Someone I met at the conference mentioned that he and partner would be renting a car and going around Normandy and invited me along, which invitation I gladly accepted. First day we were going to go to Versailles. Unfortunately it was closed (Monday) and although the gardens were open, we were eventually rained out. I do recommend the gardens though. Huge gardens broken up into little squares, each with different themes. Wonderful fountains with frog-people, giants, swans, you name it.
I've forgotten our exact itinerary after that. It included Rouen, where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and burned, a mysterious stomach upset for Brad, several Hotel Formule 1's, rental car dent, beaches of Normandy, Arromanches, rental car break-in, interview with police officer in small town near Omaha beach, Etretat, Caen, mysterious stomach upset for Aaron in turn... Not necessarily in that order. The Hotel 1's are great by the way. They were between 29 and 32 euros for one to three people (they don't care how many). There is one double bed and one bunk up above, a tiny shower stall (always only two towels), and a rumour that in some of them you can check in with a credit card alone: the machine takes your money and gives you a room code without you having to deal with a person at all. We had human receptionists at all the ones we went to. In these towns you could generally get a French 3-course menu for 15-20 euro, although I imagine these are still tourist-area prices.
People were pretty friendly. We actually had to have a few conversations when we were reporting our car break-in that had happened at Omaha beach (apparently happens all the time), plus deal with the rental company and then some repair people and I had to do most of the talking, being the designated "language crutch" on account of speaking the best French, Brad and Aaron still being in Spanish mode from travelling in South America. Most of the people we talked to found it preferable to listen to me stumbling through their language than to bring out their English. I don't know what it is: I speak way better French in my head than when I'm actually talking to a person. The friendliest guy was the salesman at the dealership who was giving us directions to their repair shop. I think he was pretty entertained by my pink hair. He had to literally draw us a picture before he let us go and as we left, Aaron said, "Was he hitting on you? He looked like he was hitting on you."
After my adventures with Aaron and Brad I ducked back to Paris for my last few days in France. I'd made contact with a friend of my parents, Howard Crook, who offered me a place to stay, so I got on the train in Caen and headed back. Incidentally, if you take the train in France, remember to punch your ticket (composter votre billet) in one of the machines on the platform more than thirty seconds before the train leaves.
West Highland Way
After having two separate e-mails eaten, I'm going to write this stuff here...I set off for Scotland last week with the intention of seeing how far along the West Highland Way I'd get. You can stay in hostels and other accommodation all along, but I wanted to camp, which makes it a lot heavier.
Anyway, I ended up doing four days, at three times ~20 km and one 15km walk on the last day. By that time my feet were killing me and it seemed like a good time to go back to Glasgow and do some sightseeing. The sections I did were Drymond to Rowardennan, and then Crianlarich to Bridge of Orchy to King's House to Kinlochleven. I liked the walking after Crianlarich a lot better than the along Loch Lomond stuff and I'm glad I missed the walk after Rowardennan as everyone told me it was ugly walking with not much of a view.
The packing was all right after Crianlarich, where I lightened the load by: two gas canisters (replaced by one smaller one), a pair of Tevas, the West Highland Way guide (I kept the map), a skinny novel, a pair each of socks and underwear, four granola bars, three instant pasta packages, teabags and sugar, a mobile phone charger (a stowaway), a mobile phone (battery run down), and my one and only spoon (oops). This made the difference between a pack that felt big and hung off me (probably partly bad packing) and a pack that felt extremely reasonable.
What I did bring was:
Stuff I wished I had: small pair of scissors. And if you're serious about camping, bring deet, because citronella doesn't work well enough.
- nylon pants, nylon shorts, synthetic long-sleeved and short-sleeved shirt, tuque (watch cap), tights, two pairs of thick socks and two pairs of thin ones, sun hat, a few pairs of underpants, thin fleece, thick fleece
- rain pants, rain jacket
- MSR Pocket Rocket stove, gas canister (the wrong gas canister at first!)
- one pot, pot grabber, three lighters
- MSR Zoid 1 tent
- tiny little sleeping bag
- centimeter-thick ridge rest sleeping mat
- toothbrush, sunblock, bug juice, toothpaste, tube of camp soap, band-aids, tube of antibiotic cream
- compass, led flashlight, leatherman, toilet paper, map, small notebook and pen, keys and wallet, sunglasses, camera
- 1.5 litre water bottle and chlorine for purification
For food I ended up eating a few times in pubs, so I had too much food, but what I brought was mainly oatmeal for breakfast, and instant pasta and rice packages for dinner. Also instant hot chocolate and cup-a-soup and raisins, peanuts and granola bars.
