun rays, sitting on the grass, I’m looking 100 yards in front of me at this amazing cathedral. It is so beautiful with its assortment of colors. The grey stone has been blackened, maybe from when bombs had crushed Berlin 60 years ago during the fall of the city. There are rusted copper green sculptures and gold crosses. It still gives an eerie feeling of the grim past. The museum next to the cathedral takes the shape of an ancient roman temple, but its exterior is stark black stone. The 18 black eagles perched along the roof line were built before the Third Reich, but the symbol will forever be tarnished by the use of it as a Nazi symbol.
I fell asleep for a while on the grass, but woke up late to meet my friends and had to pretty much run back to the hostel…which was a long way. We were going to go on a Berlin pub crawl and had to be at a certain bar at a certain time to go on it. So I finally met them there and we started to have a drink. The five of us pretended not to know each other just to have some fun with people we met, but I think people figured us out eventually though. One bar we went to was this bombed out building bar. The whole side of the building had been blown off and you could see all five stories to the top. But they used the building to make a bar, so each floor had a different themed bar on it. I walked all the way to the top and there was this chill lounge that looked out over the city. Mr. Ryan, Mike and I eventually hung back from the group after a while and tried to quickly buy a kabob at a stand. When we turned around though the bar group was gone! We lost our own pub crawl. Oh well, we walked to a few other bars and then went home.
7.17.06 Berlin Tour
Today I took a free walking tour of the city. I recommend this tour to anyone traveling to Berlin. It was excellent, and our guide was very good. It differs from other tours because with the “working for tips” tour guides actually need to impress you and do a good job if they want to get paid. Other tour guides could care less what impression they give you because they are aware of what they are going to get paid. The tour met at Brandenburg Gate. It was built in the 1700’s by the Ottoman Empire. It has seen quite a lot, including Napoleons army when Berlin fell in the 1800’s. It also has had Nazi flags hung on it as Hitler and his army marched through the center. Another crazy fact was the balcony behind it was the balcony that Michael Jackson dangled his baby over a few years ago. A few km away from the Gate is the German Reichstag. It does sound intimidating, but that’s because it played the role as the Nazi headquarters for a decade. Today it is still the parliament house of Germany and there was one addition they made to it. They placed a large glass dome on top of the roof. It is a very interesting design and has a very good purpose. I like it because it is concept driven. The German government after its fall in WWII, needed to be rebuilt. It also needed to rebuild the trust between itself and the people. So the concept was created “For the German people” and everything revolved around this motto. The glass dome is open to the public. You do not have to pay to get to the top. This is because at the top of the dome there is a funnel that you can look down and actually see directly into the Chamber of Parliament. This is to symbolize to the people that there is nothing to hide and they are always a part of what goes on inside. The next place our guide took us was Hitler’s Bunker, which actually doesn’t exist anymore. Basically, when the Russians took over Berlin, they stumbled upon this bunker amonst the completely deystroyed city and the rubble. Once they found out what it was, they wanted to blow it up and completely bury anything related to Hitler in case of any following of Nazism in the future. So they tried to blow it up but couldn’t because it was so well made. So they buried it instead and told no one about it until it was discovered again in the 1960’s by an apartment complex that was being built in the area. I know there have been a lot of conspiracies about Hitler and how he died. Well, now I know what really happened. Hitler was one crazy bastard as you all know. But so was his wife apparently. They both planned their own suicide in case they were to be captured. But this plan didn’t really go according to the way they wanted it to. Hitler had in mind a glorious taking of his own life along with his love to be remembered forever in history. It played out a little differently. Berlin was being bombed so badly that they could hardly stand. Hitler told the guards hiding in the rubble to help him out a little. Imagine bombs exploding everywhere, shaking the foundations of everything, buildings falling and crumbling and these nervous Nazi guards who’s chief commander is asking them to help kill him and his wife. Hitler tells the guards to take his and his wife’s body outside and bury them after they shoot themselves inside. When his wife was ready, Hitler shot and killed her. Talk about true love… such a gentleman. Then he did the world a huge favor and took his own. The guards are half scared of being blown to pieces and shot by the Russians seiging the city that they grab the bodies and just tossed them pretty much right outside the doorstep, lit them up on fire and got the hell out of there. So much for his glorious transition into the next life… I can only guess where that might be. Now we get to modern times. The only thing left where the bunker used to be is a crator and a bulletin sign that explains what used to be here. Ryan, our guide, told us that it took a lot of petitioning to even get this sign up. He said it is because the Germans are so ashamed of their former leader that they want to bury anything related to him into the past. They wanted to forget about Adolph Hitler. But, obviously, that would never happen. So they blew up the bunker yet again, then buried it, and now there is only a sign.
The next stop was the German Air Force Headquarters. It was obvious Nazi architecture. It was a massive gray stone building to convey the dominance, strength, and superiority of the Nazi party. They wanted the architecture to be as significant as the Romans and would convey their superior message thousands of years into the future. The façade was solid, flat, concrete, and was rising very high with flat columnar porch columns. There were small Nazi emblems implanted all over the building, but they were ripped out over time which left circular holes all over the place. Even in the large iron front gate had an empty place, which would look like a doorknocker was missing. The Nazi empire wasn’t the only evil regime that had taken resident in this building. The Communist Red Russia and the GDR came next. They used the building as a communist work center. When the East Berlinian workers started to protest about the government cutting their wages and at the same time tried to make them work even harder, the GDR called Russia for their help on handling the situation. The protest of hundreds of hard working people was in the courtyard where I was standing and right out front of the porch I had just described. The Communists replied with their usual way to solve a problem and sent in their tanks and soldiers to slaughter every single one of them…right here, right where I was standing. The building had an ironic propagandized mural painted beneath the massive porch façade that symbolized the lovely Communist ideals and how happy the working people lived together in harmony. This was the same mural that these protestors were staring that day when they were slaughtered by the Communists. It is understandable why nobody in modern times wants to take residence in a building as massive as this one. It creeps the hell out of me.
The next stop was the Jewish Memorial which opened last year in 2005. Why it took so long to create a memorial here?? It was because the people of Berlin never wanted to remember their country’s past and wanted to move on. It was finally approved and now a massive area in the middle of the city is covered by large grey, cubes. It is set up on a grid. The landscape looks like an uneven bumpy terrain of flat cube surfaces. In between the cubes are alley ways. You can walk in from any side and follow straight through in any direction to the other side. The design itself draws up emotions that nobody likes to feel. It looks like many things and is different to anyone who stares upon it. But whatever it reminds people of, it is not a good thing. Fear, death, gravestones, helplessness, torture. The ground as you start to walk into the cubes is even, but slowly drops down until the cubes are 15 feet above your head. You find yourself feeling completely isolated and alone. You are surrounded in a forest of concrete grey wall. There is really nowhere to hide because you can be seen all the way from the exits because it is a grid design. You turn one corner and there is the exit. Turn another and someone can see you. There is no running away. The cubes represent the holocaust and the lives it claimed as faceless numbers. The ground as you walk further into the center gets uneven and wavy, angular. You lose your balance and sense of direction. You pretty much become lost in this scary place with no one to help you. The design accounted for every detail. The temperature even drops 10 degrees as you sink deeper into the memorial, and the sunlight is not reflected off the stones, thus making it darker in the middle. As I walked out, towards the other side it started to get warmer, the ground started to become more flat and the cubes became smaller until I was outside in the hot sunlight again. The design is an amazing piece of work and certainly accomplished its purpose and goal. An interesting fact Ryan told us was that the constructors used an anti graffiti spray to protect the blank concrete walls from taggers. After spraying the entire memorial, it was uncovered that the chemical company who manufactured the spray was the same company that created the cyclone B tablets which were used to gas thousands of Jews. This was obviously a big, big problem. The company did not do this intentionally of course and said that they would not charge anything for the spray. It is a gift to preserve the memorial and to remind people of what happened in the past.
Next was the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. It is called this because there were three entry/exit points installed in the Berlin Wall that divided the city into two halves, the US, French, and British sector, from the Soviet sector. They were called A, B, and C, or in military code words… Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. The only thing that is left is a booth in the middle of the street and a large sign that rises out of the intersection. On one side of it, it has a large photo of an “American” officer and says “Caution!!! You are entering the American Sector.” On the other side the type is Russian with a different soldier mug shot photo on the sign. This was the only place in Berlin where Allied Forces and the Soviets ever met. There is a uniformed American and Russian officer sitting there for you to have your passport stamped. A little tourist quirk, but I still thought it was neat. The building next to the booth is the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It tells the many tales of escape from the Eastern Communist sector to the American sector. Tales of horror, valor, and heroism. This build was not always a museum. I notice that there was one large blown up black and white photo of these people running across the from the wall. I then notice that the photographer must have been standing in the exact place I was standing. I looked down out the window to see the same perspective as that photo was shot. A very uncomfortable feeling shot through me. The faces in the large black and white photos expressed the conditions that they were in at the time. They were grim, expressionless, living in terror. There were also photos of the people who had made the escape running across the barbed wire and into the hands of the American officers awaiting them on the other end. Their faces were shining and relieved to be safe and out of the hellish East Berlin. Our tour guide was very good at verbally describing and painting a mental picture for the listeners. I never realized the historical importance of this place. One gloomy, rainy day, WWIII almost occurred here. And when I say almost, I mean that the fall of a pebble, or a loud noise…a misfired nervous shot could have destroyed the world. Let me explain. During the cold war, Russia and America were not on the best of terms. The soldiers on the two sides of the wall hated each other. They taunted each other and made jokes, but when it came to doing business they were of course professional at doing their jobs. One day however, a Russian soldier offended a group of American soldiers at the wall gate. The Americans responded back and threatened the Russians. They said something like… “Ya, you and what army… where are your tanks?” That ended the dispute for now, until the Russian showed up later with a tank aimed through the gate at the Americans. The Americans of course reported this and the order was given to prepare for attack and get more tanks aimed at the Russian tanks. This kept building and building until there were a number of tanks, and a hundred armed soldiers on each side yelling at one another to step down. If one of the nervous soldiers as much as sneezed… nuclear war would have occurred. There standing in the rain, looking down the barrels of the enemy they waited for something to happen. Word had reached the top dogs of the American military. They called the Russian top dogs and said what the hell is this all about. The Russians said they do not know what is going on. I don’t know who was in charge of the Russian military at the time but they took the step down. They said we will remove one tank if you do the same. And so the Americans did, then the Russians, then the Americans and so on. Not many people are aware that this ever occurred. It would probably scare the hell out of them to know how close the world was to Nuclear War.
