Part Three: Centraal Boat, ReichsMuseum, and the Death of Fleur
I forgot to clear up the cold shower thing in Utrecht. After we had threaded our way around the nearest canal, we found the coffee shop I had googled. I was so proud of us. We looked at the list of strains available, all of which we have seen at the clinics in California. I picked two that we have liked before. The guy brought out two baggies, and I did what I do with wine. I stuck it to my nose in and took a huge snorf. The one I ended up liking I passed to Scott over my shoulder, he leaned forward to sniff then nodded with a muttered, "nice." to indicate my choice was the best one. It always is, but I find it less bothersome if I least pretend to consult him on it. We made our completely unsurreptitious drug deal, clambered into the street and went to the grocery store for cheaper eats.
I. Love. Foreign Groceries. Anywhere. I'll get lost in an Asian Grocery store in two seconds, we have tons in Long Beach. I love wandering leaning aisles piled high with what the owners view as 'essentials'. How many different brands are there for bamboo steamers and ice shavers, anyway? I've seen dozens. Anyway, we find a store called Albert Heijn. Grocery carts are all those weird small baskets set high up, like you're going shove a 36in TV underneath. Scott is wore out, and gives me the dangerous carte blanche of:
"I don't care what you buy for dinner. Just get something."
He hates pizza. I love pizza. Tough shit for him. I grab a pizza from the deli case, Parma ham with arugula. Scott shakes his head, when he sees the pizza clutched in my hand. Without saying a word, reaches past me into the case, and tosses in two packages of sausage rolls. Now, these rolls aren't pigs in a blanket style, they are French pastry lined with a bizarre pork paste that has to be the European equivalent of cheap shitty spam. Or a dog turd. He pointed at the pizza.
"She doesn't have a stove, babe."
"Like you remember that. She has a range, which..."
"Which means nothing. The dishwasher is under the range."
"She'll have something we can make the pizza with. Worse comes to worst, I'll fry it."
Scott just winced and refused to argue. I grab fennel seed cheese, Nescafe, half and half, sugar, canadel(their version of splenda, four apples (which Scott assures me I will not be able to eat before we leave), and a multi-grain baguette. I'd like to state we ate all of it within the two days, so Nyner, Nyner, Scott. We walked back to the apartment with lighter hearts. We had munchies for our munchies. We smoked another joint on the way back. We get back with our big bag of goodies, and as we unpack the horrible realization dawns on me. Scott was right. No fucking oven. I could cry. I find a toaster oven, but no foil. Humph! I refuse to be foiled by a lack of foil, GODSDAMMIT! I find a tiny oval ceramic dish and spend the next hour cutting pizza into rectangles, piling it on the dish and toasting it at 15 minutes a whack. after about 90 min the entire pizza has been toasted. Scott is a gentleman and doesn't make fun of me too much for attacking the pizza with a tiny paring knife. We settle down to read our vacation books. It is quiet, the view is beautiful, and we are satiated and happy. Life is sweet.
The next morning, I woke up, showered, did dishes, tidied up a bit, made breakfast, and waited for Scott to be done with his shower. He shaved, he ran the water for the shower, transferred all his toiletries in to the bathroom to begin his morning ablutions. I was innocently pulling on my shoes when I heard:
"WHAT THE FUCK! Where is the hot water!?!? Did you turn on the water? You used all the hot water! Damn you! Now, I guess I don't get to shower. FUCK! This is why you go to hotels! I told you! I motherfucking told you. Bad idea, baaaad idea honey! Who knows what kind of fucking idiot you rent from, GODDAMNITT!"
I rolled my eyes. Women are supposed to be the weaker sex. Yeah, right. Men are convenience whores, who wouldn't know their way around a minor inconvenience without a search map, posse, and five bloodhounds. I reply:
"What the fuck is your problem? It's a shower not a bomb, can't you figure out the knobs?"
"I got a knob for you right here! There is no hot water and it's all your fault!"
The conversation devolved from there until I pointed out he was a stinky computer geek/musician and 48 hours without a shower was hardly a new experience for him. That shut him up. He shrugged and agreed with me. Crisis averted. We found out later that there was a reset button on the water heater. Wouldn't it have been nice to know that while we were there instead of 36 hours later when our landlord turned BACK on her phone to notice my three frantic texts about no hot water? C'est la motherfucking vie, I guess.
We headed out from Kubrick Block #346, and cut through the back alley to the little white bridge over to the cobbled side of the street. That's how we know we are headed in the right direction in Utrecht: cobblestones. We link hands and wander. We find the Dom towers, the surgical college with the 14th century herb gardens housed inside a gothic courtyard. In one corner there is a group of young people meeting. What they are meeting about, I have no idea, but each member has an ornate old school marionette in their lap that they fidget with like they are live children. A young man in a hoodie and jeans is playing a v shaped pan pipe behind them. He has a headband with fox ears on it and a big fuzzy fox tail that hangs down from his backside. I noticed that as he played, his fox ears swiveled in time with the music. I nudged Scott for verification. Over the past decade I cannot tell you how many of my questions to Scott have been prefaced with:
"Am I really high or is _____ really happening?"
