Memorial Day

24 May 2009

Today I went out to the Netherlands American Cemetery for the Netherlands’ Memorial Day Ceremony. I really felt sad that I was missing out on the Memorial Day stuff so I was really happy that they do something to commemorate it here. I missed the bus at 2:16, so I had to wait until the one at 2:46 and because of that I missed the first ten minutes which included the Star Spangled Banner. That was sad, but the rest of the service was so incredibly touching. There were all sorts of high ranking US and Dutch government and military officials who spoke about the meaning of the day. Then there was the laying on of the wreaths by lots of different important people. That was what really struck me. That went on for about an hour with all different people placing the wreaths. There were veterans from WWII and important military officials from all over in the world including Germany and Japan. It was really, really neat. There was a Navy band and a Dutch military band that alternated playing American and Dutch songs. They also did a volley and played taps, which made me cry of course. Then there was a flyover with US and Dutch Air Force doing the missing man formation. It was really touching. Honestly, it was the best Memorial Day Ceremony I’ve ever been to.

On the way home, I met a really nice girl named Iona who had adopted one of the graves in the cemetery. There are about 8,100 marked graves in the cemetery and another 1,700 memorialized MIA soldiers on the wall in the cemetery. Iona, along with about 8,099 other Dutch people, adopted one of the graves and takes care of it during the year. That is also incredibly touching to me. There is actually a waiting list to be able to take care of these graves. It’s amazing that they care that much about the graves of American soldiers that they never even met. It’s wonderful.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries...

19-23 May 2009

So my last trip to a new place was far and away my favorite. Even though getting there and getting home was a miserable experience, I still loved this trip. That says something. I think maybe I’m still on a high from the trip itself, but I really, really, really loved Scotland.

I wasn’t entirely sure I would even make it to Edinburgh on Tuesday evening. The ticket lady at the train station in Maastricht had sent me to Venlo to get a bus to the Dusseldorf-Weeze airport. However, when I arrived at Venlo, the ticket man there (who was far too combative) told me that the bus only comes if you make a reservation, which I obviously had not. Luckily I was about 3 hours early, so I called the company and begged them to send someone out to take me and they were able to find a driver to get me to the airport in plenty of time. Thank goodness. Once I arrived in Scotland, it was easy to get where I was going, though. There is a bus that runs from Edinburgh airport to the city center every ten minutes, and my hostel was across the street from where that bus drops people off. It was awesome. I should also note here that the trip to Scotland was made less stressful because I had made some pre-Scotland preparations that kept me entertained. Yes, I rented Braveheart and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So on the way there I watched Braveheart, immersed myself in the struggle for Scottish freedom, fell in love with William Wallace, and had a grand time overall.

After I finished the last little bit of Braveheart, I fell asleep in my 4-bed hostel in Edinburgh prepared for my tour of the Highlands the next morning. The tour pick up point was only about a block from my hostel too, so it was no problem getting there in the morning. I was in a sixteen-person coach with a driver in a kilt named Alistair from 8:30am until around 8:30pm. The tour went from Edinburgh up through the highlands including Glencoe, then up to Loch Ness, and then returned. We stopped at various places along the way for pictures and to walk around a bit. The Highlands are absolutely stunning. The Lowlands are nice too, with their rolling hills and green fields. But the Highlands, my goodness. The mountains jut up into the sky, black against the grey of the clouds. It looks so barren, but at the same time so alive. There’s not much grass up there. It’s mostly heather, which is brown until it turns purple briefly later in the summer. There is also lots of swampland and bogs. Glencoe was the most stunning part of the trip. The mountains, surrounded by mist and clouds, look so unforgiving and yet I was drawn to them anyway. I know this sounds super melodramatic, but honestly, it was amazing. Actually, the landscape scenes of the Harry Potter movies were shot in Glencoe. It feels very mystical and ancient up there. I LOVED it. By the way, on the way to Glencoe we drove past Doune Castle. Doune Castle was the castle used for Holy Grail and it was fun to see it in real life. As we drove past, I couldn’t help humming “We’re knights of the round table! We dance whenever we’re able…”