Next on the tour was Book Burning Square. This is where Hitler rallied the University students to grab any book that they considered to be “Non Arayan” and throw them out into a bonfire in the courtyard. The piles grew so high and the entire library was almost set up in flames. This inspired the youth of Germany around the nation to do the same, thus starting the burning away of history. I tried to imagine the horrific scene that took place here. I think there is a scene in Indian Jones and the Last Cruisade that shows a somewhat accurate view of what happened that night. Now the courtyard is encircled by larger than life size painted bears of every country represented in the United Nations. Each bear is painted differently to represent the nation. In the center there is a small square of see through plexi glass that you can walk over and look down upon a large empty library room with empty bookshelves.
Ryan finished his tour on the lawn outside the Berlinerdom Cathedral explaining how the wall fell. Well it is quite interesting and I’m sure the history books will tell a different story. It was all a political accident on the part of the Russians. I guess one evening, the Russian who was in charge of the Berlin area was placed into a live national interview on television, and I guess it was somewhat unexpected. The leader went on stage un-prepared for the questions he would be asked. He must have been under pressure or something because a question was asked something like… “Are the people of East Berlin considered free?” and he replied, “Yes,” not realizing what he just said. Meanwhile, all of Berlin is watching along with the guards at the gate of Checkpoint Charlie. An East Berlin citizen walks up to the guards and said “Did you just hear what he said? Can I go?” The guard replied, confused about what his commander had said as well,… “Yes.” And so the first free man to walk out of East Berlin did. Following him were more and more people until a mad rush through the gates occurred. On the other side, the party already waiting for their separated comerades, hearing the unbelievable TV interview as well. That night, Ryan tells us, was the biggest party the world had ever seen. People went hysterical and were full of joy as Berlin was now free before the Soviets could really even figure out that it was all a mistake under pressure. Of course that night the people brought their axes, shovels, hammers, drills and started ripping the wall to pieces, taking pleasure in watching the Soviet guards do absolutely nothing to them.
We tipped Ryan very well. He was the best tour guide I’ve ever had. We walked home to grab our gear and move out from one hostel to another across town. It was getting late and little did we know that this hostel was a piece of crap out in the booneys. I did not feel safe here. Mike and I were meeting Aaron at this place, so it was just us as we walked down the dirty streets. We passed through the slums, getting hollard at by strippers and bouncers welcoming us over to their club, and kabob shops trying to get us to eat at there place. The hostel was so shady. We did not go out that night.
7.18.06, Museum Day
Today I headed to the Pergamon Museum, which was full of Ancient Greek sculpture and architecture. It was amazing! I studied so many of these things off slides projected onto a wall in a dusty, boring, hot, crowded room in Kansas. Now I was standing right in front of the real deal. It is a very different experience… The Altar of Pergamon is the highlight of the Museum. It contained the pieces of an entire Greek temple and was pieced together as well. So I walked into the first room to find myself in a huge white open area. I was standing in the courtyard in front of an Ancient Greek Temple. It was excavated from a place called Pergamon and I’m not exactly sure what country that is in. The entire façade and frieze depicts a battle between the Gods and the Giants. The sculptured frieze is just jaw dropping. The incredibly lifelike, but idealized, bodies of powerful giants and god like physiques are mesmorizing to see with your own eyes. Their faces and body language show power, pain, misery, etc. They are finely detailed down to the wavy locks of hair and wrinkles in the faces. I took my time admiring the work of the Greek artist who chiseled this marble thousands of years ago.
The next exhibit blew my mind even more. I didn’t even know what I was about to see even existed. I thought it was lost to legend, myth. I entered another very large room, large enough to contain a temple itself. But it didn’t hold a temple. In front of me were the dazzling deep blue gates of the ancient city of Babylon! If you ever saw the movie Alexander, then you have an idea of what the gates look like. The entire façade of the outer walls were completely intact. They had cuniform designs on them…repeating forms of Dragons, Cows, and Griffyn-esque monsters. The blue color was so deep. I couldn’t believe that they were still this colorful after thousands of years. They had these massive winged lion sculptures that sat in front of the gates on each side. It was very, very cool to see this. This was also considered to hold one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but those have been destroyed for a long time. So after a day at the museums, I met Mike and we headed back to our hell hole hostel to meet Aaron and catch a bus out to the airport where we would meet Mr. Ryan and Nithin for our flight early next morning.
Unfortunately, Aaron wasn’t there and we couldn’t find him, so Mike and I hoped that he could make it to the airport on his own.
That night, we all slept on the tile floor of the ticket check in at the Berlin Airport. Our next destination was to Amsterdam! We were all very excited because we’ve heard about how amazing a city this place is.
7.19.06, Amsterdam
Well, we missed our flight. Not because we slept in, but because the reservation was actually for yesterday and not today. There really isn’t a reason to explain this except that we are all complete idiots. End of story. We did manage to get tickets to Amsterdam though on another flight. We landed and took a train from the airport to the city. As I walked out of the train station entrance, I could immediately tell that I would like this city. The sun was shining and the gleaming off the Dutch architecture. The city is beautiful and full of canals. From a map, it kind of looks like a giant spider web with the web being the canals. The buildings all look like they are towering and leaning over, looking down on you. That is because they actually are leaning inward toward the streets. This is because the Dutch use a pulley system to raise furniture and other equipment up to the top levels of their homes since they can’t carry them up the narrow stair cases. There is a black hook at the pinnacle of each rooftop so the toss a rope up there and hoist the washing machine or whatever else they are trying to get inside. We headed into the bustling cobblestone streets to find our hostel, The Flying Pig. We found it, and wow… is all I really have to say. This place is unique in its own way. I highly recommend it to anyone traveling here. We checked in our stuff and headed out to walk around town. As you all know, Marijuana is “legal” here so there are some very interesting people and shops around town. I put it in parenthesis because it is technically illegal, but due to the Dutch culture they think of it as a “minding your own business,” or “if it isn’t hurting anybody than I’m fine with that,” outlook on not just marijuana, but pretty much everything in general… like prostitution. We took a stroll through the infamous Red Light District and found quite a surprise… Women!... in windows?!! That’s right, window shopping is “legal“ here. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, you have raised your son well enough to know not to get a hooker. The windows are lit up with a red light and I’m not going to lie, the women are smoking hot. I mean, if you’re a stock broker you go to Wall Street. If you’re and actor you go to Hollywood. If you’re a hooker, well then you go to Amsterdam. So the competition is fierce, thus driving the hot ones to the top and into the windows to do business. When you walk down the street, they look out and taunt you to go inside and they are damn good at it too. It’s like witchcraft, it seems like they just cast a spell on you, except instead of using a wand they use their boobs. I guess it’s something only a man can understand. Anyway, I saw a group of young guys in front of us standing there looking at the girls in the windows. All of a sudden their friend stumbles out of the building. The group cheered and patted him on the back as their buddy approaches like he just walked on the moon, all weak kneed and wobbly, hair all messed up. It was pretty freakin hilarious. Oh ya, and if you’re interested in doing business here, stay away from the purple lit windows. Apparently you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise because those “ladies“ are not really ladies if you know what I mean.
We walked into a Koffee Shop to find wonderful little pastries all lines up in the window. Hmmm, I wonder what those are made out of. I can guess from the look on that dudes face sitting over there in the corner. I did find it amusing that outside of every Koffee Shop there was a Kebab stand, or some kind of fast food place. I’m sure they get all kinds of business during the summertime. We walked back to the hostel and got ready for a night on the town. Mike and I met this girl from California named Kelly Cole. She worked for a University I think and was a supervisor for her Sorority. It was her first day here as well, so we walked around as a group that night and got some drinks. The city does look beautiful at night with all the lights reflecting off the water, silhoutting the many bridges gapping the canals.