You want to know the funniest part? It has never been me hallucinating. The shit was really happening. His fox ears were really swiveling back and forth from the music. It looked like a medieval scene from Ingmar Bergman's "Seventh Seal". Scott and I laughed then spent the next few minutes staring at the details of a beautiful fountain with four dragons spitting from the top of it.
We wandered through the streets, passed a bizarre art school that had huge yellow parakeets stationed at different points on the building and quad between the buildings. When I say huge, I mean six foot fake yellow Tweety birds. It was a fun discovery. We made our way to the Centraal Museum. My museum. We've been there three different times and I love it. My favorite is the boat on the bottom floor. They always have great installations, there are some amazing local artists around there. This trip it was a modern art installation defining the seven deadly sins using lesser known symbology. Yeah, it was fucking cool. But the boat, ahh my big fucking boat.
http://centraalmuseum.nl/en/visit/exhibitions/lights-wood/
It is a 1,000 year old spice ship they dug up in 1930. They have it lit with blue lights that mimic water reflections, and there is the sound of wind, water, and birds. They tore a hole in a 16th century wall to drag this big mother into the basement. It looks like a wine cave, with low curved ceilings made from red brick. At either end are double glass doors. It looks like a boat humidor. I love it, it smells like old wood and the ocean. There is something about it that seems so familiar. Brings out my inner viking.
They had an exhibit on Peace from the Utrecht accords. It was the treaty that ended the thirty years war, and kept Louis the 14 from bankrupting Europe. Scott had a total history boner through the whole thing. Portraits of big ole muckety-mucks, naval maps, pamphlets of revolutionaries hung from the walls and were interspersed with huge quotes from the military leaders. We went to Versailles in France at the beginning of the trip and got the French view of Louis the 14th(I'm the fucking Sun King, recognize). Scott laughed and said the Sun King was an utter despot. Versailles has two huge Athenian looking buildings that have "A toutes les glories de la France" emblazoned across it--Always For The Glory of France. Scott said Louis considered himself France so essentially it was for his glory.
In Utrecht, the Nederlanders are much less enthralled with old Louis. He comes off sounding like a bit of a douche. My favorite quote from the entire exhibit was from him. He said it after suffering a painful defeat at Blenheim in 1704.
"Has God forgot EVERYTHING I have done for him?!"
Bwhahaha! What a douche!
We left and wandered along the canals. I called for a Prosecco break. Actually I declared most emphatically I needed food and booze and not necessarily in that order. We found a bustling little Italian bistro down a set of stairs that led right up to the water of the canal. I scored a table as two students grabbed their bags and took off. The waiter was a gem. We got our drinks. Scott wasn't hungry and I wanted a meat and cheese plate they only made to serve two at 9 euros ea. I didn't want to spend or eat that much. The waiter said no problem I'll make you a single. He brought out an awesome plate of ham and salami slices curled into meat flowers, a huge wedge of melon, and an assortment of cheese stuffed peppers (cherry peppers, pepperdews, and peppercinis) Freakin' yum. He so got a good tip for that. Scott's little eyes gleamed when he saw it. Mr. "I'm not hungry" decided he needed to start divvying up the goods so he could be sure and get a bite of each. LOL Same old story, he wasn't hungry until he saw it.
We ate at the apartment that night. I assembled a plate of the goodies we had left. It was so romantic and chill. The day before I had made friends with the tortiose shell cat that stalked the balcony walkway in front of the apartment. I sat outside and watched the sunset with a warm purring cat in my lap. It was perfect evening.
The next morning we packed up early. The hotel in Amsterdam wouldn't check us in until 2 pm, but by 10am I was ready to leave. It's not like we could take a shower. I dumped what was left of last night's munch fest, which included a wedge of Pate. I not such an asshole that I would unthinkingly leave a hunk of herbed liver in the trash of someone I heavily suspected was a vegetarian. I ended up running around the bottom floor of the Kubrick block looking for their dumpster. No dice. Finally, some guy took pity on me and lead me to a blank wall that opened with the door key I had then rolled it back to reveal a shitload of bikes, and a long ass line of different colored trash cans. It's amazing how far they have taken the dividing of trash in Europe. For us it's purple bin for recycling, everything else gets tossed in brown one. They have like five different bins. I try to be green, but fuck that.
