The Hague, The Netherlands
So I was walking down the street and I passed a motorcycle dealership. I think it was Honda, I might be wrong. Anyway, the point is, I looked inside and saw an ad for thier bikes. There was a bunch of stuff I couldn't understand written in Dutch, but the picture was of a gorgeous girl straddling a bike with a foot on the ground as if stopped at a light, and wearing nothing but a helmet. I swear, if I could ever actually get a super hot girl to DO that, it would make the expense instantly worthwhile.
That is all.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
To sin or not to sin...
The Hague, The Netherlands
Well, Amsterdam has come and gone, and let me just say: I don't know jack! Trying to get about in a place you don't know the language is difficult as always. Fortunately everyone here speaks English so it's not a big deal but it does still feel a little odd to be illiterate. I can't help but TRY to read all the signs andof course they never make sense.
One thing to say about Amsterdam though: that city lives up to the hype. I spent about three days there and in that time I went to the Van Gogh museum, on a heineken brewery tour, played giant chess, travelled on the trams, checked out the red light district and just hung out with some cool people I met along the way. The only problem is that there's so many tourists sometimes it feels as if you're not seeing Holland at all, but visiting a theme park or something. Even so, it's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. Maybe THE most beautiful. There're canals everywhere; they're nearly as frequent as roads. Tourist boats, personal boats, kayaks and just about anything that can float cruise through the waterways, or are docked to the brick on the sides. The streets are lined with old two or three story buildings broken up by the occasional plaza. There's huge grassy parks for tanning in the sun, or going for a morning jog and cyclists are always attempting to run me down for walking along the bike paths thinking they're sidewalks. They're not.
I walked probably a solid 10 km per day and just saw as much of the place as I could. For my first REAL hostel experience (In iceland there were no real dorm rooms - not that I was in anyway) it was fantastic. A very nice place filled with a bunch of friendly people that are easy to talk to and spend time with. My first day (actually while standing in the check-in line) I met a girl there named Betsy travelling with her mom from the States. I later met Davi from Brazil and... ... ... uh oh.... a dude from NY. We talked pretty late into the evening that first night while drinking cheap heinekens on the couch in the hostel.
The next day Betsy and I rocked some giant chess (I won thanks in no small part to some crowd interference) and then hit the Heineken tour where she completely owned me in foozeball (sp?)... embarassing. Still it was a pretty good time. That night I went to go check out the red light district - okay I know everyone is asking so I will give a description. It's odd. Very odd. But a lot cleaner than one might expect and CERTAINLY a lot cleaner than Bangkok's red light district. I had trouble finding the place so when I eventually arrived I essentially stumbled into it. On either side of the street, prostitutes stand in head to toe black lit windows with (you guessed it) red flourescent lights along the top or sides. Some of the shutters are drawn where the prositutes have a client but the rest stand looking out at you, dressed in skimpy bikini's trying to convince you to come inside. There are live sex shows, sex museums, pubs that smell like vomit and alcohol and a ton of tourists roaming the streets, occasionally going up to the window to ask for a price. Sorry girls, there are no boy prostitutes! Overall the whole place is sleazy, it's dirty, but it's real and if you're in Amsterdam it's unmissable. After I was there I met a group of Canadians that I spent the rest of Canada day with. They are going to the EXIT festival in Eastern Europed next week. I thought about joining them but wanted to see the area a bit better.
Next day I laid in the grass and tried to get my tan on, saw the Van Gogh museum and I went on a four hour excursion to try and find a theatre where I could watch Transformers (no such luck) and just generally hung out and enjoyed the city. Overall, a very cool town. I recommend it.
I'll check in again soon!
I'm still having picture trouble but I think I know how to solve that now so I should be good to go for my next post. Turns out it may be a problem with MY gear and not the computers provided... go figure.
Well, Amsterdam has come and gone, and let me just say: I don't know jack! Trying to get about in a place you don't know the language is difficult as always. Fortunately everyone here speaks English so it's not a big deal but it does still feel a little odd to be illiterate. I can't help but TRY to read all the signs andof course they never make sense.
One thing to say about Amsterdam though: that city lives up to the hype. I spent about three days there and in that time I went to the Van Gogh museum, on a heineken brewery tour, played giant chess, travelled on the trams, checked out the red light district and just hung out with some cool people I met along the way. The only problem is that there's so many tourists sometimes it feels as if you're not seeing Holland at all, but visiting a theme park or something. Even so, it's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. Maybe THE most beautiful. There're canals everywhere; they're nearly as frequent as roads. Tourist boats, personal boats, kayaks and just about anything that can float cruise through the waterways, or are docked to the brick on the sides. The streets are lined with old two or three story buildings broken up by the occasional plaza. There's huge grassy parks for tanning in the sun, or going for a morning jog and cyclists are always attempting to run me down for walking along the bike paths thinking they're sidewalks. They're not.