7.20.06
Today we walked to the Heineken Brewery, hooray beer! It was ok. I don’t think it matched up to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, but they did give us a neat little bottle opener prize at the end. We enjoyed the sunshine and walked around the parks. Bought some food at the grocery store and ate in the park. You have to be very careful when walking around the city because there is absolutly no warning for the tram and bike paths. Many people aren’t used to looking out for 6 lanes of traffic when crossing the street.
For dinner we made some spagetti down in the basement hang out room. The basement and kitchen was so thick with smoke I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point. On that note, dinner was freakin hilarious that night. We all walked back upstairs to chill at the check in hang out, playing some cards and talking with all the other travelers. One guy gave us a great idea to rent a bike and ride up into the country side. Mike and I decided to do that tomorrow. As we were talking, I saw something unthinkable happening in the corner. This guy, has obvioulsy smoked a lot of pot in his day. He was piecing together pieces of tobacco paper and being very careful at every move he made, like he was performing surgery or something. Within a few minutes, he finished his masterpiece and held up a foot long joint. Everyone had been quiet for the time, but then everyone burst out applauding due to his mastery and wisdom of the joint rolling technique. A true Guru in the ways of weed.
I ran into this guy who was amazing with his guitar. I guess he was in a band, but I heard somebody playing a guitar and I had to search around to find out where he was. He was sitting out back in the courtyard. I think he was from Israel, I’m not sure. I struck up a conversation with him and finally asked if I could play his guitar a bit. I was going through some serious guitar withdrawl because I haven’t touched one since leaving home two months ago. Your fingers really thirst for it… it’s hard to explain unless you’re a musician. This guy was a total pro compared to me but he did like one of my songs. My brother taught it to me though so I gave Tim credit. It is an acoustic version of The Postal Service song called Great Hights. Well, I made a new friend and moved on back upstairs because it was getting late and Mike and I had a bike ride to do tomorrow.
7.21.06, Bike Ride Holland!
One thing that I wasn’t really pre-paired for was the co-ed shower room in the basement. You heard me. One bathroom for both sexes. Each shower stall had a door though, so don’t let your imagination go too crazy.
Mike and I walked to a bike rental place and the guy was shady as hell. He wanted us to give him our passports while we had the bikes. Mike looked at him like he was from another planet and said “umm…no.“ He was a jerk as well, so we walked across town to find a different one. We rode out into the countryside along small green canals and lovely flowers. We had to take a ferry across a large canal to get North of Amsterdam to get up into the country. Life was good, I thought as the breeze blew across my face riding the street bikes down the canal paths. We passed a bunch of tiny little towns out in the middle of nowhere. Some people even have their own little ferries that they use to pull themselves across the tiny canal to the doorstep of their house. Most of these towns consisted of a few houses at the edge of a very small canal, and that was pretty much it. They would boat to the next town if they needed anything. That was so weird that they were in the middle of a grassy plain, yet they still used canals to get from one place to the next! There were roads too of course, but that seemed to be secondary to boats.
We stopped at a town called Broek in Waterland for some Dutch Pancakes. The small restaraunt was called Pannekoeken Huis, or The Pancake House. I ordered a bacon-pineapple pancake. It was about the size of a medium Papa John’s pizza though the crust was very thin. It is basically a massive crepe with whatever you want baked into it. It is the kind of thing you would have at Epcot Center, but this is the real thing!
We continued the ride through the countryside, which is below sea level, and headed to the ocean. The land rises up very high at the coast because it is a large dam made of earth that surrounds the whole mainland to keep the ocean out. We stopped at the edge of the coast, out on a penninsula and relaxed on the rocks down by the water. As I was sitting there, I loved thinking about where I was at that time and zooming out in my mind to pinpoint the exact point on the planet that I was currently sitting. It just struck me what a fun and amazing time I was having with my buddy Mike at that time. We were chilling on the coast of Holland and watching the sail boats slowly move across the horizon with a constant breeze to keep us cool in the sunshine. We continued on, except I put my headphones on this time to really get into a groove mood. Mike and I managed to get separated believe it or not, and we had a deadline to get the bikes back by 5pm before the shop closed. So, I had to give up on searching for Mike and headed back down the coast and into the outskirts of Amsterdam to the ferry. I wasn’t very sure on how to navigate back to the shop and Mike had the map. I looked around and found a tourgroup that happened to be from the bike shop I rented from. So I kind of snuck into the tour and rode with them all the way back to the shop without the tour guide noticing. Sometimes I surprise myself at my ninja stealth techniques. I should join the CIA. Anyway, Mike was already waiting for me at the shop and I have no idea how. Maybe he should join the CIA, his skills seem to be much better than mine. We bought some groceries and sat down on a bench between the trolley tracks in the shade to eat.
It was time to leave the Flying Pig and move into a different hostel, St. Christophers Hostel and checked in. We roomed with and Aussie named Jeff. He is a 22 year old Composer from Melbourne. We went out into the hostel bar, which was very nice with white leather couches and full of bright colored paintings… very contemporary. Mike, Aaron, Jeff and I all bought a round of drinks. When it was my turn to buy, I walked up to the bar and ran into some girls that I somehow remembered were on the same tour as me in Berlin. I didn’t even talk to them, but their faces jumped out at me as people that I’ve seen before. I talked to the four of them for a while and they were surprised that I remembered them. I played it cool though, and said maybe I’ll see you later. Walked back to my boys with the brewskys and continued our drinking. We got up and walked around town again. Jeff hadn’t seen the Red Light district yet, so we took him there first. It was about 10pm by then and on the way back to the hostel I ran into the girls I from earlier. See, this is where my plan was executed. Earlier when I walked by them at the bar and recalled that I knew them from Berlin, I established myself as someone they knew… even though they didn’t, but I am now a friendly face to these girls. When I said maybe I’ll see you later and left, that showed the sign that I don’t really care that much about them and don’t need them to have a good time. The good time is with my boys. This, as a fact of human nature, makes them want what they can’t have… and something they didn’t have was my attention anymore. So later when I actually did run into them later, I was immediately invited into there group like we had been friends for a long time. I just find it fun to approach people in different ways and figure out easier ways to break the ice. This was just one of them because I already broke the ice earlier in the night. Anyway, the four girls were wondering if we wanted to hang out with them and go to a club. Amazingly, neither Mike, Aaron, or Jeff wanted to. So it looked like I was flying solo tonight. On top of that, one of the girls pointed to the group they were going out with… there were about 7 local guys at the corner who were taking the girls to some clubs that they knew. So I was in for some serious competition. As a guy, I know that those guys would do anything possible to prevent me from looking good in front of the girls because I was getting in there way of making an impression. It was time to turn on some charm. As we walked to the club I was talking to the four girls and getting to know them. By the time we got to the club there was a line, but one of the local guys said it’s ok and that they can get everyone in for free and ahead of the line. Ok… I can see there strategy and it was time to counter it. I knew that they would let all the ladies in and then when it came time for me to be let in the bouncer would tell me to get lost. As the guys went in past the bouncer, I was looking inside and around the club. I was trying to look a little bored and said to the girls, “This club looks kind of lame, do you want to go to a bar and sit down?“ I must have said the right thing because as the last of the local guys went in, the girls turned around and said… ok! This had to have been one of the best moves I’ve ever pulled off. Not only was I heading to a bar with four girls, but I ditched all 7 LOCAL dudes at the same time. How’s that McDonalds jingle go… I’m Lovin It…
We went to some random bar and just talked for a while. The two girls I saw in Berlin are sisters from California. Lex and her younger sister are traveling aroung Europe for a month or so and where going to London next and then back home. The other two girls were some friends they had met in their hostel. We all eventually walked back to St. Christophers Hostel and sat down at the bar there. Lex Hamilton goes to school in Santa Barbara and is studying International Relations. I think we hit it off pretty well. It came time for the girls to go back to their own hostel across town and I offered to walk them home. I took the girls home and when we got there, Lex didn’t go in with her sister. I asked her if she wanted to just keep walkin and she said ya! I could tell that her little sister didn’t approve of Lex going out with guys she just met, but she didn’t know that I check out as a nice, legit guy. We walked and talked the entire night. We even watched the sun rise from one of the canal bridges. It was one of the most beautiful sun rises I’ve seen. I walked Lex back to her hostel around 7am and told her I’d meet her at the Dam Square Monument in the center of the city at 3:30 later that day and took off to get at least a little sleep.
7.22.06, Amsterdam and on to the UK.
I woke up with only 2 hours of sleep behind me and walked to Central Station for another free walking tour with Mike, Paul, and Aaron. This guy was just as awesome as Ryan in Berlin. He started the tour by saying “God created the Earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands!“ This is a saying that the Dutch have because they are very proud of their nation. And in fact they did themselves create the Netherlands. It all started right here in Amsterdam Square which was a small piece of land with a river outlet going through it. The founders dammed it up so the rive bent around the dam. They pushed the water back all the way to form modern day Holland. They literally took the land from the sea to form their own nation. Now one can understand why the Dutch are so proud of their culture and heritage. The original dam caused canals to flow throughout and thus branched out over all of Holland as the dams grew bigger. Many sailed from Amsterdam and out into the uncharted sea. They eventually dominated the world in business and trade. The Dutch consider themselves neutral and play the middleman. They are strictly business. The Dutch put up a “facade“ of how their culture is percieved to be vs what it is really like. This is how such things as Marijuana and prostitution have come to be “accepted.“ They put up a “facade“ saying… Marijuana?...what Marijuana, we onlz have coffee shops here… Technically they don’t have anything that truly advertises it, but what happens behind the “facade“ is their own business. You see this notion of a facade culture throughout the people and architecture.