We almost got disgustingly lost on our way to the train station, but we managed to make it to Amsterdam without mishap. I did almost dislocate my shoulder dragging that cursed piece o' shit suitcase over all those bleeding cobblestones. We kept trading off to even out the suckiness of it. But if I wasn't pulling the BAB(big ass bag) I was pulling two bouncing carry-ons, one of which (the little blue bastard) kept bouncing off the back of my right ankle, which was skinned at that exact spot from an earlier encounter with it. I kept making plans on how exactly I was going to destroy that bag. Lucky for it I was distracted when I got home and it still lives.
We found the Tulip Inn, down the block from The Grasshopper, right past the gay lions(a pair of roaring lions holding up the crest of the country. They have an Ethel Merman sneer to their roar, like they are going to break out into showtunes any moment). It was nice that even though we had never stayed there, the Grasshopper bar down the street has been our big huge landmark before when we wandered around the city, so we knew exactly where we were.
It was only 11:30 when we checked in, the rooms weren't ready until 2pm. We were instructed to leave them in the "luggage room", which turned out to be one of the breakfast rooms off the kitchen. Apparently, a bunch of other people checked in early too. There were piles of neatly abandoned luggage arranged around the room. I tried to hide most of our luggage under a breakfast table near a shit-ton of camping gear.There was no lock on the door, but we did have to pass through a door you could only get through with a room key. An immense relief if the other 300 some-odd hotel guests prove to be as trustworthy as us.
It was only after we left and were hoofing it across Dam square I realized that we left the envelope with our passports, train tickets, airline itineraries, and other way important stuff in the front zipper pocket of our rolly bag. Not hidden, not wrapped up...nothing, just shoved in the pocket that was hastily zipped closed while packing that morning.
Fuck. Double fuckity-fuck.
Oh yeah, and the ashes of Scott's dead mother were in the same bag. I had visions of euro trash backpackers going in to claim their baggage and happily rolling away with our bags too. I could see them in my mind's eye, rifling through our stuff, selling our passports to Russian gangsters and tossing the rest of our stuff (including Val) in the alley behind the hotel. I sputtered and gestured wildly at Scott. He stared at me like I was growing a second head then laughed when I finally managed to explain my panic. He p'shawed me. Literally! He waved his hand at me and said,
"Honey, it's Amsterdam. We're on the honor system here, it will be fine."
I shook my head. Honor system? What honor system? I spent the next three hours fidgeting. We went to our favorite coffee shop. I can't believe I have a favorite place in a foreign country. Crazy! It's the Betty Boop coffee shop. We've been every time we've gone to Amsterdam. There is always someone new working there. This time it was cute black guy with dreds. We chatted with him about movies while he made our coffees. Yes. We buy coffee every time we visit a shop. It's good, okay!?
After smoking joint that would make Snoop Dogg proud, we hit the streets. The one thing you have to remember about Amsterdam is it is U shaped. Everything radiates out from Centraal station. Never follow the canals unless you want a nice loooooooooong walk. The trick is to pick a street and cut through.
The Reichsmuseum was open after over a decade. We saw one wing in 2003 before the closed it all down for asbestos cleaning. I saw a painting there that I have searched for ever since. It was a surreal painting of a field with a cow, and a girl lounging under a tree. We thought it was called "An Old Oak in Surrey". It's not. I have searched for that damn thing for a decade and have never seen it since. I was hoping we would find it this time. We didn't. We hit all three floors, looked in every room, I even recognized paintings we saw our first trip, but no old oak picture. I hate being foiled when I have a mission.
We ate in the cafe because my client Dwayne told me the tomato bisque was to die for. While we were waiting to be seated, I desperately called the hotel to tell them we'd be back in a few hours and would our luggage be okay? Scott shook his head at me.
"You freak," he whispered.
I nodded and flipped him the bird. The front desk clerk sighed and assured me it would be fine. I hung up and resolved to ignore the freak attack screaming in my guts. We had a lovely lunch with some great wine. We gave up while we were on the third floor. I couldn't walk through another art laden room. There comes a time when I get cultural overload, and have to give up and go home to rest. I nudged Scott.
"You ready?"
He nodded. "Hell yes."
We get back and he kicked the big ass bag. He pointed at it like a puppy that just piddled.
"And tomorrow we are buying a different fucking bag."
"Shit."
"What?"
"And a power cord. I forgot the goddamned phone power cord. And the stupid fucking adapter that goes with it."
"Goddamn it, honey."
He sighed and dropped his head in his hands. Before we had left, I had found the blister pack with our international plugs. The only one missing? The one we needed for Northern Europe. We looked all over for it, went to a few stores, and then just bought a soul crushingly expensive brick of plug adapters at LAX. They never have just the one adapter, they make you buy the whole fucking world's worth. I like to think I may cross most of the globe before my death, but I don't need a plug for Egypt right now. Now I have two: two for China, two for Russia, two for the UK, two for Japan, two for Africa--you get the idea. Anyone need a fucking plug for anywhere except Northern Europe? If so, I'm your girl.