I walked probably a solid 10 km per day and just saw as much of the place as I could. For my first REAL hostel experience (In iceland there were no real dorm rooms - not that I was in anyway) it was fantastic. A very nice place filled with a bunch of friendly people that are easy to talk to and spend time with. My first day (actually while standing in the check-in line) I met a girl there named Betsy travelling with her mom from the States. I later met Davi from Brazil and... ... ... uh oh.... a dude from NY. We talked pretty late into the evening that first night while drinking cheap heinekens on the couch in the hostel.
The next day Betsy and I rocked some giant chess (I won thanks in no small part to some crowd interference) and then hit the Heineken tour where she completely owned me in foozeball (sp?)... embarassing. Still it was a pretty good time. That night I went to go check out the red light district - okay I know everyone is asking so I will give a description. It's odd. Very odd. But a lot cleaner than one might expect and CERTAINLY a lot cleaner than Bangkok's red light district. I had trouble finding the place so when I eventually arrived I essentially stumbled into it. On either side of the street, prostitutes stand in head to toe black lit windows with (you guessed it) red flourescent lights along the top or sides. Some of the shutters are drawn where the prositutes have a client but the rest stand looking out at you, dressed in skimpy bikini's trying to convince you to come inside. There are live sex shows, sex museums, pubs that smell like vomit and alcohol and a ton of tourists roaming the streets, occasionally going up to the window to ask for a price. Sorry girls, there are no boy prostitutes! Overall the whole place is sleazy, it's dirty, but it's real and if you're in Amsterdam it's unmissable. After I was there I met a group of Canadians that I spent the rest of Canada day with. They are going to the EXIT festival in Eastern Europed next week. I thought about joining them but wanted to see the area a bit better.
Next day I laid in the grass and tried to get my tan on, saw the Van Gogh museum and I went on a four hour excursion to try and find a theatre where I could watch Transformers (no such luck) and just generally hung out and enjoyed the city. Overall, a very cool town. I recommend it.
I'll check in again soon!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Land of the Elements?
Reykjavik, Iceland
I was hoping to post pictures but it seems as if this particular computer is too guarded against life to let me do anything fun. Sooooo, you'll just have to be in awe of my vivid descriptions instead of actually getting to see the stuff. Well that is until I get to Amsterdam and am able to post there.
So at first, I thought Iceland was a little disappointing. I arrived in Reykjavik at what was about midnight calgary time (6 am local) and I was a bit tired. But, not having any time to waste I went straight to it, setting off on a tour they call the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle consists of þingvellir national park, a waterfall called Gullfoss and a geysir called Stokkur and well... Geysir. It's named Geysir not because the Icelandic people are uncreative, but because it's the big daddy of all geysirs. All the others are named after it! Unfortunately back in the day tourists threw rocks and crap in it to try and get it to go off quicker. It didn't work and now they´ve ruined it for the rest of us as Geysir is more or less broken these days. Stokkur is still going strong though, every four or five minutes, shooting about 20 meters into the air. Gullfoss is quite impressive also. It's a Niagra falls type of waterfall that just unloads buckets of water every second in kind of a semi-circular shape before it all disappears into a giant crevass in the earth. Unfortunately the only place to view it is from above so it loses a bit of its power. And finally þingvellier was nothing spectacular. It was nice, don't get me wrong. But it was just nice. After seeing the other two it was a bit of a downer.
Following the tour I began to explore Reykavik on foot. They have a famous church here that is on all the postcards and kind of an awesome building but itś under reconstruction and the entire facade and tower are covered in scafolding. Downtown is interesting but really itś just a banff like strip that has some nice shops, some nice restaurants and THE BEST APPLE COBBLER ON THE PLANET!
Nonetheless, I'm sure you can see how I might find my initial day and a half a little underwhelming. Well, that was when I left for a small town of about 350 people called Vik. Vik is awesome. It's set in a valley between two huge cliffs. It has waterfalls, glaciers and black sand beaches all within about a 15 minute drive. Huge rocks jut out of the ocean into the air and the prerequisite church with red roof stands alone on a hill top. The bus arrived there during sunset, if you can call it that since the sun never actually goes below the horizon. It does however make the sky and clouds blood red for about four hours. That, combined with friendly people, birds circling the neighboring cliffs and a ground filled with yellow and purple buttercup flowers, I didn't sleep much that night. I think everyone should sit down and watch a four hour sunset at least once in their life. I have pictures but it doesn't do it justice.
They call Iceland the land of fire and ice. Itś true enough i guess with glaciars, volcanoes and geysirs, but I think maybe they should call it the land of the elements. Earth and wind are just as prevelant here and sometimes even more powerful. Apparently there was an earthquake the day before I arrived and I have to tell you, climbing up to the top of the cliffs around Vik, the wind up there was just unreal. It's probably the most wind I have ever experienced in my life. It nearly blew me over on several occasions. It was awesome.