We walked all throughout the town learning all kinds of crazy, interesting facts. Some of them are hilarious. For one example, it is illegal to urinate on any buildings. So they have put up these metal angled slabs in the corners of alleyways so that when a drunk pisses there, it will splash back onto the pisser himself. But any smart aimer would simply turn an piss around the piss gaurd. So they weren’t very efficient. Another funny thing is when the British took rule to the Dutchland. They were a culture of system and order, and the Dutch were simply whatever they wanted. So eventually the ruling government needed to create addresses and document who lived where. Most Dutchmen only had one name. There was no need to have a surname. So the time came to line up the people of the town and ask them their name. The Dutch thought this was funny and decided to make up a few names to stick it to the authority. They didn’t really think this one through when making up their new surnames. There are now names here in the Netherlands such as Jan Bighead, and Marco Dumbass. Of course this is in English, but this is what some Dutch names actually mean! Whoops. Another thing our guide told us was that the Amsterdam shield has a large XXX on it. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the modern meaning for this symbol. It is just an interesting coincedence that drugs and sex are very abundant around here. It has been around for hundreds of years, so there is quite a lot of theories on what it means. One theory is that it is three crosses.
We walked to the Anne Frank house and he explained a little about that. I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story so I won’t discribe it. It struck me when I noticed the large bell tower at the end of her street as the bell tolled. I remember reading about how Anne used to love to hear the bell tower ring when she was hiding. Here I am, hearing the same bell ring that she had, only I could see it. A very grim moment. I didn’t go into the house. I think I regret not taking the time to do that, but I’ve seen the room in photographs and studied it in school. There was also a 2 hr line to wait in and it cost a lot of money to go in. So I skipped going inside the house.
The tour ended and I ditched the others to go meet Lex at the Dam Square. I didn’t see her at first, so I sat down on the steps of the monument. It started pouring rain. But I was having a great time watching all the tourists scatter towards the canopy’s and safety of the tourist shops along the edges of the square. I didn’t mind the rain. It was fun. So as I’m sitting there thinking she might not show up. Then out of nowhere she sits down next to me, from behind my shoulder, completely drenched and says… “So what do you want to do now?!“ This girl was awesome! She didn’t even give a damn about the rain… pun not intended. So we walked through the streets again in the pouring rain. This was some heavy rain too. I was really completely soaked down to my boxers. We walked back to her hostel and waited a while until the rain died down. She gave me one of her towels to dry off. It really sucked because I had a flight to catch later that day so I didn’t have much time to spend with her. We walked down to a coffee shop and had some coffee… real coffee people, this is not code here. Well we spent every hour together until it was time for me to go grab my stuff and head to the train station. She actually ditched her sister and a few people she was supposed to meet just to walk me to the train station. On the walk to the Central Station, the sun came out and warmed the city. She gave me a very good goodbye and I headed into the train station feeling on top of the world. Maybe I’ll see her again. I hope so. I guess that’s life on the road though. You will meet a lot of people that have a lot of commonalities. I mean a lot of the people I meet are other travelers and we all share a bond through that alone. But fate calls and you have to keep moving.
As I was pulling out of the train station, I felt great. I was now completely independent for the first time on the trip. I was heading to the UK and would be there fort he next two weeks traveling solo. I had just met a beautiful genuine girl and had a blast with her, and now I’m off to England and Scotland.
I landed late that night in Standsted, London… yet again, and slept on the floor near the check-in counters. I wore my sunglasses to block out the light coming from the check-ins to help me sleep. Although I was alone, away from my friends and family, and laying uncomfortably on the tile floor of a foriegn airport, I must have fallen asleep that night with a big ol smile on my face.
7.12.06 Plane to Germany
While waiting at the Santander bus station we were just talking about how excited we were to move to Germany. I saw a girl sitting on the bench and helped put her bag up in the bus. She was German and we happened to be on the same flight to Frankfurt. Her name is Carolyn Sauer. She is a Special Ed. teacher in Madrid and is going home for summer vacation. I sat next to her on the plane and she told me how to say a bunch of things in German. Things like…”One more Beer please” (Noch ein bier, bitte) and “You smell bad like Bratwurst,” (Du riechst schlecht nach Bratwurst). I showed her some good raggea from the US and I said I would email her some good songs.
Aaron was meeting his relative at the airport to go and stay with them. Upon arrival we met Linda Murphy and she offered to let all of us stay with them instead of paying for food and a hotel. An offer we couldn’t refuse of course. She offered to cook us any food we wanted. They lived on an American military base so she could buy pretty much any American food. We settled on Burritos for tomorrow night.
While driving to her home in Darmstadt, I looked out the window and noticed that Germany looks completely different from Spain. I feel like we literally ended one trip and started the next.
We arrived and Linda offered us some beer! So we sat out on the patio and drank our first German brewskees. Her son and husband, Brian and Mike, arrived home from their Midievil practice. Midevil is a sport where they actually re-enact the battles of the renniassance. I asked Brian if I could try on his gear, so he hooked me up with his metal armor, helmet, and gave me a wooden sword an shield. He told me to stand still and proceeded to slam me with his wooden sword. It’s amazing how the metal dispersed the hit. He even took a full swing to my head and it still didn’t hurt. My ears were ringing pretty bad though. It was cool because you normally would think about how heavy those old armor plates were. You had to be one strong and tough dude to go into battle with all that armor on, and have enough energy to swing your weapon and beat down your opponent. This sport has an entire system set up. There are kingdoms depending on where you live that you would join. There are Kings and Knights and all sorts of different status levels that one can obtain, but they are only attainable through word. For example, if someone of higher status than you notices you have some serious skill in battle, then he can knight you and raise your status. It is based on a total honor system. The king believe it or not was Mike! He was King of the entire Kingdom of Europe. There only a few Kings, one in America and Africa and so on. In order to become King you must challenge him to a fight and win. Mike has not been defeated.
We sat down and Mike brought out some of his finest whiskey and rum collection. I tried some really hard stuff that night. He gave us a nice little introduction to Germany. It was a very nice night for conversation.
7.13.06
Walked through downtown Darmstadt. It was so quiet. We were downtown with cars and people and you could hardly hear anything more that a whisper! It was a little strange to me. Brian explained to me that the Germans respect and enjoy silence. There is a national quiet hour curfew at 9pm and they are very strict about it. He said that the cops are so strict that they could hit you if they wanted to. Another interesting fact is that if someone owes you money and you haven’t gotten it in a while then, on courts order, you can go into their home and take whatever you deem of value to what they owe you.
We stopped at our first Bier Garten (Beer Garden) and I had a Weisner Hell. This is a social area to go and drink a lot of beer. We talked to some local Germans and they all seemed very friendly. We continued walking and we went right by this lake with people sunbathing and swimming. There is nudity everywhere! The Germans definitely don’t consider the human body as something to hide. But besides the nudity, I find the best thing about Germany so far is the Gummy Bears. They are so chewy and they started in Germany so you know you’re getting the real deal. I had my first Bratwurst and mustard. It was packed so tightly that it seemed to burst in your mouth when you took a bite. I’m drooling right now just thinking about it.
That night we had a nice family dinner with the Murphys. Linda made excellent burritos. She takes pride in them because she lived in New Mexico for 30 years. I could tell because the burritos were so spicy my eyes couldn’t stop watering. We bought a lot of beer for them to show our appreciation and thank them for their hospitality. That night we spent at the house just hanging out and watching movies. I think that in a way this house seemed like home for us, and we wanted to enjoy something that a lot of us haven’t felt in a while. So we had a little sleepover, but unlike when we were 12, we had an entire stockpile of Weisner beer. This eventually led to massive consumption of Macaroni and Cheese. Anyway it was a lot of fun to be back in a more familiar environment.
7.14.06 Road trip to Berlin!
We took a train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt to rent our cars. While waiting a girl approached Mike and I. She is American and was traveling solo for a year as well. She was going to Summer Jam in Cologne, Germany and asked us if we wanted to tag along with her. We had our own plans though and had our own music fest to hit up…the Love Parade.
It was really fun to drive across Germany. We each took turns driving so we could say that we drove the Autobahn. I started out as the navigator which proved to be very stressful. I couldn’t read or pronounce any of the street names and the streets were just sprawled out in every direction. A lot of these towns were not constructed on a grid system like in the states. On top of that, the guys in the back were being loud and obnoctious as hell. This gave me a flash into the future when I have my own kids yelling in the back when I’m trying to get the family somewhere. Are we there yet??? Anyway, we stopped and had some more brats and drinks on the side of the road. I tried some Saurkraut and it was awesome! Now I know where my Dad became a fan of Saurkraut and now I discovered how great it is.