We spent the next day walking and shopping. No museums, no points of interest, just off leash with my baby in Europe. We found an Apple store and they skinned us 50 bones for a power cord.(douche noggins) Still though, it's kind of cool I get emails from Apple in Dutch. We went to the Dutch version of Target(amazingly not IKEA) and bought a James Bond edition of a big ass rolly bag. It is silver with a patterned metal looking outer shell. I insisted since our clothes got soaked in Paris this one would be weather proof. We bought sandwiches on the way back to the hotel and crashed until our flight the next day.
We got to Luton, grabbed the train to London, switched lines and got to our hotel in good time. It was literally 50 steps from the underground exit to the front doors of the hotel. Berjaya Eden Hotel. It is an upscale Indian hotel near Hyde park. We checked in. The doorman put our luggage in an elevator, not us because we wouldn't fit. This thing was not even walk in closet sized, it was coffin sized. We watched the doors close on our luggage then followed the doorman through a door, up a flight of stairs, through two hallways and fire doors, until we ended up in front of the now open elevator one floor up. We dragged our luggage down a hallway, up four stairs to another elevator. The doorman put our luggage in it and pressed the button for the floor below us. Scott looked at me and stifled a laugh. I grinned tight lipped at him. I was determined not to burst into hysterical laughter.
We had been traveling all day, hauling our god forsaken bags through hallways, trains, planes, stairs. Now faced with an absurd route to our room, it just seemed too deliciously bizarre to be angry. It wasn't an insult, it was a joke, a big fat cosmic joke, and we were laughing.
We got to the room. The doorman gave us the tour, we tipped him, and he remarked that Hyde park was just down the street. We thanked him. After he shut the door, I turned to Scott and asked,
"Do you think we should have asked how to get back to the lobby?"
Scott fell on the bed laughing.
We unzipped everything and found the candy brick. Scott thought he'd be sly and hide pot candy in a sandwich baggie, so we'd have some no matter where we were. I warned him not to unwrap the candies. He waved me off and did anyway. You's think I'd get some sort of satisfaction out of being right. I don't. Just an overwhelming sense "Well, shit."
The candy melted en route to Paris. We ended up chipping the pot candy out of a brick of peppermints, cinnamon discs, and butterscotch candies. Pot candy isn't that delectable in the first place, with all the flakes of those other candies on it, it was foul. We shuddered every time we ate it. It wasn't so bad we wouldn't eat it.
We chipped out two healthy chunks of weed candy and grabbed the card keys to the room. We found the lobby after three or four tries. It wasn't so bad. The hotel had obviously been a London town home that had been renovated. It had a Upstairs/Downstairs with a touch of "The Shining" feel to it.
We walked to Hyde park and sat on one of the benches. We people watched until dusk. Scott found an amazing Indian place only three streets away from our hotel. They were upscale with daring menu items for only 7 pounds per entree. Our appetizer looked like a science experiment and tasted like heaven. We went with classics for our entrees. I did butter chicken and he did chicken Tikki Masala. It was a good day.
Next day, we went to the British History Museum then the Tower of London. I could spend days in the British History Museum. We always have to find the Rosetta stone. It's our thing. We're both history geeks and the Rosetta stone gave us a shiver of awe the first time we saw it. This massive fragment of language translations radiates age. Carved by the orders of an ancient king. Wow.
The Tower of London was great and sad. I love climbing the towers, running my hands over mason marks left over 400 years ago, marveling at the armory, but today I was on a mission to talk to the Beefeaters about the Ravens. I'd read the ravens had personalities and I wanted to compare notes. I found a guard and he told me Fleur, the lead raven in my children's book, died that Spring. I felt like he punched me.
"Oh no!"
I gasped and put a hand over my mouth. Mind you, I'd never met this raven, but I felt like I knew her. I'd written about a great raven in my head. She was smart, funny, and sophisticated. She came from an artistic international family and was now a member of British history at the Tower. I wanted my author picture to include her. Bummer. The guard directed me to the pet cemetery outside the tower. A black plaque full of classic names at the base of the moat that faced the Thames. Scott and I had a moment of silence before heading back to the hotel. The Tower was closing for the evening.
Mark, Scott's older brother, contacted us and let us know that he and his family arrived okay. Scott invited
them out for dinner. Mark showed up but his wife and daughter stayed at the hotel. They were too tired to go anywhere. I was shocked. They were staying in their first night in a foreign country?! You couldn't keep my ass in even if you roofied me. I was pissed we slept in our first day in Paris and didn't leave until 10am. Why stay in? You can sleep at home!