As far as travelling by myself goes, things have been fairly smooth although I have been annoyed with a few things. the zipper on my pillowcase/blanket combo broke the first day. Go high quality craftsmanship. I couldn't get the alarm on my watch to work right the first day so I missed the nightlife on friday when my nap turned into a six hour sleep, and my new trekking pants are so light weight I have a serious version of the male cameltoe. It would be nice if everyone in the world could NOT tell where my johnson is at all times. (To Matt, Chris, Brad ie. the Johnson brothers.... sorry I used your name in vain).
I'm also currentely debating getting rid of my bedroll. ie. mailing it back home. So far everywhere I have stayed has had a pretty good matress and itś probably the heaviest item I have in my bag. It would be nice to have the extra space and to be weighed down a little less. i'll see what things are like in mainland europe first though. I have a feeling I may regret it if I send it back by the time I get to the middle east and africa.
Anyway, I'd better get going. Itś almost 9 o´clock here and I have to get up at 4 to get to the airport for my flight out tomorrow. I gotta tell you I'm looking forward to not having any official schedule I have to follow. As of tomorrow, I'll be completely free. No obligations and nowhere to be.
I was hoping to post pictures but it seems as if this particular computer is too guarded against life to let me do anything fun. Sooooo, you'll just have to be in awe of my vivid descriptions instead of actually getting to see the stuff. Well that is until I get to Amsterdam and am able to post there.
So at first, I thought Iceland was a little disappointing. I arrived in Reykjavik at what was about midnight calgary time (6 am local) and I was a bit tired. But, not having any time to waste I went straight to it, setting off on a tour they call the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle consists of þingvellir national park, a waterfall called Gullfoss and a geysir called Stokkur and well... Geysir. It's named Geysir not because the Icelandic people are uncreative, but because it's the big daddy of all geysirs. All the others are named after it! Unfortunately back in the day tourists threw rocks and crap in it to try and get it to go off quicker. It didn't work and now they´ve ruined it for the rest of us as Geysir is more or less broken these days. Stokkur is still going strong though, every four or five minutes, shooting about 20 meters into the air. Gullfoss is quite impressive also. It's a Niagra falls type of waterfall that just unloads buckets of water every second in kind of a semi-circular shape before it all disappears into a giant crevass in the earth. Unfortunately the only place to view it is from above so it loses a bit of its power. And finally þingvellier was nothing spectacular. It was nice, don't get me wrong. But it was just nice. After seeing the other two it was a bit of a downer.
Following the tour I began to explore Reykavik on foot. They have a famous church here that is on all the postcards and kind of an awesome building but itś under reconstruction and the entire facade and tower are covered in scafolding. Downtown is interesting but really itś just a banff like strip that has some nice shops, some nice restaurants and THE BEST APPLE COBBLER ON THE PLANET!
Nonetheless, I'm sure you can see how I might find my initial day and a half a little underwhelming. Well, that was when I left for a small town of about 350 people called Vik. Vik is awesome. It's set in a valley between two huge cliffs. It has waterfalls, glaciers and black sand beaches all within about a 15 minute drive. Huge rocks jut out of the ocean into the air and the prerequisite church with red roof stands alone on a hill top. The bus arrived there during sunset, if you can call it that since the sun never actually goes below the horizon. It does however make the sky and clouds blood red for about four hours. That, combined with friendly people, birds circling the neighboring cliffs and a ground filled with yellow and purple buttercup flowers, I didn't sleep much that night. I think everyone should sit down and watch a four hour sunset at least once in their life. I have pictures but it doesn't do it justice.
They call Iceland the land of fire and ice. Itś true enough i guess with glaciars, volcanoes and geysirs, but I think maybe they should call it the land of the elements. Earth and wind are just as prevelant here and sometimes even more powerful. Apparently there was an earthquake the day before I arrived and I have to tell you, climbing up to the top of the cliffs around Vik, the wind up there was just unreal. It's probably the most wind I have ever experienced in my life. It nearly blew me over on several occasions. It was awesome.
As far as travelling by myself goes, things have been fairly smooth although I have been annoyed with a few things. the zipper on my pillowcase/blanket combo broke the first day. Go high quality craftsmanship. I couldn't get the alarm on my watch to work right the first day so I missed the nightlife on friday when my nap turned into a six hour sleep, and my new trekking pants are so light weight I have a serious version of the male cameltoe. It would be nice if everyone in the world could NOT tell where my johnson is at all times. (To Matt, Chris, Brad ie. the Johnson brothers.... sorry I used your name in vain).
I'm also currentely debating getting rid of my bedroll. ie. mailing it back home. So far everywhere I have stayed has had a pretty good matress and itś probably the heaviest item I have in my bag. It would be nice to have the extra space and to be weighed down a little less. i'll see what things are like in mainland europe first though. I have a feeling I may regret it if I send it back by the time I get to the middle east and africa.
Anyway, I'd better get going. Itś almost 9 o´clock here and I have to get up at 4 to get to the airport for my flight out tomorrow. I gotta tell you I'm looking forward to not having any official schedule I have to follow. As of tomorrow, I'll be completely free. No obligations and nowhere to be.
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