Afterword on Scotland: about six weeks later I lost both toenails from my baby toes which made me feel that my pain was justified.
I took an English-language walking tour in Berli, with Insider Tours. The guide, Tom was an American with German parents so he had E.U. citizenship. He'd gone to Berlin to do part of his schooling and liked it so much he stayed. He was working as a translator and a tour guide. He took us on a west to east walk through the city, showing us the zoo, the bombed church, the big monument whose name escapes me, the wrapped and under construction Brandenburg gate, the Berlin buddy bear assembly, the parliament buildings, some remains of the wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the plaza where the book-burning event took place.Thu Jul 18 08:08:35 PDT 2002
Right now I'm in Utrecht staying with my aunt. The next leg of the trip is going to be something like Berlin and I'm not sure where else.
Sun Jul 21 13:55:10 PDT 2002
Well, I arrived in Berlin this afternoon. My first time in Germany. I've been studying my German phrase book but I still feel pretty helpless. On the other hand I can understand simple messages usually, so it's not that bad.
Geekish note: German keyboards are almost as evil as French ones, but the computer here is running Suse, which gives me mouse cut-and-paste.
Berlin seems like an amazing city from what I've seen so far. I've got a youth hostel for 10 Euro per night, which was a great price. I booked it via an internet cafe in Utrecht, which was very nice. The guidebook had dire warnings about book accommodation at least two weeks beforehand, so it was nice to have something ahead of time. Cheaper than phoning long distance as well.
Tue Jul 23 11:07:08 PDT 2002
Handy web sites:
I need to digress for a moment: so, this and other incidents finally caused me to take the Canadian and Dutch flag patches I'd sewn onto my backpack off: the guide was taking a census of where everyone was from, and when I admitted to being Canadian, he immediately said, "Okay, where is it? Where's your flag?" while making a big show of examining my backpack. "It's on my other backpack." I admitted. He probably thought I was kidding, but it was absolutely true. Over the course of this trip, I saw at least ten people with flags on their packs. Number of non-Canadian flags: 2 (1 Korean, I think, and I don't remember the other one). However, twice I had people (fellow Canadian, and person who had stayed in Canada for a while) strike up conversations and help me out in response to my Canadian flag.
My dutch friend reacted to flags in horror. He feels no need to advertise his nationality and wondered why I would. I explained that Canadians feel a pressing need to protect themselves from being mistaken for Americans, which made sense to him. And although I guess this was pretty much my motivation, there's something wrong with it. If someone wants to know where I'm from, they can ask me. And if someone is so prejudiced that they won't even talk to me because they assume I'm American, then really, that's their problem and I might not get along with them that well anyway. However, I think part of what it comes down to is that Canadians travelling in a foreign country are happy to see each other, but when Europeans are travelling, they want to get away from their fellow country-people.
One of the other people on the tour was a nineteen-year-old American girl who had spent a year or so in Holland a few years earlier. She insisted that I speak Dutch to her, although she wouldn't speak it back to me. That's a weird way to conduct a conversation. We compared notes on Holland and discussed the Dutch speaker's difficulty with German.
Tue Jul 23 11:23:33 PDT 2002
Today I went to Sachsenhausen, an old concentration camp outside the city. It was harsh. Apparently a lot of the buildings were bombed at some point, and some of the surviving barracks buildings were partially burned later on, but theyīve rebuilt part of the prison, and a few barracks buildings have been made into a museum. You can see the little prison rooms with stories about the prisoners who were there, and in the barracks you can see the bunk beds as well as displays of documents from the camp and so forth. The saddest thing is seeing the room full of toilets where the prisoners were allowed to go twice a day, as well as the washing room and the broom closet. The signage describes that prisoners were occasionally drowned in the toilets and foot-washing basins by the guards. They also describe, with pictures that prisoners drew and managed to smuggle out, beatings and prisoners being hung from three poles behind the prison with their arms behind their backs. And the most shocking thing at the end of the day I think, is that in the building with the gas chamber, there were two small rooms which were apparently sleeping rooms for the SS-officers. How could anyone sleep in that building?
Anyway, enough about that. It was an experience anyway. Iīm enjoying Berlin. Yesterday I went on a very good walking tour and saw the major sights. Also many interesting stories about the wall and workerīs revolutions and so forth. I also went to the Bauhaus museum and saw some nice design.