Dinner was fun, we shared stories. Mark took a cab back to his hotel. He literally was on the other side of Hyde Park. We tried to convince him to take the underground. He waved us off. We insisted it was easier and cheaper. He refused. Again, we were shocked. Why would you not at least do it once? It's part of the experience. Oh well. We headed back. Tomorrow Northhampton. Time for the Brit side of the family.
I. Love. Foreign Groceries. Anywhere. I'll get lost in an Asian Grocery store in two seconds, we have tons in Long Beach. I love wandering leaning aisles piled high with what the owners view as 'essentials'. How many different brands are there for bamboo steamers and ice shavers, anyway? I've seen dozens. Anyway, we find a store called Albert Heijn. Grocery carts are all those weird small baskets set high up, like you're going shove a 36in TV underneath. Scott is wore out, and gives me the dangerous carte blanche of:
"I don't care what you buy for dinner. Just get something."
He hates pizza. I love pizza. Tough shit for him. I grab a pizza from the deli case, Parma ham with arugula. Scott shakes his head, when he sees the pizza clutched in my hand. Without saying a word, reaches past me into the case, and tosses in two packages of sausage rolls. Now, these rolls aren't pigs in a blanket style, they are French pastry lined with a bizarre pork paste that has to be the European equivalent of cheap shitty spam. Or a dog turd. He pointed at the pizza.
"She doesn't have a stove, babe."
"Like you remember that. She has a range, which..."
"Which means nothing. The dishwasher is under the range."
"She'll have something we can make the pizza with. Worse comes to worst, I'll fry it."
Scott just winced and refused to argue. I grab fennel seed cheese, Nescafe, half and half, sugar, canadel(their version of splenda, four apples (which Scott assures me I will not be able to eat before we leave), and a multi-grain baguette. I'd like to state we ate all of it within the two days, so Nyner, Nyner, Scott. We walked back to the apartment with lighter hearts. We had munchies for our munchies. We smoked another joint on the way back. We get back with our big bag of goodies, and as we unpack the horrible realization dawns on me. Scott was right. No fucking oven. I could cry. I find a toaster oven, but no foil. Humph! I refuse to be foiled by a lack of foil, GODSDAMMIT! I find a tiny oval ceramic dish and spend the next hour cutting pizza into rectangles, piling it on the dish and toasting it at 15 minutes a whack. after about 90 min the entire pizza has been toasted. Scott is a gentleman and doesn't make fun of me too much for attacking the pizza with a tiny paring knife. We settle down to read our vacation books. It is quiet, the view is beautiful, and we are satiated and happy. Life is sweet.
The next morning, I woke up, showered, did dishes, tidied up a bit, made breakfast, and waited for Scott to be done with his shower. He shaved, he ran the water for the shower, transferred all his toiletries in to the bathroom to begin his morning ablutions. I was innocently pulling on my shoes when I heard:
"WHAT THE FUCK! Where is the hot water!?!? Did you turn on the water? You used all the hot water! Damn you! Now, I guess I don't get to shower. FUCK! This is why you go to hotels! I told you! I motherfucking told you. Bad idea, baaaad idea honey! Who knows what kind of fucking idiot you rent from, GODDAMNITT!"
I rolled my eyes. Women are supposed to be the weaker sex. Yeah, right. Men are convenience whores, who wouldn't know their way around a minor inconvenience without a search map, posse, and five bloodhounds. I reply:
"What the fuck is your problem? It's a shower not a bomb, can't you figure out the knobs?"
"I got a knob for you right here! There is no hot water and it's all your fault!"
The conversation devolved from there until I pointed out he was a stinky computer geek/musician and 48 hours without a shower was hardly a new experience for him. That shut him up. He shrugged and agreed with me. Crisis averted. We found out later that there was a reset button on the water heater. Wouldn't it have been nice to know that while we were there instead of 36 hours later when our landlord turned BACK on her phone to notice my three frantic texts about no hot water? C'est la motherfucking vie, I guess.
We headed out from Kubrick Block #346, and cut through the back alley to the little white bridge over to the cobbled side of the street. That's how we know we are headed in the right direction in Utrecht: cobblestones. We link hands and wander. We find the Dom towers, the surgical college with the 14th century herb gardens housed inside a gothic courtyard. In one corner there is a group of young people meeting. What they are meeting about, I have no idea, but each member has an ornate old school marionette in their lap that they fidget with like they are live children. A young man in a hoodie and jeans is playing a v shaped pan pipe behind them. He has a headband with fox ears on it and a big fuzzy fox tail that hangs down from his backside. I noticed that as he played, his fox ears swiveled in time with the music. I nudged Scott for verification. Over the past decade I cannot tell you how many of my questions to Scott have been prefaced with:
"Am I really high or is _____ really happening?"