Arrived in Berlin and navigated through the S-Bahn and U-Bahn metro systems to our hostel. There wasn't much daylight left, so we went down to the hostel bar to talk. We met three film makers from Amsterdam who were here to film the Love Parade. We had some very interesting conversations about politics, religion, and all sorts of juicy stuff. I think I shed some light on why Americans voted for George W. because a lot of Europeans are baffeled for some reason as to how he got back into office. The most interesting conversation though was with this guy from Amsterdam. We got into the subject of WWII. I got a very unique perspective from a European youth that you can't find in a text in the states. He said that it pisses him off that the Germans fly their flag and pretend that nothing happened 60 years ago. He said that he saw a sign that some German soccer fans made and hung on the side of a bus that said, "We are German, friends of the world." He then told us how the Germans tortured his Grandfather and mad him work in the coal mines which eventually led to his death. His other Grandfather escaped from a German work camp and was shot in the leg while running away but he made it to this Dutch farmers house. He lived for a zear and a half in the pig pen, eating the pig food that the farmer fed his livestock with. The Nazis thought his last name sounded Jewish, which it wasn't, and they still tried to kill him. I could just see the anger in his eyes when he talked about his Grandfathers and the Germans. He said that the emotions run so deep that it will take a very long time to heal. The modern youth try to pretend it didn't happen or ignore it. They will say things like...we are friends to the world... but 60 years may not be enough time for some to let the Germans back into their lives. One thing that really made me feel good and was something that I've never heard anyone say before was this.
"My grandfather told me to give your respect to the Americans. They saved us. They left their homes to go to a land that most of them had never seen before and died to help us. Always respect the Americans."
I don't hear many good things these days about Americans here in Europe besides bickering and arguing about things that they themselves don't bring any solutions to. When he said that, something struct deep inside me. I didn't really think of it that way, but ya... My Uncle Jim and my Grandfathers went to war to a place unfamiliar to them. They won that war with the help of the Brits and those whom they liberated. But to hear someone, European, give their respect to mz grandfathers and their generation in this day and age was truly unique. He also said that one thing he respects about America is their constant drive to defend their country and values. He said it is inspiring to the smaller countries, like Holland, who don't have enough resources to do so. He said he is proud to be an ally of the US.
It is interesting to see both sides of an emotional trench in Europe. The German youth want to progress and work with the new world, while at the same time the new world isn't necessarily ready to work with them. He said maybe in about 200 years, but not 60.
7.15.06, the Love Parade
The Love Parade starts at about 2pm and goes until about 11pm. It is composed of an assortment of the worlds most popular DJ's and is considered to be the worlds largest rave. Over a million people parade down the long stretch of road between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, the Siegessaule.
While walking to the parade from our hostel, I couldn't help to notice a few things. The city is so contemporary. The tall, modern buildings are very well designed and gridded. We walked across a cobblestone line which I later realiyed was the former path of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Walll, that divided East and West Berlin. A very cold feeling brushed over me.
I planned on going to the Love Parade for half the day to photgraph and then return all of my stuff to the hostel and come back later to see the big DJ's around the Siegessaule. The music was so loud when we got there. People spread as far as you could see from the Siegessaule to Brandenburg Gate, where the infamous photos of the Nazi flags hung as the Germans drive and marched through. There were about 40 large semi-trucks blasting music from large speaker systems built into the front and back ends. In the middle of each truck there was a stage where 30 or so people danced and partied, kinda like the VIP ride. The trucks would slowly drive down and back from the Siegessaule to the Brandenburg Gate and the crowd would follow along the truck they liked.
I took tons of photos and Ryan got some great video. I’ve never seen so many weird people in my life. Some people dressed up like Aliens, etc. We returned back to the hostel after a while and walked back a different route. This time there was an actual chunk of the Berlin Wall standing up that we walked by. Just to touch the graffitied concrete sent shivers down my spine as to the millions of people held under its tyranny.
We replaced our beer bottles into large plastic water bottles because they wouldn’t let you bring glass into the park area and headed back to the parade. When it got dark, the masses gathered around the towering and intimidating Siegessaule. This was bulit in the 19th century but wasn’t placed in the center of Stern Grosser roundabout until Hitler put it there. The sides of the monument are decorated with the cannon barrels of victorious German battles. People climbed up onto the street lamps and stop signs and danced while the DJs played music from the base of the tower. The trucks started to circle only around the tower at this point and stopped driving all the way down to the Brandenburg Gate. The trucks circled round and round and had tuned their speakers to emit the main DJs music at the tower, so while they drove by the sound was magnified from both directions. The smoke and beams of light blasting up into the night were very cool. They flashed and pulsed to the beats. I saw some really famous DJs, including DJ Tiesto of Holland and Paul Van Dyk from Germany.
Afterwards, we all walked back to the hostel. It was about midnight and Mike and I drank some coffee to keep us awake to go out again. The others went to bed, but we walked the streets of Berlin pondering its disturbing history. We ran into a few Germans and tried to speak with them. I think the German accent is the most fun to listen to.
7.16.06
It seems like the younger generations of today need to mend the wounds and také responcibility for their older generations war. The international community will not let the Holocaust be forgotten. They must face the music, even though the modern youth had nothing to do with it. So Berlin is full of museums and monuments dedicated to the memory of wartime Germany and their actions. It can not and will not be forgotten, so they built these as an act of mending.
I walked through the Jewish Museum and learned about Jewish history. The museum was more like an educational place to tell the story of the Jews. The Holocaust was of course included in this, but it also shined some light on what Jews have done today and how they have influenced modern times.
I then took a walk to Museum Island and ran into the Lustgarten, which is an open grassy park that lye’s right at the doorstep of the Berliner Dom Cathedral and the Atlas Museum.
As I’m sitting here writing this, basking in the sun rays, sitting on the grass, I’m looking 100 yards in front of me at this amazing cathedral. It is so beautiful with its assortment of colors. The grey stone has been blackened, maybe from when bombs had crushed Berlin 60 years ago during the fall of the city. There are rusted copper green sculptures and gold crosses. It still gives an eerie feeling of the grim past. The museum next to the cathedral takes the shape of an ancient roman temple, but its exterior is stark black stone. The 18 black eagles perched along the roof line were built before the Third Reich, but the symbol will forever be tarnished by the use of it as a Nazi symbol.
I fell asleep for a while on the grass, but woke up late to meet my friends and had to pretty much run back to the hostel…which was a long way. We were going to go on a Berlin pub crawl and had to be at a certain bar at a certain time to go on it. So I finally met them there and we started to have a drink. The five of us pretended not to know each other just to have some fun with people we met, but I think people figured us out eventually though. One bar we went to was this bombed out building bar. The whole side of the building had been blown off and you could see all five stories to the top. But they used the building to make a bar, so each floor had a different themed bar on it. I walked all the way to the top and there was this chill lounge that looked out over the city. Mr. Ryan, Mike and I eventually hung back from the group after a while and tried to quickly buy a kabob at a stand. When we turned around though the bar group was gone! We lost our own pub crawl. Oh well, we walked to a few other bars and then went home.
7.17.06 Berlin Tour
Today I took a free walking tour of the city. I recommend this tour to anyone traveling to Berlin. It was excellent, and our guide was very good. It differs from other tours because with the “working for tips” tour guides actually need to impress you and do a good job if they want to get paid. Other tour guides could care less what impression they give you because they are aware of what they are going to get paid. The tour met at Brandenburg Gate. It was built in the 1700’s by the Ottoman Empire. It has seen quite a lot, including Napoleons army when Berlin fell in the 1800’s. It also has had Nazi flags hung on it as Hitler and his army marched through the center. Another crazy fact was the balcony behind it was the balcony that Michael Jackson dangled his baby over a few years ago. A few km away from the Gate is the German Reichstag. It does sound intimidating, but that’s because it played the role as the Nazi headquarters for a decade. Today it is still the parliament house of Germany and there was one addition they made to it. They placed a large glass dome on top of the roof. It is a very interesting design and has a very good purpose. I like it because it is concept driven. The German government after its fall in WWII, needed to be rebuilt. It also needed to rebuild the trust between itself and the people. So the concept was created “For the German people” and everything revolved around this motto. The glass dome is open to the public. You do not have to pay to get to the top. This is because at the top of the dome there is a funnel that you can look down and actually see directly into the Chamber of Parliament. This is to symbolize to the people that there is nothing to hide and they are always a part of what goes on inside. The next place our guide took us was Hitler’s Bunker, which actually doesn’t exist anymore. Basically, when the Russians took over Berlin, they stumbled upon this bunker amonst the completely deystroyed city and the rubble. Once they found out what it was, they wanted to blow it up and completely bury anything related to Hitler in case of any following of Nazism in the future. So they tried to blow it up but couldn’t because it was so well made. So they buried it instead and told no one about it until it was discovered again in the 1960’s by an apartment complex that was being built in the area. I know there have been a lot of conspiracies about Hitler and how he died. Well, now I know what really happened. Hitler was one crazy bastard as you all know. But so was his wife apparently. They both planned their own suicide in case they were to be captured. But this plan didn’t really go according to the way they wanted it to. Hitler had in mind a glorious taking of his own life along with his love to be remembered forever in history. It played out a little differently. Berlin was being bombed so badly that they could hardly stand. Hitler told the guards hiding in the rubble to help him out a little. Imagine bombs exploding everywhere, shaking the foundations of everything, buildings falling and crumbling and these nervous Nazi guards who’s chief commander is asking them to help kill him and his wife. Hitler tells the guards to take his and his wife’s body outside and bury them after they shoot themselves inside. When his wife was ready, Hitler shot and killed her. Talk about true love… such a gentleman. Then he did the world a huge favor and took his own. The guards are half scared of being blown to pieces and shot by the Russians seiging the city that they grab the bodies and just tossed them pretty much right outside the doorstep, lit them up on fire and got the hell out of there. So much for his glorious transition into the next life… I can only guess where that might be. Now we get to modern times. The only thing left where the bunker used to be is a crator and a bulletin sign that explains what used to be here. Ryan, our guide, told us that it took a lot of petitioning to even get this sign up. He said it is because the Germans are so ashamed of their former leader that they want to bury anything related to him into the past. They wanted to forget about Adolph Hitler. But, obviously, that would never happen. So they blew up the bunker yet again, then buried it, and now there is only a sign.
