Day 110 - Whirlwinds of Change

I bet you've all been wondering where I've been for the last month.  The answer is long and, being truthful, not very entertaining.  So I'll spare you.  Let it be enough to say that we've been active in our travels and I've not been particularly inclined to write until now.  Not an excuse, I assure you.  Moving on...

We've been to a million places since I've last shared.  Some were very lame and totally anticlimactic.  Others were awe inspiring and unexpected.  Here's a quick list, followed by details.  We've visited the following cities on our journey...(not necessarily in order)

1. Brussels, Belgium
2. Brugge, Belgium
3. Calais, France
4. Rotterdam, Netherlands
5. Antwerp, Belgium
6. Xanten, Germany (Roman ruins, only German city starting with "X")
7. Aerzen, Germany (Castle Hotel)
8. Hamelin, Germany (Pied Piper town)
9. Bodenwerder, Germany (Birthplace of Baron Munchhausen)
10. Polle, Germany (Cinderella's Castle)
11. Kassel, Germany (Where the Grimm Brothers did their thing)
12. Hann. Munden, Germany (A cool frame house town, old and groovy)
13. Sababurg, Germany (Sleeping Beauty's Castle)
14. Trendelburg, Germany (Rapunzel's Tower)
15. Hoxter. Germany (Actually, we just ate Burger King here, but what we saw was nice)

We've stayed at a Castle hotel and it was beautiful.  We walked the streets at night in Brussels and climbed the extremely scary tower in Trendelburg.  It's been an adventure, to say the least.  Here are some details.

Brussels is amazing.  Gardens and history all over and the Grand Place is a sight to see.  We saw the Manneken Pis whizzing his way to stardom and ate obscenely delicious chocolate while touring the little Gay village they have to the west of the square.  I heard an Indian tourist in the square tell his friend that Belgium was called "The Battlefield of Europe".  It certainly didn't look like a battlefield in Brussels, it looked like a postcard most of the time.

Belgium is about the beer, too.  Unlike Germany, however, they seem to base their beer culture on variety and flavours rather than quantity consumed.  I fell in love with a high alcohol brand called Duvel.  Delicious, you'd never know it was 8.5% alcohol.  They go down like water and bite you in the ass.  After four of those sitting on a patio off the Rue Royale, just up from the park, I stood and almost had to sit my ass back down.  Like any good mule, that beer has a kick.  Kierstie had a delicious raspberry brew but stuck mostly with her favoured white wine.  

On to Antwerp.  We got up in the morning and road tripped from Brussels to the nearby city of Antwerp.  For those movie fans out there, this was the scene of the main robbery in the movie "Snatch", starring Brad Pitt and Jason Statham.  It's a hub of diamond trading and Frankie Four-Fingers dressed as a Jew with his fellow robbers and took down the diamond exchange, nabbing the diamond that the whole movie was centered around.

The city itself was beautiful.  A lovely square with grand old buildings and restaurants nestled in the nooks and crannies.  We visited a riverside fort and walked through the streets, stopping to get coffee and what not.  Very relaxed and comfortable.  

 

On to Bruges.  Quite the place.  It's history and majesty all in a small town package.  Again, for you movie and TV lovers, this is the site of the movie "In Bruges", starring Colin Farrell.  An great movie if you haven't seen it.  Also, they're filming the new series "The White Queen" here, very good show.  We've been watching and it's excellent.  If you like shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors, this show is for you!  We went to climb the Church of Our Lady but the line was extensive and we decided against it.  Kierstie bought underwear instead, she was very happy.  Note to all the women out there, Hunkemoller is the European La Senza/Victorias Secret.  Kierstie loves going in there.  

 It was a lovely place to visit, we'd both go back and spend more time there.  

I have more to share and more to tell you, there's just too much to do in one entry.  I can promise that my absenteeism is a thing of the past.  I started this and I will continue to make entries and add commentary.  Next entry is Rotterdam and Calais.

