Europe 1995 Part 5: What Day is it? in Amsterdam

10-11 Journal Excerpt: "Well, I've made it to Amsterdam. I spent all day on a train with a bunch of businessmen smoking cigars. I almost died. I walked out of the train station and felt this weird static energy - I instantly got so excited I almost burst. I don't know why, this city is just so beautiful!"

I had absolutely no intention of staying in Amsterdam for longer than a day or two, and somehow burned a week there. I think it was a combination of travel fatigue and finding a place that felt safe (I met and hung out with a lot of people I felt very comfortable with at the hostel), combined with constant, momentum-dissolving partying.

10-13 Journal Excerpt: "Amsterdam is turning out to be very cool. I ate so much yesterday my budget is shot. I had spacecake last night at this nice little bar. There were two cops sitting in there while we were smoking and it doesn't matter. Cops are not threatening here. It's so weird.
I ate at KFC and had pizza twice and have been drinking lots of beer - more than I should."

I stayed at Bob's Youth Hostel, right in the heart of the red light district. I'd never seen anything like it. I remember that there was a Heineken wall dispenser machine in the lobby of the hostel that sold cans of beer. In the mornings they made big vats of scrambled eggs and plain white bread. Somehow, each day it was exactly what I wanted for breakfast.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "I was going to leave Amsterdam yesterday. I checked out of Bob's and took my stuff to the train station. Then I sat here all day til it was obvious that I wasn't going anywhere. So I got a room at a crappy youth hotel and came back to Bob's this morning to try and get a bed. Last night a couple people in my room had some stuff stolen while we were sleeping so the cops came."

I hung out for a couple of days with a guy from New Zealand named Brendon. A year or so ago, he found me on Facebook and we exchanged pictures of each other in Amsterdam (look ahead 2 blog entries). I also went to the carnival with a guy named Kirk and went on a ride that was so fun we spent the whole next day trying to get even more messed up so we could go on it again. I've since heard that there are things of actual cultural relevance that one can do when visiting Amsterdam. The ride was called the Evolution.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "There's a cute boy with a stud through his tongue who gave me a great b*** hit. When I get hungry I have a beer. I learned how to play backgammon. Still need to go to the brewery. Tried once but got lost."

What I wrote on the back of this picture:

"My friend Kirk at Central Station in Amsterdam just before we left for Paris (at Paris we split up).Look at all the biked not locked up. We had fun at Hill Street Blues and on the Evolution. "I'm going nowhere later"

10-17 Journal Excerpt: "I had no idea what day it is so I asked everyone and no one knew. I found out from some guy - he just got here so he still knows. Tony and Ante left last night. They invited me to Biarritz France - I almost went but finally decided to stay." 

I have no idea who Tony and Ante are. On 10-19, I finally left Amsterdam and took the train to Paris. I spent an hour or two there, just long enough to buy some chocolate for lunch. I remember walking up the flight of stairs from the underground train station and look briefly at the street so that I would know what Paris looked like. I'm completely retarded. There I switched trains and headed toward the coast to a town called Cherbourg, where my guidebook said there was a boat to Ireland.

10-19 Journal Excerpt: "Just got to Cherbourg at 12:30am. I figured I'd hang out at the train station for a few hours, head to the ferry place and catch the 1st ferry. Well, it turns out this town isn't very big, and about 15 min. after our train stopped, a mna came around to lock up the station. So I have no money and am on my way to the ferry place. How could I have timed this out better?"

I wrote in my journal that this town had its sewer dump in the middle of town, but in retrospect, I wonder if it isn't more plausible that I was wandering the outskirts of town.

Long story short, I wandered the streets of Cherbourg in the dark for hours, finally hunkering down on a park bench where I froze my ass off for a couple hours. Finally, I decided to keep walking so that I wouldn't die, and at 4:00am I found a Quality Inn. The guy at the front desk was nice, but he looked at me like I was an alien from Outer Space. I'm sure he wondered where I'd come from at that time of night. I checked in, took a hot shower, and went to bed. 

I believe this is where the bad cold I got in Ireland began.

Europe 1995 Part 6: Every Day is Wednesday in Ireland

So the boat trip from France to Ireland ended up being a whole thing.

10-20 Journal Excerpt: " It seems I'm the only passenger on the boat who isn't a trucker and who is a girl. My compartment has a Do Not Enter sign on the door. I just don't know what to think. I feel like they've made some sort of exception for me."

It was an overnight boat ride that was supposed to include meals. My book said the boat from Cherbourg went to Cork, but the only boat went to Rosslare, and I had to pay 400 francs for the ride because it wasn't covered by my pass. I was as flexible about the situation as I could be, but I wasn't feeling well at all after my cold night on the park bench.

10-20 Journal Excerpt (cont.): "A man just came into my room and was so rude. He shut my curtains and mumbled something about dinner in half-French. I'm a bad sport. I don't even want any frickin dinner if he's gonna be that way. I hope he comes back so I can refuse."