The next stop was the German Air Force Headquarters. It was obvious Nazi architecture. It was a massive gray stone building to convey the dominance, strength, and superiority of the Nazi party. They wanted the architecture to be as significant as the Romans and would convey their superior message thousands of years into the future. The façade was solid, flat, concrete, and was rising very high with flat columnar porch columns. There were small Nazi emblems implanted all over the building, but they were ripped out over time which left circular holes all over the place. Even in the large iron front gate had an empty place, which would look like a doorknocker was missing. The Nazi empire wasn’t the only evil regime that had taken resident in this building. The Communist Red Russia and the GDR came next. They used the building as a communist work center. When the East Berlinian workers started to protest about the government cutting their wages and at the same time tried to make them work even harder, the GDR called Russia for their help on handling the situation. The protest of hundreds of hard working people was in the courtyard where I was standing and right out front of the porch I had just described. The Communists replied with their usual way to solve a problem and sent in their tanks and soldiers to slaughter every single one of them…right here, right where I was standing. The building had an ironic propagandized mural painted beneath the massive porch façade that symbolized the lovely Communist ideals and how happy the working people lived together in harmony. This was the same mural that these protestors were staring that day when they were slaughtered by the Communists. It is understandable why nobody in modern times wants to take residence in a building as massive as this one. It creeps the hell out of me.
The next stop was the Jewish Memorial which opened last year in 2005. Why it took so long to create a memorial here?? It was because the people of Berlin never wanted to remember their country’s past and wanted to move on. It was finally approved and now a massive area in the middle of the city is covered by large grey, cubes. It is set up on a grid. The landscape looks like an uneven bumpy terrain of flat cube surfaces. In between the cubes are alley ways. You can walk in from any side and follow straight through in any direction to the other side. The design itself draws up emotions that nobody likes to feel. It looks like many things and is different to anyone who stares upon it. But whatever it reminds people of, it is not a good thing. Fear, death, gravestones, helplessness, torture. The ground as you start to walk into the cubes is even, but slowly drops down until the cubes are 15 feet above your head. You find yourself feeling completely isolated and alone. You are surrounded in a forest of concrete grey wall. There is really nowhere to hide because you can be seen all the way from the exits because it is a grid design. You turn one corner and there is the exit. Turn another and someone can see you. There is no running away. The cubes represent the holocaust and the lives it claimed as faceless numbers. The ground as you walk further into the center gets uneven and wavy, angular. You lose your balance and sense of direction. You pretty much become lost in this scary place with no one to help you. The design accounted for every detail. The temperature even drops 10 degrees as you sink deeper into the memorial, and the sunlight is not reflected off the stones, thus making it darker in the middle. As I walked out, towards the other side it started to get warmer, the ground started to become more flat and the cubes became smaller until I was outside in the hot sunlight again. The design is an amazing piece of work and certainly accomplished its purpose and goal. An interesting fact Ryan told us was that the constructors used an anti graffiti spray to protect the blank concrete walls from taggers. After spraying the entire memorial, it was uncovered that the chemical company who manufactured the spray was the same company that created the cyclone B tablets which were used to gas thousands of Jews. This was obviously a big, big problem. The company did not do this intentionally of course and said that they would not charge anything for the spray. It is a gift to preserve the memorial and to remind people of what happened in the past.
Next was the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. It is called this because there were three entry/exit points installed in the Berlin Wall that divided the city into two halves, the US, French, and British sector, from the Soviet sector. They were called A, B, and C, or in military code words… Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. The only thing that is left is a booth in the middle of the street and a large sign that rises out of the intersection. On one side of it, it has a large photo of an “American” officer and says “Caution!!! You are entering the American Sector.” On the other side the type is Russian with a different soldier mug shot photo on the sign. This was the only place in Berlin where Allied Forces and the Soviets ever met. There is a uniformed American and Russian officer sitting there for you to have your passport stamped. A little tourist quirk, but I still thought it was neat. The building next to the booth is the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It tells the many tales of escape from the Eastern Communist sector to the American sector. Tales of horror, valor, and heroism. This build was not always a museum. I notice that there was one large blown up black and white photo of these people running across the from the wall. I then notice that the photographer must have been standing in the exact place I was standing. I looked down out the window to see the same perspective as that photo was shot. A very uncomfortable feeling shot through me. The faces in the large black and white photos expressed the conditions that they were in at the time. They were grim, expressionless, living in terror. There were also photos of the people who had made the escape running across the barbed wire and into the hands of the American officers awaiting them on the other end. Their faces were shining and relieved to be safe and out of the hellish East Berlin. Our tour guide was very good at verbally describing and painting a mental picture for the listeners. I never realized the historical importance of this place. One gloomy, rainy day, WWIII almost occurred here. And when I say almost, I mean that the fall of a pebble, or a loud noise…a misfired nervous shot could have destroyed the world. Let me explain. During the cold war, Russia and America were not on the best of terms. The soldiers on the two sides of the wall hated each other. They taunted each other and made jokes, but when it came to doing business they were of course professional at doing their jobs. One day however, a Russian soldier offended a group of American soldiers at the wall gate. The Americans responded back and threatened the Russians. They said something like… “Ya, you and what army… where are your tanks?” That ended the dispute for now, until the Russian showed up later with a tank aimed through the gate at the Americans. The Americans of course reported this and the order was given to prepare for attack and get more tanks aimed at the Russian tanks. This kept building and building until there were a number of tanks, and a hundred armed soldiers on each side yelling at one another to step down. If one of the nervous soldiers as much as sneezed… nuclear war would have occurred. There standing in the rain, looking down the barrels of the enemy they waited for something to happen. Word had reached the top dogs of the American military. They called the Russian top dogs and said what the hell is this all about. The Russians said they do not know what is going on. I don’t know who was in charge of the Russian military at the time but they took the step down. They said we will remove one tank if you do the same. And so the Americans did, then the Russians, then the Americans and so on. Not many people are aware that this ever occurred. It would probably scare the hell out of them to know how close the world was to Nuclear War.
Next on the tour was Book Burning Square. This is where Hitler rallied the University students to grab any book that they considered to be “Non Arayan” and throw them out into a bonfire in the courtyard. The piles grew so high and the entire library was almost set up in flames. This inspired the youth of Germany around the nation to do the same, thus starting the burning away of history. I tried to imagine the horrific scene that took place here. I think there is a scene in Indian Jones and the Last Cruisade that shows a somewhat accurate view of what happened that night. Now the courtyard is encircled by larger than life size painted bears of every country represented in the United Nations. Each bear is painted differently to represent the nation. In the center there is a small square of see through plexi glass that you can walk over and look down upon a large empty library room with empty bookshelves.
Ryan finished his tour on the lawn outside the Berlinerdom Cathedral explaining how the wall fell. Well it is quite interesting and I’m sure the history books will tell a different story. It was all a political accident on the part of the Russians. I guess one evening, the Russian who was in charge of the Berlin area was placed into a live national interview on television, and I guess it was somewhat unexpected. The leader went on stage un-prepared for the questions he would be asked. He must have been under pressure or something because a question was asked something like… “Are the people of East Berlin considered free?” and he replied, “Yes,” not realizing what he just said. Meanwhile, all of Berlin is watching along with the guards at the gate of Checkpoint Charlie. An East Berlin citizen walks up to the guards and said “Did you just hear what he said? Can I go?” The guard replied, confused about what his commander had said as well,… “Yes.” And so the first free man to walk out of East Berlin did. Following him were more and more people until a mad rush through the gates occurred. On the other side, the party already waiting for their separated comerades, hearing the unbelievable TV interview as well. That night, Ryan tells us, was the biggest party the world had ever seen. People went hysterical and were full of joy as Berlin was now free before the Soviets could really even figure out that it was all a mistake under pressure. Of course that night the people brought their axes, shovels, hammers, drills and started ripping the wall to pieces, taking pleasure in watching the Soviet guards do absolutely nothing to them.
We tipped Ryan very well. He was the best tour guide I’ve ever had. We walked home to grab our gear and move out from one hostel to another across town. It was getting late and little did we know that this hostel was a piece of crap out in the booneys. I did not feel safe here. Mike and I were meeting Aaron at this place, so it was just us as we walked down the dirty streets. We passed through the slums, getting hollard at by strippers and bouncers welcoming us over to their club, and kabob shops trying to get us to eat at there place. The hostel was so shady. We did not go out that night.