I feel change coming.  Kierstie and I are both feeling a little stagnant.  How long can someone stay on vacation?  We're stalled and we both know it.  We're considering options and ways to move forward, I will keep you informed.  This brings us to the lesson for this entry.  The first step to getting out of a rut is actually acknowledging that you're in one.  We did that today.  Blinders are all well and good, I've worn them myself more than once, but at some point they always become counter productive.  Be honest with yourself and take action if you feel the need to do so.  If you ruin your life by doing nothing, you'll regret not trying.  If you try and fail, at least you can say you gave it an effort.  That, at least, is something to be proud of.

Night all, I missed you.

I.






 

Day 83 - Standing On Guard, Eh?

I've been reflecting today.  Canada Day is a special day for me.  It was on Canada Day when I was 18 that I got the Bars and Maple Leaf tattooed on my arm.  I miss the festival atmosphere.  I miss barbequing with our family and friends and watching some fireworks.  I guess it's a good thing to broaden your horizons, but days like today make me ache for home.  To everyone at home, we miss you all.  Happy Canada Day, Eh?

If you're not aware, I've traveled quite a lot for work and pleasure.  I've been all over the US, Canada, countless tropical paradises and am now starting to get a lot of push-pins in Europe as well.  All this leads me to an even stronger belief that Canada is the best place on Earth.  I'm sure the fact that I am Canadian is colouring my opinion, but the fact remains that there are millions of immigrants from all over the world that would agree with me.  In typical Canadian fashion, it would be rude of me to disagree.

We're a solid people.  Dependable.  When foreigners see a Canadian flag, there is respect there.  They don't respect us because we're a military superpower, they respect us because we don't need to be.  We're the white hats, the peace keepers, the aid givers.  We're loyal to our friends, yet thoughtfully independent.  Our fortitude comes from a quiet place.  

For my non-Canadian readers, I thought you might enjoy some cliche Canadiana.  Yes, we like back bacon and maple syrup, but who doesn't?  Yes, we like beer and rye whiskey but again, who doesn't?  Okay, I admit I'm not a fan of rye.  Don't kick me out of the Canadian Club...haha, get it?  I think Canadians and non Canadians will get a kick out of this...

All in all, I think we should be proud.  We're not perfect, but we're close enough, eh?

Lesson for the day.  Patriotism and travel often don't mix.  I find it hard to be away from home today and I'm here willingly.  There are Canadians on foreign soil all over the world, but not necessarily the nice places like we've been going.  The men and women of the Canadian Forces, doing what they can to preserve not only our freedoms, but the freedoms of the people in the nations they are deployed to.  Being away so long gives me new perspective so I tip my hat to you all.  Really...thanks.

Nighty Nite.

Ian
 

Day 77 - Insert Random Words Here

Lately I've been trying to come up with some kind of fresh new thing to blog about.  I did some research on the local news form home.  The usual bullshit, and I honestly have no opinion.  Well, no opinion worth sharing, anyway.  Then I thought "check and see what's trending".  So...I did.  If you ever get the urge to do check and see what is actually trending...don't.  It will give you far too clear a picture of what is important to people online.  I really don't care what Justin Bieber is doing.  The results are invariably shallow and pointless with a dash of sensational to spice it up a bit.


Now, that's not to say I'm superior.  I don't do smug disdain, I really have nothing to be smug about.  I've enjoyed my brain rotting pass-times in the past.  Hours upon hours of Call of Duty, not to mention the other epic games of my formative years.  Useless television shows with nothing positive to contribute to society.  Shows like Survivor and Full House.  Yes, I watched Full House and I know it's pathetic.  Anyway, my point is simple.  I find the current trends terribly shallow and useless.  But, I've spent countless hours murdering animated terrorists, soldiers and aliens then even more countless hours watching brain frying television shows.  Upon reflection, that wasted time seems shallow and useless.  I could be wrong, but losing touch with the current popular culture may be the first step to getting older.  I think you just hit a point where you don't care who's having sex with who in Hollywood or what movie was the must see blockbuster of the summer.