This is a photo of me and a guy named Lee at Danni's house. He and his friend James were our unofficial tour guides (okay, read PUB guides). Lee was nice but James was a little creepy - he took me to his house and his mom made me gross bacon. I went to a soccer game with them.

10-21 Journal Excerpt: "Well, I did make it to Ireland and I'm not dead. Neither is that man on the boat, which is my greater accomplishment. He did come back and I did refuse my supper. I realized later that he didn't care if I ate or not so it was myself I hurt. Don't come near me or I'll slice you I'm so sharp.
I slept about 14 hours and got up and had sugar smacks and orange juice with a bunch of truckers."

I traveled all day, got to Galway, and found Danni's house in Salt Hill at about 10:30pm. She wasn't home, so I went to the pub across the street and it was quaint and magical. That's where I met Lee, who was playing cards with a bunch of old men. I couldn't get ahold of Danni on the phone that night and no one would answer the door, so I had to sleep on the sidewalk outside her house. Unbelievable. I saw a mouse that night.

One day we rented a little adorable blue car and drove out into the Irish countryside on the wrong side of the road! We saw a castle, lots of green fields with stone walls around them, stone ruins, and the beautiful little town of Clifden at sunset. Also ate the best salmon of my life.

10-23 Journal Excerpt: "It feels like every Irish man I meet is halfway skeezing on me. Danni feels it, too. I could never live here. Tonight we're going out - the fabled Wednesday night when all of Ireland gets paid."

We went out and drank a lot. There were some great moments in there. Especially the TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT TIMES AND DIFFERENT PLACES when we experienced an entire pub singing Delilah together in true stereotypical pub fashion. Like if you saw it in a movie you would not believe it really happened in real life. But it does.

We also spent lots of late nights walking in the rain, usually from pub to pub, or from pub to home. I ate really good soup a couple of times. There was some corn chowder that I remember.

One day when Danni had to work, I went on a day trip by myself to the Aran Islands. It's the last thing I mention in my orange travel journal before it very abruptly ends. I took a boat out to the island and the cliffs and sea were breathtaking and exhilarating and I apparently didn't take any pictures there, but I could've sworn I did. It was the last thing of note that I did before I flew home.

Oh, except I missed my flight out of Dublin. I can't exactly remember the circumstances that surrounded the flub, I think I thought my ticket was for a different day or time than it really was. The thing is, I was really sick and pretty much functioning on two cylinders, or like at least one or two cylinders less than however much is normal, so my memories are sketchy.

So I flew home. There should be something really insightful here that wraps up the whole trip with pith and insight. It was a crazy trip, where it rarely occurred to me to think about things like how much money it might cost to eat, whether there was something culturally important that I could experience, or what time my train ride might get me into my destination and whether I would be able to find a place to stay. But I let the trip happen to me, and each thing that happened was a surprise, so that's good!

It was really fun to come into such brief contact with so many people, to rely on the kindness of strangers, to leave myself open to absolutely anything and everything that could happen. Only many years later (probably when I became a parent) did it dawn on me how dangerous some situations could have become and how lucky I was to always have found my way, but overall I would definitely recommend a travel experience to all of my children when they are young and free. Being young and free is a surprisingly fleeting point in life.

Old Travel Pictures

Here are some old pictures from Amsterdam in 1995...a small part of a larger trip that I took when I was 18. A couple of these are mine that I finally scanned in, and a couple were recently sent to me from my friend Brendon, the red-haired cutie pictured below. Good times...

Sock Monsters (1-14)

Ama and I did a project recently where we took old socks that had no mates and made them into what she named "sock monsters." The big one is named Derpy and the little one is Shy. They are stuffed with cotton balls. Ama sleeps with them at night, and Rowan would give anything to get her hands on them. Ama also made up a story about them and made it into a video/musical. 

Photo Shoot with Myself 10-13

I decided I was tired of only having a few weird, random candid not-very-good pictures of myself, so I did a photo shoot with myself. I figure if I can take the time and trouble to do it for the kids, I can do it for myself, right? I think they turned out pretty well for the amount of effort I put it. It was actually a pretty fun project!

Me Voy

Another song that I uploaded to YouTube recently. I am trying to make an effort to consider myself a "content provider" and add content to my channel. Why? I haven't quite figured that out yet, but I think it has something to do with proving something to myself.

Bird on the Wire

Here is a new video that I made of me singing an old, lovely Leonard Cohen song. This is video #15 on my youtube channel, and the 3rd that I have recorded in English.

I am most proud of the fact that Cook and Ama know all the words to this song, and lots of other songs like it. I hope I am doing enough to grow a love of music in their hearts, although ultimately I'm not sure it has anything to do with me. They both seem to have been born with music in their souls, and I can already see that little Rowan was too.