7.18.06, Museum Day
Today I headed to the Pergamon Museum, which was full of Ancient Greek sculpture and architecture. It was amazing! I studied so many of these things off slides projected onto a wall in a dusty, boring, hot, crowded room in Kansas. Now I was standing right in front of the real deal. It is a very different experience… The Altar of Pergamon is the highlight of the Museum. It contained the pieces of an entire Greek temple and was pieced together as well. So I walked into the first room to find myself in a huge white open area. I was standing in the courtyard in front of an Ancient Greek Temple. It was excavated from a place called Pergamon and I’m not exactly sure what country that is in. The entire façade and frieze depicts a battle between the Gods and the Giants. The sculptured frieze is just jaw dropping. The incredibly lifelike, but idealized, bodies of powerful giants and god like physiques are mesmorizing to see with your own eyes. Their faces and body language show power, pain, misery, etc. They are finely detailed down to the wavy locks of hair and wrinkles in the faces. I took my time admiring the work of the Greek artist who chiseled this marble thousands of years ago.
The next exhibit blew my mind even more. I didn’t even know what I was about to see even existed. I thought it was lost to legend, myth. I entered another very large room, large enough to contain a temple itself. But it didn’t hold a temple. In front of me were the dazzling deep blue gates of the ancient city of Babylon! If you ever saw the movie Alexander, then you have an idea of what the gates look like. The entire façade of the outer walls were completely intact. They had cuniform designs on them…repeating forms of Dragons, Cows, and Griffyn-esque monsters. The blue color was so deep. I couldn’t believe that they were still this colorful after thousands of years. They had these massive winged lion sculptures that sat in front of the gates on each side. It was very, very cool to see this. This was also considered to hold one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but those have been destroyed for a long time. So after a day at the museums, I met Mike and we headed back to our hell hole hostel to meet Aaron and catch a bus out to the airport where we would meet Mr. Ryan and Nithin for our flight early next morning.
Unfortunately, Aaron wasn’t there and we couldn’t find him, so Mike and I hoped that he could make it to the airport on his own.
That night, we all slept on the tile floor of the ticket check in at the Berlin Airport. Our next destination was to Amsterdam! We were all very excited because we’ve heard about how amazing a city this place is.
7.19.06, Amsterdam
Well, we missed our flight. Not because we slept in, but because the reservation was actually for yesterday and not today. There really isn’t a reason to explain this except that we are all complete idiots. End of story. We did manage to get tickets to Amsterdam though on another flight. We landed and took a train from the airport to the city. As I walked out of the train station entrance, I could immediately tell that I would like this city. The sun was shining and the gleaming off the Dutch architecture. The city is beautiful and full of canals. From a map, it kind of looks like a giant spider web with the web being the canals. The buildings all look like they are towering and leaning over, looking down on you. That is because they actually are leaning inward toward the streets. This is because the Dutch use a pulley system to raise furniture and other equipment up to the top levels of their homes since they can’t carry them up the narrow stair cases. There is a black hook at the pinnacle of each rooftop so the toss a rope up there and hoist the washing machine or whatever else they are trying to get inside. We headed into the bustling cobblestone streets to find our hostel, The Flying Pig. We found it, and wow… is all I really have to say. This place is unique in its own way. I highly recommend it to anyone traveling here. We checked in our stuff and headed out to walk around town. As you all know, Marijuana is “legal” here so there are some very interesting people and shops around town. I put it in parenthesis because it is technically illegal, but due to the Dutch culture they think of it as a “minding your own business,” or “if it isn’t hurting anybody than I’m fine with that,” outlook on not just marijuana, but pretty much everything in general… like prostitution. We took a stroll through the infamous Red Light District and found quite a surprise… Women!... in windows?!! That’s right, window shopping is “legal“ here. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, you have raised your son well enough to know not to get a hooker. The windows are lit up with a red light and I’m not going to lie, the women are smoking hot. I mean, if you’re a stock broker you go to Wall Street. If you’re and actor you go to Hollywood. If you’re a hooker, well then you go to Amsterdam. So the competition is fierce, thus driving the hot ones to the top and into the windows to do business. When you walk down the street, they look out and taunt you to go inside and they are damn good at it too. It’s like witchcraft, it seems like they just cast a spell on you, except instead of using a wand they use their boobs. I guess it’s something only a man can understand. Anyway, I saw a group of young guys in front of us standing there looking at the girls in the windows. All of a sudden their friend stumbles out of the building. The group cheered and patted him on the back as their buddy approaches like he just walked on the moon, all weak kneed and wobbly, hair all messed up. It was pretty freakin hilarious. Oh ya, and if you’re interested in doing business here, stay away from the purple lit windows. Apparently you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise because those “ladies“ are not really ladies if you know what I mean.
We walked into a Koffee Shop to find wonderful little pastries all lines up in the window. Hmmm, I wonder what those are made out of. I can guess from the look on that dudes face sitting over there in the corner. I did find it amusing that outside of every Koffee Shop there was a Kebab stand, or some kind of fast food place. I’m sure they get all kinds of business during the summertime. We walked back to the hostel and got ready for a night on the town. Mike and I met this girl from California named Kelly Cole. She worked for a University I think and was a supervisor for her Sorority. It was her first day here as well, so we walked around as a group that night and got some drinks. The city does look beautiful at night with all the lights reflecting off the water, silhoutting the many bridges gapping the canals.
7.20.06
Today we walked to the Heineken Brewery, hooray beer! It was ok. I don’t think it matched up to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, but they did give us a neat little bottle opener prize at the end. We enjoyed the sunshine and walked around the parks. Bought some food at the grocery store and ate in the park. You have to be very careful when walking around the city because there is absolutly no warning for the tram and bike paths. Many people aren’t used to looking out for 6 lanes of traffic when crossing the street.
For dinner we made some spagetti down in the basement hang out room. The basement and kitchen was so thick with smoke I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point. On that note, dinner was freakin hilarious that night. We all walked back upstairs to chill at the check in hang out, playing some cards and talking with all the other travelers. One guy gave us a great idea to rent a bike and ride up into the country side. Mike and I decided to do that tomorrow. As we were talking, I saw something unthinkable happening in the corner. This guy, has obvioulsy smoked a lot of pot in his day. He was piecing together pieces of tobacco paper and being very careful at every move he made, like he was performing surgery or something. Within a few minutes, he finished his masterpiece and held up a foot long joint. Everyone had been quiet for the time, but then everyone burst out applauding due to his mastery and wisdom of the joint rolling technique. A true Guru in the ways of weed.
I ran into this guy who was amazing with his guitar. I guess he was in a band, but I heard somebody playing a guitar and I had to search around to find out where he was. He was sitting out back in the courtyard. I think he was from Israel, I’m not sure. I struck up a conversation with him and finally asked if I could play his guitar a bit. I was going through some serious guitar withdrawl because I haven’t touched one since leaving home two months ago. Your fingers really thirst for it… it’s hard to explain unless you’re a musician. This guy was a total pro compared to me but he did like one of my songs. My brother taught it to me though so I gave Tim credit. It is an acoustic version of The Postal Service song called Great Hights. Well, I made a new friend and moved on back upstairs because it was getting late and Mike and I had a bike ride to do tomorrow.
7.21.06, Bike Ride Holland!
One thing that I wasn’t really pre-paired for was the co-ed shower room in the basement. You heard me. One bathroom for both sexes. Each shower stall had a door though, so don’t let your imagination go too crazy.
Mike and I walked to a bike rental place and the guy was shady as hell. He wanted us to give him our passports while we had the bikes. Mike looked at him like he was from another planet and said “umm…no.“ He was a jerk as well, so we walked across town to find a different one. We rode out into the countryside along small green canals and lovely flowers. We had to take a ferry across a large canal to get North of Amsterdam to get up into the country. Life was good, I thought as the breeze blew across my face riding the street bikes down the canal paths. We passed a bunch of tiny little towns out in the middle of nowhere. Some people even have their own little ferries that they use to pull themselves across the tiny canal to the doorstep of their house. Most of these towns consisted of a few houses at the edge of a very small canal, and that was pretty much it. They would boat to the next town if they needed anything. That was so weird that they were in the middle of a grassy plain, yet they still used canals to get from one place to the next! There were roads too of course, but that seemed to be secondary to boats.
We stopped at a town called Broek in Waterland for some Dutch Pancakes. The small restaraunt was called Pannekoeken Huis, or The Pancake House. I ordered a bacon-pineapple pancake. It was about the size of a medium Papa John’s pizza though the crust was very thin. It is basically a massive crepe with whatever you want baked into it. It is the kind of thing you would have at Epcot Center, but this is the real thing!
We continued the ride through the countryside, which is below sea level, and headed to the ocean. The land rises up very high at the coast because it is a large dam made of earth that surrounds the whole mainland to keep the ocean out. We stopped at the edge of the coast, out on a penninsula and relaxed on the rocks down by the water. As I was sitting there, I loved thinking about where I was at that time and zooming out in my mind to pinpoint the exact point on the planet that I was currently sitting. It just struck me what a fun and amazing time I was having with my buddy Mike at that time. We were chilling on the coast of Holland and watching the sail boats slowly move across the horizon with a constant breeze to keep us cool in the sunshine. We continued on, except I put my headphones on this time to really get into a groove mood. Mike and I managed to get separated believe it or not, and we had a deadline to get the bikes back by 5pm before the shop closed. So, I had to give up on searching for Mike and headed back down the coast and into the outskirts of Amsterdam to the ferry. I wasn’t very sure on how to navigate back to the shop and Mike had the map. I looked around and found a tourgroup that happened to be from the bike shop I rented from. So I kind of snuck into the tour and rode with them all the way back to the shop without the tour guide noticing. Sometimes I surprise myself at my ninja stealth techniques. I should join the CIA. Anyway, Mike was already waiting for me at the shop and I have no idea how. Maybe he should join the CIA, his skills seem to be much better than mine. We bought some groceries and sat down on a bench between the trolley tracks in the shade to eat.