I have better things to do.  A really good book.  A walk in the Vondelpark (we did that today, it's gorgeous).  A gorgeous cup of coffee.  A well rolled Casey Jones.  These are simple things.  I could spend my life like this, no problem.  Simple things make for happier lives.

 

On to some more mundane and hopefully entertaining commentary.  I was wondering if any of my readers have seen a XXX movie.  I'm sure most have in some form or another.  Now, why do you think they call it a XXX movie?  Well, I can tell you why.  The flag of Amsterdam.

The XXX comes from the Flag.  There was a time when Amsterdam was the centre of the galaxy for porn, so movies with the XXX were considered the best, thus the XXX designation on pornographic movies.  That's just badass.  Does Toronto even have a flag?  Well, it appears that they do.  Feast your eyes...

Other fun facts about Amsterdam, as of Feb. of 2012

• 802,000 inhabitants in the city centre
• 881,000 bicycles in the city centre
• 165 individual canals that extend over 100 km
•  58% of the population cycles daily
• 1281 bridges
• almost 9000 buildings from the 16th, 17th and 18th century
• Amsterdam is considered one of the most multicultural city in the world with 175 nationalities
• 2500 house boats
• 51 museums 

These people love their bikes.  I think I will rent one tomorrow.  Hopefully I can get a video of it for you to see and you can "take a ride" on a bike in Amsterdam with me.

Lesson for the day.  Contentment breeds complacency.  Remember to focus, even when you're happy, or you'll lose sight of your goals.  I've learned that the hard way.  It's hard to stay motivated to write when I'm so relaxed and comfortable.

Night all.

Ian

Day 74 - A Rainy Buffet

Since I've been here, I've immersed myself in the coffee shop culture.  So far, I've smoked at least 8 different kinds of pot and sampled some of the hash as well.  It sounds funny, but here it's like wine.  Different types for different situations.  This one expresses a "walking" high", meaning it doesn't make you lazy.  That one gives you the giggles.  Yeah, shit like that.  Today I purchased a fairly new strain called Casey Jones.  It was 13 Euros for a gram.  I also bought another gram of one called Big Buddha Cheese, it was 9 euros.  It's a weed supermarket here.  You can choose an Indica or Sativa strain, or you can buy one of the latest up and coming hybrids, like Casey Jones (a mostly Sativa hybrid).  There's a smoke for every occasion...A buffet.

We also figured out something else today.  Amsterdam actually has 3 Red Light districts.  The main one and 2 smaller ones.  We went to one, it's so weird.  A row of red fronted glass rooms nestled amidst the houses and churches along the canal.  We walked along and I saw more of the same.  Gorgeous girls mixed with the opposite of gorgeous girls.  They keep it all very open here, nobody judges.  There is still some persecution of the prostitutes, I hear, but nothing like it used to be.  They are just women doing a job to pay the bills, legally.  

Kierstie is already dreading leaving, she loves it here.  Maybe this is the start of a new love affair for us, time will tell.  It rained most of the day today but later on in the day we went out and had a walk.  Saturday night is hopping all over the city.  Street performers are everywhere and the music is pouring out of the cafes and coffee shops.  Here they are not the same.  Coffee shops sell coffee and weed.  Cafes sell coffee and booze, and usually food.  Oddly, I've not seen much in the way of food available at the coffee shops here.  They have basic stuff like chips and so on, but not much of it.  You'd think they'd capitalize on the stoner munchies a bit more.  Now we're back into relax mode here at our lovely rental.  Below is the view from the living room of the apartment we're staying in.

 

Sorry folks, gotta run.  I have an appointment with Mr. Casey Jones and the last half of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn.  So far, it's good.  It's has the potential to get much better, and I think it will.  He did well with the WOT finale, even if it was a bit anti-climactic, but hey...all really good endings are.  

Lesson for the day.  Uhh......Ummm....ahhh...Umm.....shit.  Sorry, I thought I had it there for a second.  I guess it went up in smoke.

XXX

Ian

Day 72 - The City So Nice, We Visited Twice...