You want to know the funniest part? It has never been me hallucinating. The shit was really happening. His fox ears were really swiveling back and forth from the music. It looked like a medieval scene from Ingmar Bergman's "Seventh Seal". Scott and I laughed then spent the next few minutes staring at the details of a beautiful fountain with four dragons spitting from the top of it.
We wandered through the streets, passed a bizarre art school that had huge yellow parakeets stationed at different points on the building and quad between the buildings. When I say huge, I mean six foot fake yellow Tweety birds. It was a fun discovery. We made our way to the Centraal Museum. My museum. We've been there three different times and I love it. My favorite is the boat on the bottom floor. They always have great installations, there are some amazing local artists around there. This trip it was a modern art installation defining the seven deadly sins using lesser known symbology. Yeah, it was fucking cool. But the boat, ahh my big fucking boat.
http://centraalmuseum.nl/en/visit/exhibitions/lights-wood/
It is a 1,000 year old spice ship they dug up in 1930. They have it lit with blue lights that mimic water reflections, and there is the sound of wind, water, and birds. They tore a hole in a 16th century wall to drag this big mother into the basement. It looks like a wine cave, with low curved ceilings made from red brick. At either end are double glass doors. It looks like a boat humidor. I love it, it smells like old wood and the ocean. There is something about it that seems so familiar. Brings out my inner viking.
They had an exhibit on Peace from the Utrecht accords. It was the treaty that ended the thirty years war, and kept Louis the 14 from bankrupting Europe. Scott had a total history boner through the whole thing. Portraits of big ole muckety-mucks, naval maps, pamphlets of revolutionaries hung from the walls and were interspersed with huge quotes from the military leaders. We went to Versailles in France at the beginning of the trip and got the French view of Louis the 14th(I'm the fucking Sun King, recognize). Scott laughed and said the Sun King was an utter despot. Versailles has two huge Athenian looking buildings that have "A toutes les glories de la France" emblazoned across it--Always For The Glory of France. Scott said Louis considered himself France so essentially it was for his glory.
In Utrecht, the Nederlanders are much less enthralled with old Louis. He comes off sounding like a bit of a douche. My favorite quote from the entire exhibit was from him. He said it after suffering a painful defeat at Blenheim in 1704.
"Has God forgot EVERYTHING I have done for him?!"
Bwhahaha! What a douche!
We left and wandered along the canals. I called for a Prosecco break. Actually I declared most emphatically I needed food and booze and not necessarily in that order. We found a bustling little Italian bistro down a set of stairs that led right up to the water of the canal. I scored a table as two students grabbed their bags and took off. The waiter was a gem. We got our drinks. Scott wasn't hungry and I wanted a meat and cheese plate they only made to serve two at 9 euros ea. I didn't want to spend or eat that much. The waiter said no problem I'll make you a single. He brought out an awesome plate of ham and salami slices curled into meat flowers, a huge wedge of melon, and an assortment of cheese stuffed peppers (cherry peppers, pepperdews, and peppercinis) Freakin' yum. He so got a good tip for that. Scott's little eyes gleamed when he saw it. Mr. "I'm not hungry" decided he needed to start divvying up the goods so he could be sure and get a bite of each. LOL Same old story, he wasn't hungry until he saw it.
We ate at the apartment that night. I assembled a plate of the goodies we had left. It was so romantic and chill. The day before I had made friends with the tortiose shell cat that stalked the balcony walkway in front of the apartment. I sat outside and watched the sunset with a warm purring cat in my lap. It was perfect evening.
The next morning we packed up early. The hotel in Amsterdam wouldn't check us in until 2 pm, but by 10am I was ready to leave. It's not like we could take a shower. I dumped what was left of last night's munch fest, which included a wedge of Pate. I not such an asshole that I would unthinkingly leave a hunk of herbed liver in the trash of someone I heavily suspected was a vegetarian. I ended up running around the bottom floor of the Kubrick block looking for their dumpster. No dice. Finally, some guy took pity on me and lead me to a blank wall that opened with the door key I had then rolled it back to reveal a shitload of bikes, and a long ass line of different colored trash cans. It's amazing how far they have taken the dividing of trash in Europe. For us it's purple bin for recycling, everything else gets tossed in brown one. They have like five different bins. I try to be green, but fuck that.
We almost got disgustingly lost on our way to the train station, but we managed to make it to Amsterdam without mishap. I did almost dislocate my shoulder dragging that cursed piece o' shit suitcase over all those bleeding cobblestones. We kept trading off to even out the suckiness of it. But if I wasn't pulling the BAB(big ass bag) I was pulling two bouncing carry-ons, one of which (the little blue bastard) kept bouncing off the back of my right ankle, which was skinned at that exact spot from an earlier encounter with it. I kept making plans on how exactly I was going to destroy that bag. Lucky for it I was distracted when I got home and it still lives.