Wed Jul 24 10:58:43 PDT 2002
An experiment: I think Iīve found a way thanks to Aaron Quigleyīs pageto get a telnet window in even in an internet cafe that doesnīt offer you telnet or a command line on the start menu. Telnet to thetis I hope.
Thu Jul 25 08:53:56 PDT 2002
By the way, if anyone needs to leave me a message, Iīm at the A&O Backpackers hostel, location Friedrichshain http://www.aobackpackers.de/.
Tomorrow night Iīll be at Hostel Strahov in Prague (link above).
Yesterday I went and saw some more modern art at the New gallery. Afterwards I went to the Pergamon museum and saw the famous reconstruction of the Ishtar gate from Babylon. Very big and very, very blue.
Today I went to the Jewish museum, which is in a building designed by Daniel Liebeskind. Iīd been looking at a poster of a concrete stairway in a weird building all year in my CWI office, and then at the end of the hall in the museum, there was that same staircase, except finished. It wasnīt a complete surprise because I recognized the architectīs name, but it was still funny. The museum was really interesting and the building design works with the subject matter, which makes it even better.
The building design, in fact, messes with your mind. There's a certain plan for moving through the museum, which starts by going down some stairs to the bottom floor There was also security on the museum, more than anywhere else I've been although at the Louvre and Versailles castle they also xray your bags. Here I had to leave behind my leatherman, which always makes me feel like some kind of criminal. However, the people behind me had to check a belt knife complete with leather sheath so I didn't feel quite so ... whatever it was. Thu Jul 25 09:00:23 PDT 2002
Incidentally, I was checking out Phillip Greenspunīs account of his trip to Berlin and Prague in 1993. Looks as if a few things have changed. If you look at his picture of the Reichstag, it doesnīt have the glass dome on it yet. He also mentions shocking prices and inconvenient opening times, which I havenīt really experienced. Iīm finding prices a little better than Amsterdam, and definitely better than Scotland.
Sat Jul 27 02:36:11 PDT 2002
Okay, I'm writing this from a Czech keyboard, so I apologize for any weird things that may creep in which I then canīt correct.
Iīm in Prague now for a whirlwind visit. It is very beautiful. I wandered around the castle area yesterday evening, and it was absolutely magical. There werenīt many people around because it was after the opening hours of the museums, and I just walked around the stairs and alleys, and best of all, all the castle buildings. Iīll have to study up on the history of the city and so forth when I have a chance, but Iīm very glad to have seen it.
Funny incident in Prague. I'm wandering around looking at the castle, when this German guy comes up to me (in spite of his embarrassed girlfriend) and asks if I was in Berlin last week, which I was. Apparently he'd seen me in the Potsdammerplatz and assumed there couldn't be that many people in Europe with that colour hair...
Another geekish note: at the internet cafe in Prague where I was writing this, the machine they originally wanted me to use hung, so I had to use another one. The reason they had put me at the now hung original one became obvious really soon: it was the "english" machine. The one I was now using had a Czech keyboard. The apostrophes in these entries are all funny because of this keyboard, and there was no exclamation mark. The guy who worked there couldn't help me with that one either, hence the text. Almost as bad was the problem I had in an internet cafe in Utrecht. Using their setup, the tilde wouldn't appear until you typed a space after it. This kind of thing is so that you can type letters with accents over them, but it killed me. Okay, okay, who wants to hear about the ins and outs of every national keyboard in Europe? But wait there's more: in France some of the letters were actually transposed. The A and the Z are exchanged with the Q and W, plus I think the period and comma were somewhere else. I touch-type pretty fast, and it's really hard to stop these almost automatic motions. I had to practically revert to typing with two fingers.Iīm staying at the Hostel Strahov, and it is - basic. Ahem. Very dilapidated, although my student accommodation at the Neill Wycick Hotel in Toronto was pretty much the same. It is clean though, and I have a single room exclamation mark here, which makes up for a lot. But there was a jackhammer going at six thirty this morning, which is a minus. Earplugs. Donīt leave home without them. And the less said about the bathrooms the better I think. Both bathrooms have urinals and thereīs no label on the womenīs to make it clear that it is the womenīs, so you tend to find guys wandering in and out of it. Since I hadnīt seen any women at all on my floor, I didnīt really feel like taking a shower last night.