So, here we are again in Amsterdam.  Kierstie and I loved it last time and we decided another, longer, visit was in order.  This is the 2nd of 10 days here.  We arrived yesterday and hiked the 30 minutes through the center of town, with our luggage.  We're European, now...We can take it.  There's no way to describe this city.  It's so vibrant yet so small.  I can see why the bicycle is a preferred method of transportation around here.  It's because the main part of the city is so small that you can get from one side to the other in 15-20 minutes, if you're on a bike.  

Another fabulous thing is the lifestyle here.  People are generally pleasant and mishaps are quickly ignored or immediately forgotten.  If a stoned tourist steps into the bike lane and almost gets run down, the locals on the bikes just swerves out of the way and their indifference makes them feel like an idiot.  With a mild scolding glance, they hurtle on by, scarf flapping fashionably in the wind.  It's like they can pick and choose what upsets them.  I'm sure some of them freak out, but if half the stuff I've seen so far happened on the average city street in North America, someone would have got their ass chewed out.

I plan to rent a bike during the course of this immersion into all things Amsterdam.  Kierstie has flat out refused to ride one.  In her defense, the cycle traffic here is pretty scary.  The pros know the rules, both the official and the unwritten, and they follow them, but the tourists don't always know.  Rental bikes are a good thing to avoid when crossing any roads.  Actually, bikes in general are a good thing to avoid.  They seem to ignore the signals lights just as much as the pedestrians.  If there's a space, they fly for it and somehow it all seems to work out.  I will be renting my bike on a weekday evening, when the streets are empty.  We'll see how it goes, I will try and get some video of it. 

There are mostly only three types of tourists here.  There are the Camera Toters, the Potheads and the Johns.  The camera toters file into the low flat tour boats (yes, we did to) and they ply you through the canals.  Some of the houses are so crooked, partially sunken into the mud beneath.  Dancing houses, they call them.  The remodeled ones are seriously cool.  The floors are level but there's as much as a 24" level variance over a 20 foot span so the windows sag to the side, like the house is a giant candle melting into the canal.  Cool shit.  The Camera Toters dutifully snap photos of the dancing houses (again, we did as well).

The Potheads come in many flavours, and they wander around supporting a seemingly endless supply of coffee shops (code for weed stores) and munchie establishments providing succor for the eternal stoner appetite.  Waffles, crepes, fries with mayo (a local favorite) and more.  All the major fast food outlets are here, and they are all over the place.  Heaven forbid a Pothead can't get a Big Crunch sandwich from KFC.  I confess, I had a Whopper on our last adventure.

I've been to many of the coffee shops here in the city.  I've sampled various types and am still amazed at the differences.  Haze, Amnesia, AK-47, Northern Lights, White Widow, Bubblegum and more.  I've tried them all.  Some taste better.  Some are for sleeping (Amnesia) and others for laughing (Bubblegum).  I was told that AK-47 was the best one for playing video games, hmmm.   I've recently rediscovered World of Tanks, it's pretty fun.  Maybe I'll test that theory.  The prices and qualities seem to vary quite a bit, both with the coffee and the smoke-able inventory.  One coffee shop charges $50 for 5 grams of White Widow, and another 4 doors down sells the same for $65.  All I'm saying is, shop around.  Do some research.  The first coffee shop I went into when we first got here was De Kroon.  It was cool, the coffee was awesome and the pre-rolled joint I bought was served filtered and ready in a nifty little plastic case.  It was a little overpriced there, but as I said, the coffee was excellent and the Mixed Haze mellowed me just perfectly.  I smoked half (It's much stronger here, so go slow at first) and when the roach was cold, back into the handy plastic case and into the pocket it goes.  Love it!  

The stoners get lost in the city because all the streets  and canals all look similar and the names are unpronounceable.  I've heard stories from people who've come here and gotten baked or tripped out on mushrooms, then they wander the city for hours, totally lost, looking for their hotel.  I don't do lost.  I always have to know where I am.  