We found the Tulip Inn, down the block from The Grasshopper, right past the gay lions(a pair of roaring lions holding up the crest of the country. They have an Ethel Merman sneer to their roar, like they are going to break out into showtunes any moment). It was nice that even though we had never stayed there, the Grasshopper bar down the street has been our big huge landmark before when we wandered around the city, so we knew exactly where we were.
It was only 11:30 when we checked in, the rooms weren't ready until 2pm. We were instructed to leave them in the "luggage room", which turned out to be one of the breakfast rooms off the kitchen. Apparently, a bunch of other people checked in early too. There were piles of neatly abandoned luggage arranged around the room. I tried to hide most of our luggage under a breakfast table near a shit-ton of camping gear.There was no lock on the door, but we did have to pass through a door you could only get through with a room key. An immense relief if the other 300 some-odd hotel guests prove to be as trustworthy as us.
It was only after we left and were hoofing it across Dam square I realized that we left the envelope with our passports, train tickets, airline itineraries, and other way important stuff in the front zipper pocket of our rolly bag. Not hidden, not wrapped up...nothing, just shoved in the pocket that was hastily zipped closed while packing that morning.
Fuck. Double fuckity-fuck.
Oh yeah, and the ashes of Scott's dead mother were in the same bag. I had visions of euro trash backpackers going in to claim their baggage and happily rolling away with our bags too. I could see them in my mind's eye, rifling through our stuff, selling our passports to Russian gangsters and tossing the rest of our stuff (including Val) in the alley behind the hotel. I sputtered and gestured wildly at Scott. He stared at me like I was growing a second head then laughed when I finally managed to explain my panic. He p'shawed me. Literally! He waved his hand at me and said,
"Honey, it's Amsterdam. We're on the honor system here, it will be fine."
I shook my head. Honor system? What honor system? I spent the next three hours fidgeting. We went to our favorite coffee shop. I can't believe I have a favorite place in a foreign country. Crazy! It's the Betty Boop coffee shop. We've been every time we've gone to Amsterdam. There is always someone new working there. This time it was cute black guy with dreds. We chatted with him about movies while he made our coffees. Yes. We buy coffee every time we visit a shop. It's good, okay!?
After smoking joint that would make Snoop Dogg proud, we hit the streets. The one thing you have to remember about Amsterdam is it is U shaped. Everything radiates out from Centraal station. Never follow the canals unless you want a nice loooooooooong walk. The trick is to pick a street and cut through.
The Reichsmuseum was open after over a decade. We saw one wing in 2003 before the closed it all down for asbestos cleaning. I saw a painting there that I have searched for ever since. It was a surreal painting of a field with a cow, and a girl lounging under a tree. We thought it was called "An Old Oak in Surrey". It's not. I have searched for that damn thing for a decade and have never seen it since. I was hoping we would find it this time. We didn't. We hit all three floors, looked in every room, I even recognized paintings we saw our first trip, but no old oak picture. I hate being foiled when I have a mission.
We ate in the cafe because my client Dwayne told me the tomato bisque was to die for. While we were waiting to be seated, I desperately called the hotel to tell them we'd be back in a few hours and would our luggage be okay? Scott shook his head at me.
"You freak," he whispered.
I nodded and flipped him the bird. The front desk clerk sighed and assured me it would be fine. I hung up and resolved to ignore the freak attack screaming in my guts. We had a lovely lunch with some great wine. We gave up while we were on the third floor. I couldn't walk through another art laden room. There comes a time when I get cultural overload, and have to give up and go home to rest. I nudged Scott.
"You ready?"
He nodded. "Hell yes."
We get back and he kicked the big ass bag. He pointed at it like a puppy that just piddled.
"And tomorrow we are buying a different fucking bag."
"Shit."
"What?"
"And a power cord. I forgot the goddamned phone power cord. And the stupid fucking adapter that goes with it."
"Goddamn it, honey."
He sighed and dropped his head in his hands. Before we had left, I had found the blister pack with our international plugs. The only one missing? The one we needed for Northern Europe. We looked all over for it, went to a few stores, and then just bought a soul crushingly expensive brick of plug adapters at LAX. They never have just the one adapter, they make you buy the whole fucking world's worth. I like to think I may cross most of the globe before my death, but I don't need a plug for Egypt right now. Now I have two: two for China, two for Russia, two for the UK, two for Japan, two for Africa--you get the idea. Anyone need a fucking plug for anywhere except Northern Europe? If so, I'm your girl.