It was time to leave the Flying Pig and move into a different hostel, St. Christophers Hostel and checked in. We roomed with and Aussie named Jeff. He is a 22 year old Composer from Melbourne. We went out into the hostel bar, which was very nice with white leather couches and full of bright colored paintings… very contemporary. Mike, Aaron, Jeff and I all bought a round of drinks. When it was my turn to buy, I walked up to the bar and ran into some girls that I somehow remembered were on the same tour as me in Berlin. I didn’t even talk to them, but their faces jumped out at me as people that I’ve seen before. I talked to the four of them for a while and they were surprised that I remembered them. I played it cool though, and said maybe I’ll see you later. Walked back to my boys with the brewskys and continued our drinking. We got up and walked around town again. Jeff hadn’t seen the Red Light district yet, so we took him there first. It was about 10pm by then and on the way back to the hostel I ran into the girls I from earlier. See, this is where my plan was executed. Earlier when I walked by them at the bar and recalled that I knew them from Berlin, I established myself as someone they knew… even though they didn’t, but I am now a friendly face to these girls. When I said maybe I’ll see you later and left, that showed the sign that I don’t really care that much about them and don’t need them to have a good time. The good time is with my boys. This, as a fact of human nature, makes them want what they can’t have… and something they didn’t have was my attention anymore. So later when I actually did run into them later, I was immediately invited into there group like we had been friends for a long time. I just find it fun to approach people in different ways and figure out easier ways to break the ice. This was just one of them because I already broke the ice earlier in the night. Anyway, the four girls were wondering if we wanted to hang out with them and go to a club. Amazingly, neither Mike, Aaron, or Jeff wanted to. So it looked like I was flying solo tonight. On top of that, one of the girls pointed to the group they were going out with… there were about 7 local guys at the corner who were taking the girls to some clubs that they knew. So I was in for some serious competition. As a guy, I know that those guys would do anything possible to prevent me from looking good in front of the girls because I was getting in there way of making an impression. It was time to turn on some charm. As we walked to the club I was talking to the four girls and getting to know them. By the time we got to the club there was a line, but one of the local guys said it’s ok and that they can get everyone in for free and ahead of the line. Ok… I can see there strategy and it was time to counter it. I knew that they would let all the ladies in and then when it came time for me to be let in the bouncer would tell me to get lost. As the guys went in past the bouncer, I was looking inside and around the club. I was trying to look a little bored and said to the girls, “This club looks kind of lame, do you want to go to a bar and sit down?“ I must have said the right thing because as the last of the local guys went in, the girls turned around and said… ok! This had to have been one of the best moves I’ve ever pulled off. Not only was I heading to a bar with four girls, but I ditched all 7 LOCAL dudes at the same time. How’s that McDonalds jingle go… I’m Lovin It…
We went to some random bar and just talked for a while. The two girls I saw in Berlin are sisters from California. Lex and her younger sister are traveling aroung Europe for a month or so and where going to London next and then back home. The other two girls were some friends they had met in their hostel. We all eventually walked back to St. Christophers Hostel and sat down at the bar there. Lex Hamilton goes to school in Santa Barbara and is studying International Relations. I think we hit it off pretty well. It came time for the girls to go back to their own hostel across town and I offered to walk them home. I took the girls home and when we got there, Lex didn’t go in with her sister. I asked her if she wanted to just keep walkin and she said ya! I could tell that her little sister didn’t approve of Lex going out with guys she just met, but she didn’t know that I check out as a nice, legit guy. We walked and talked the entire night. We even watched the sun rise from one of the canal bridges. It was one of the most beautiful sun rises I’ve seen. I walked Lex back to her hostel around 7am and told her I’d meet her at the Dam Square Monument in the center of the city at 3:30 later that day and took off to get at least a little sleep.
7.22.06, Amsterdam and on to the UK.
I woke up with only 2 hours of sleep behind me and walked to Central Station for another free walking tour with Mike, Paul, and Aaron. This guy was just as awesome as Ryan in Berlin. He started the tour by saying “God created the Earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands!“ This is a saying that the Dutch have because they are very proud of their nation. And in fact they did themselves create the Netherlands. It all started right here in Amsterdam Square which was a small piece of land with a river outlet going through it. The founders dammed it up so the rive bent around the dam. They pushed the water back all the way to form modern day Holland. They literally took the land from the sea to form their own nation. Now one can understand why the Dutch are so proud of their culture and heritage. The original dam caused canals to flow throughout and thus branched out over all of Holland as the dams grew bigger. Many sailed from Amsterdam and out into the uncharted sea. They eventually dominated the world in business and trade. The Dutch consider themselves neutral and play the middleman. They are strictly business. The Dutch put up a “facade“ of how their culture is percieved to be vs what it is really like. This is how such things as Marijuana and prostitution have come to be “accepted.“ They put up a “facade“ saying… Marijuana?...what Marijuana, we onlz have coffee shops here… Technically they don’t have anything that truly advertises it, but what happens behind the “facade“ is their own business. You see this notion of a facade culture throughout the people and architecture.
We walked all throughout the town learning all kinds of crazy, interesting facts. Some of them are hilarious. For one example, it is illegal to urinate on any buildings. So they have put up these metal angled slabs in the corners of alleyways so that when a drunk pisses there, it will splash back onto the pisser himself. But any smart aimer would simply turn an piss around the piss gaurd. So they weren’t very efficient. Another funny thing is when the British took rule to the Dutchland. They were a culture of system and order, and the Dutch were simply whatever they wanted. So eventually the ruling government needed to create addresses and document who lived where. Most Dutchmen only had one name. There was no need to have a surname. So the time came to line up the people of the town and ask them their name. The Dutch thought this was funny and decided to make up a few names to stick it to the authority. They didn’t really think this one through when making up their new surnames. There are now names here in the Netherlands such as Jan Bighead, and Marco Dumbass. Of course this is in English, but this is what some Dutch names actually mean! Whoops. Another thing our guide told us was that the Amsterdam shield has a large XXX on it. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the modern meaning for this symbol. It is just an interesting coincedence that drugs and sex are very abundant around here. It has been around for hundreds of years, so there is quite a lot of theories on what it means. One theory is that it is three crosses.
We walked to the Anne Frank house and he explained a little about that. I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story so I won’t discribe it. It struck me when I noticed the large bell tower at the end of her street as the bell tolled. I remember reading about how Anne used to love to hear the bell tower ring when she was hiding. Here I am, hearing the same bell ring that she had, only I could see it. A very grim moment. I didn’t go into the house. I think I regret not taking the time to do that, but I’ve seen the room in photographs and studied it in school. There was also a 2 hr line to wait in and it cost a lot of money to go in. So I skipped going inside the house.
The tour ended and I ditched the others to go meet Lex at the Dam Square. I didn’t see her at first, so I sat down on the steps of the monument. It started pouring rain. But I was having a great time watching all the tourists scatter towards the canopy’s and safety of the tourist shops along the edges of the square. I didn’t mind the rain. It was fun. So as I’m sitting there thinking she might not show up. Then out of nowhere she sits down next to me, from behind my shoulder, completely drenched and says… “So what do you want to do now?!“ This girl was awesome! She didn’t even give a damn about the rain… pun not intended. So we walked through the streets again in the pouring rain. This was some heavy rain too. I was really completely soaked down to my boxers. We walked back to her hostel and waited a while until the rain died down. She gave me one of her towels to dry off. It really sucked because I had a flight to catch later that day so I didn’t have much time to spend with her. We walked down to a coffee shop and had some coffee… real coffee people, this is not code here. Well we spent every hour together until it was time for me to go grab my stuff and head to the train station. She actually ditched her sister and a few people she was supposed to meet just to walk me to the train station. On the walk to the Central Station, the sun came out and warmed the city. She gave me a very good goodbye and I headed into the train station feeling on top of the world. Maybe I’ll see her again. I hope so. I guess that’s life on the road though. You will meet a lot of people that have a lot of commonalities. I mean a lot of the people I meet are other travelers and we all share a bond through that alone. But fate calls and you have to keep moving.
As I was pulling out of the train station, I felt great. I was now completely independent for the first time on the trip. I was heading to the UK and would be there fort he next two weeks traveling solo. I had just met a beautiful genuine girl and had a blast with her, and now I’m off to England and Scotland.
I landed late that night in Standsted, London… yet again, and slept on the floor near the check-in counters. I wore my sunglasses to block out the light coming from the check-ins to help me sleep. Although I was alone, away from my friends and family, and laying uncomfortably on the tile floor of a foriegn airport, I must have fallen asleep that night with a big ol smile on my face.
posted by Brandle at 9:05 AM
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