The Johns are obviously here for the Red Light district.  As previously noted in this blog, Kierstie and I have walked through the district.  It's a show.  Watching the guys come out of the little doors afterwards is hysterical.  They all have huge smiles.  Hoards of bachelor parties buzz around, all wearing matching custom T-Shirts or huge hats, something to add to the courage and stupidity of a mob mentality.  Some loiter outside and they all high five, bathed in the glow of red lights, when one of their cohorts comes out after a successful transaction.  It's all very odd to me, but hey...when in Rome.  Not that I will partake of the services, of course, but perhaps I can convince Kierstie to see a live sex show.  Or maybe I'm the one who needs convincing.  We'll see.

More to come, and sooner rather than later.  I'm too lazy to proofread this so please excuse any mistakes, grammatical or otherwise.  

Time for some Amnesia...

Ian
 

Day 64 - Rome...It Really Wasn't Built In a Day

I know, I know...absentee blogger over here.  Amsterdam was very enlightening for me, got the creative juices flowing, so I've been working on my other writing.

Rome, however.  Rome is an enigma.  The beauty of the ages surrounded by gypsy hat sellers and bus tour hawkers.  The Trevi Fountain is like something from a movie...oh wait, it is in a movie.  About a million of them.  Walking inside the Colosseum is just plain cool.  You look down below into the area floor and see where the animals were kept hungry so they would be ready for a good performance when unleashed.  We learned that they used to have fights in boats after flooding the lower floors and filling the fighting arena with water.  It was fun for them, but not enough people were dying, so they imported crocodiles to pop in the water...just to keep it interesting.  I did a couple of panoramas for your viewing pleasure.

 
Rome has a bad reputation for pickpockets, thieves and just general mayhem with the tourists.  I'd say it's no worse than London was.  There were Gypsies, they did try to "help" us at the Rome train station, we told them no.  It was as simple as that.  Don't take anything offered to you, including help, and don't let anyone "bump" into you without checking your pockets afterwards.  We walked out late at night and felt safe enough.  Which leads me to my next awesome experience in Rome...my parents.  We've not seen them since we left and it was great to spend a couple of days with them before their cruise.  After dinner one night, we grabbed a map and the four of us made our way over to the Spanish Steps on a beautiful Italian night. 

This is a truly beautiful city.  The history is everywhere.  Names of districts listed on the tour are the same names they used when Rome controlled most of the known globe.  We walked on Aventine hill.  Anyone who's seen the HBO series Rome will know that one.  If you haven't seen it, do.  It's a great bit of TV, even if it was only 2 seasons.  We walked from our beautiful hotel near the Termini to the steps, no problem.

Driving in Rome is almost a full contact sport.  If you can yell loudly in Italian and wave your fist out the window like a madman, you're all set.  My experience shows that whoever yells the fastest, loudest Italian with the most aggressive fist shake gets the right of way.  It's an odd system but it appears to have worked so far.  The pedestrian traffic is also similar to London, people just go. Lights?  What are lights?  It was all very un-German.  

On a negative note, our plane back to Amsterdam was delayed four hours.  Apparently they only have 2 runways at the Rome Airport.  Yes, you read right...2.  And a plane was kind enough to break down on one of the two runways causing havoc with the schedule.  Needless to say, we had an extra four hours of the airport and four hours less in Amsterdam.  Neither of us was impressed but life goes on.  

Kierstie and I both fell in love with Amsterdam.  It's quirky and cool and we're going back, sooner rather than later.  We were considering renting a place in England for a month after the summer, but we are now considering a place in Amsterdam instead.  Yes, we liked it that much.  I may or may not get Kierstie to ride a bike there, but I assure you...I will.  It looks wicked fun and, because the city is so small, you can get anywhere on a bike in no time flat.  Maybe we'll get a tandem and she can close her eyes...hehehe.

A few more from Rome...

Got more writing to do, but not on this blog.  Thanks again to Moo and Earle, who not only made Rome an even better visit...They brought us Canadian cigarettes and other goodies from home, including the laptop I am writing this post with.  You guys rock!

Sleep well....

Ian