Leaving Prague for Munich, the only decent train connection left at something like seven thirty in the morning, which translated to catching the bus outside the hostel at five! Way too early. The evening before, when I was checking the bus schedule, it fleetingly occurred to me to check the Sunday schedule, but then I was distracted by a conversation with a man who was waiting for the bus. He was a pretty interesting guy. An American who was living in Hungary and seemed to spend his time travelling around Europe, catching film festivals and operas and writing the occasional column. I wouldn't have minded talking more but then the bus came.At any rate, for the information of anyone who does decide to stay there, the way to reach it is to go to the last point on metro line A, which is called Dejvicka ("David-ska"). From there you can see a bus station. Get on either the 143, 149, or 217 and get off at Koleje Strahov. I couldnīt find this information anywhere, just a sign at the train station that gave the directions up to the Dejvicka station, so I had to ask directions. Iīve been able to get by with English with no problem so far though. Presumably this works less well outside the big cities
Next morning, I remembered my suspicions about the Sunday schedule when thee was no bus. Went back to the hostel and asked the guy at the reception, "Does 'Nedele' mean Sunday?", to confirm the obvious. He offered me my room key back. But then he told me how to take the tram instead and I made my train after all.
Tue Jul 30 08:28:37 PDT 2002
Oops. Change of plans. Iīm in Stuttgart, staying at the Deutsche Jugendherberge hostel. I think itīs the only hostel by that name here. The conductor pointed out this morning that my ticket was only good for Germany: Iīd been thinking in terms of Eurail zones. So I got off before the border and took the scenic route here. I saw the alps in the distance, but unfortunately didnīt get to admire them up close. Oh well. This is a nice city as well and it makes for a shorter trip tomorrow.
Thu Aug 1 09:20:54 PDT 2002
Back home in the Netherlands now. I arrived from Stuttgard last night and am staying in Utrecht with my aunt for now. Monday August 5th I fly out to London, and then on to Vancouver on the 8th. I arrive in Vancouver on the evening of the 9th.
Meanwhile before I leave I've got to say goodbye to as many people as possible, sign myself out of the Diemen community (in the Netherlands you register yourself at your local community office; one of the features that made it so easy for the Nazis to round up all the jews, I'm told), change my address with my banks, buy another duffel bag, pack, dig up my almost one-year-old plane ticket back to Canada, etc.
Sun Aug 4 03:19:39 PDT 2002
Flight schedules for Air Canada (for cargo, but I got what I wanted, which was to check what time my flight from London left, because for some reason the travel agent didn't fill that information in on my changed ticket).
Fri Aug 9 15:29:27 PDT 2002
Well, home again. Or at least, at my parents' place again.
Peeves accumulated on trip:
- British Midland flight to London delayed due to bad weather. (I didn't phone ahead of time to check.) Out one trip to Schiphol and back.
- British Midland charges me large amount of money for second piece of check-in luggage. If I'd been going straight through to Canada there would have been no problem because they would have honoured Air Canada's baggage allocation, but with one-day stopover in London, the bags can't be checked through. Not sure who to blame for this one, but I sure wish the travel agent had warned me when I booked.
- Told by travel agent in Amsterdam when rebooking my flight that I cannot fly from Vancouver to Victoria the evening I arrive in Vancouver, since there are no more flights after six in the evening (not that they're full: that they don't exist). I express surprise and doubt. They insist. I book for next day. When I arrive in Vancouver, am told that there are masses of flights that evening, but will cost $145 in change fees to book one. Rather than spending the night in Vancouver, I take the bus and nine o'clock ferry. Out one bus and ferry fare.
- E-mail informing me that I'm being charged for night in youth hostel in London that I missed due to flight cancellation, as I didn't cancel 24 hours ahead. Especially annoying since I phoned them that day, still early, and was told that there "shouldn't be any problem". Offending hostel: St. Christopher's, Greenwich. (Google that!)
Other than that, it was an okay trip. Two of the airplane movies were completely worthless to me (The Rookie and I am Sam), but they also played The Princess Bride! Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I couldn't help noticing that my neighbour watched the exact complement of the movies I watched.
London was nice enough. I stayed with some old acquaintances: the daughters of friends of my parents who I remember from the year I spent in London (Wimbledon) when I was about nine. It was nice to see them again; apparently I haven't changed a bit. I also spent a little time at Kew Gardens the British Museum, but really needed more time to do any justice to either place.