We spent the next day walking and shopping. No museums, no points of interest, just off leash with my baby in Europe. We found an Apple store and they skinned us 50 bones for a power cord.(douche noggins) Still though, it's kind of cool I get emails from Apple in Dutch. We went to the Dutch version of Target(amazingly not IKEA) and bought a James Bond edition of a big ass rolly bag. It is silver with a patterned metal looking outer shell. I insisted since our clothes got soaked in Paris this one would be weather proof. We bought sandwiches on the way back to the hotel and crashed until our flight the next day.
We got to Luton, grabbed the train to London, switched lines and got to our hotel in good time. It was literally 50 steps from the underground exit to the front doors of the hotel. Berjaya Eden Hotel. It is an upscale Indian hotel near Hyde park. We checked in. The doorman put our luggage in an elevator, not us because we wouldn't fit. This thing was not even walk in closet sized, it was coffin sized. We watched the doors close on our luggage then followed the doorman through a door, up a flight of stairs, through two hallways and fire doors, until we ended up in front of the now open elevator one floor up. We dragged our luggage down a hallway, up four stairs to another elevator. The doorman put our luggage in it and pressed the button for the floor below us. Scott looked at me and stifled a laugh. I grinned tight lipped at him. I was determined not to burst into hysterical laughter.
We had been traveling all day, hauling our god forsaken bags through hallways, trains, planes, stairs. Now faced with an absurd route to our room, it just seemed too deliciously bizarre to be angry. It wasn't an insult, it was a joke, a big fat cosmic joke, and we were laughing.
We got to the room. The doorman gave us the tour, we tipped him, and he remarked that Hyde park was just down the street. We thanked him. After he shut the door, I turned to Scott and asked,
"Do you think we should have asked how to get back to the lobby?"
Scott fell on the bed laughing.
We unzipped everything and found the candy brick. Scott thought he'd be sly and hide pot candy in a sandwich baggie, so we'd have some no matter where we were. I warned him not to unwrap the candies. He waved me off and did anyway. You's think I'd get some sort of satisfaction out of being right. I don't. Just an overwhelming sense "Well, shit."
The candy melted en route to Paris. We ended up chipping the pot candy out of a brick of peppermints, cinnamon discs, and butterscotch candies. Pot candy isn't that delectable in the first place, with all the flakes of those other candies on it, it was foul. We shuddered every time we ate it. It wasn't so bad we wouldn't eat it.
We chipped out two healthy chunks of weed candy and grabbed the card keys to the room. We found the lobby after three or four tries. It wasn't so bad. The hotel had obviously been a London town home that had been renovated. It had a Upstairs/Downstairs with a touch of "The Shining" feel to it.
We walked to Hyde park and sat on one of the benches. We people watched until dusk. Scott found an amazing Indian place only three streets away from our hotel. They were upscale with daring menu items for only 7 pounds per entree. Our appetizer looked like a science experiment and tasted like heaven. We went with classics for our entrees. I did butter chicken and he did chicken Tikki Masala. It was a good day.
Next day, we went to the British History Museum then the Tower of London. I could spend days in the British History Museum. We always have to find the Rosetta stone. It's our thing. We're both history geeks and the Rosetta stone gave us a shiver of awe the first time we saw it. This massive fragment of language translations radiates age. Carved by the orders of an ancient king. Wow.
The Tower of London was great and sad. I love climbing the towers, running my hands over mason marks left over 400 years ago, marveling at the armory, but today I was on a mission to talk to the Beefeaters about the Ravens. I'd read the ravens had personalities and I wanted to compare notes. I found a guard and he told me Fleur, the lead raven in my children's book, died that Spring. I felt like he punched me.
"Oh no!"
I gasped and put a hand over my mouth. Mind you, I'd never met this raven, but I felt like I knew her. I'd written about a great raven in my head. She was smart, funny, and sophisticated. She came from an artistic international family and was now a member of British history at the Tower. I wanted my author picture to include her. Bummer. The guard directed me to the pet cemetery outside the tower. A black plaque full of classic names at the base of the moat that faced the Thames. Scott and I had a moment of silence before heading back to the hotel. The Tower was closing for the evening.
Mark, Scott's older brother, contacted us and let us know that he and his family arrived okay. Scott invited
them out for dinner. Mark showed up but his wife and daughter stayed at the hotel. They were too tired to go anywhere. I was shocked. They were staying in their first night in a foreign country?! You couldn't keep my ass in even if you roofied me. I was pissed we slept in our first day in Paris and didn't leave until 10am. Why stay in? You can sleep at home!
Dinner was fun, we shared stories. Mark took a cab back to his hotel. He literally was on the other side of Hyde Park. We tried to convince him to take the underground. He waved us off. We insisted it was easier and cheaper. He refused. Again, we were shocked. Why would you not at least do it once? It's part of the experience. Oh well. We headed back. Tomorrow Northhampton. Time for the Brit side of the family.
Comments
Post a Comment