This was about the point on the tour, however where it started getting stressful. Alistair was a fine tour guide, but he wasn’t amazing. He told us that he was heading to vacation the next day, and I feel like his mind might have already been there. He would drift in and out of his stories, forgetting where he was in the process. He wasn’t the world’s best story teller and I don’t think he particularly likes being a tour guide. He didn’t do anything wrong, per se, but it just wasn’t amazing. He knew a TON and he told us all sorts of awesome history stuff, but he let it get boring sometimes. The poor guy was having a rough day, though. The coach we were on was brand new, and he was all excited about it at first. Then the check engine light came on about 2 hours into our tour and the van refused to go over 30 miles per hour unless we were going downhill and could pick up some momentum. As it turned out, there was a pipe thing that was loose in the engine that wasn’t allowing us to accelerate. Now, in the Highlands, this is quite a problem since we were supposed to be driving through mountains. Poor Alistair was very stressed out. Eventually we stopped at a garage and a guy ran out and “fixed” it. Everything was gravy for the next 4 hours, and then it wiggled loose again somehow. So you can see how it would have been a rather stressful day for a tour guide who also drives. But even with all of that, it was a fine tour. I learned a ton and got to see a lot of the Highlands.

After we drove through Glencoe, we headed up to Fort Augustus, which is the gateway to Loch Ness. We had the option of taking an hour’s boat cruise on the loch, and even though it was raining, I took advantage of that. Loch Ness is HUGE. We didn’t even come close to making it the whole way, and we were out there for an hour. It’s not the biggest in area or the deepest loch in Scotland, but it does have the most volume. Apparently if you dumped it on England, it would cover the entire country in six inches of water. Crazy! The boat we were on had Sonar equipment and detection software so that we could hunt for the monster…haha. I didn’t see Nessie, but I sure thought that loch is gorgeous. Really, really beautiful place. When we got off the boat, I shopped a bit and then grabbed some food to eat on the coach for lunch.

After Loch Ness, we stopped at a couple of other places before we made it home. One was a memorial to the Scottish Commandos from WWII. The coolest this about this memorial wasn’t even the memorial itself. If you stand with your back to the statues and look out over to the mountains, you can make out an X in the trees because there are trees of a slightly different color green. These were planted as a memorial to Scotland’s patron saint, St. Andrew, and they actually turn brown in the winter. That, I’m sure, makes it even more striking to see this giant X on the hillside. It was really neat. The X is because St. Andrew was crucified, but insisted that he didn’t deserve to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. He asked that they turn the cross sideways, and that is why the Scottish flag has the X on it. After the Commando memorial, we also stopped at a town called Pitlochry which was all but closed down for the evening. Not the most exciting stop. When we finally made it back to Edinburgh it started pouring buckets and hailing violently. This continued for about 10 minutes and then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Apparently that’s just the way it is there. Haha…I walked back to my hostel, had dinner (and a Bulmer’s which is delicious alcoholic cider…yum), strolled around the city center a little bit, watched The Holy Grail, and promptly passed out.

The next morning I was supposed to go on a tour to Loch Lomond and Stirling Castle with the same company I had used the day before. When I got to the pick up point, however, I wasn’t on their list. Apparently their online system has a glitch where it takes people’s money and then puts them on the cancellation list instead of the tour list. I had already paid online before I left for Scotland, so I was sort of distressed. They apologized and helped hook me up with another tour company doing a similar tour that day. They paid for the other tour for me and took me over to The Highland Experience tour company across the street. I’m so happy this happened because the new company provided far and away the better tour. First of all, my tour guide Chris was not wearing a kilt. Now, as much as I enjoy a delicious Scot in a kilt, it does seem a little gimmicky. They only wear them on special occasions, so it’s kind of weird that Alistair was wearing one all day long. Chris’s lack of kilt was indicative of the Highland Experience’s commitment to going past the Scottish stereotypes and really showing people the “real Scotland.” Chris loves Scotland. He’s incredibly proud of his clan and his heritage. He is an amazing storyteller and he did an unbelievable job of keeping his histories from getting boring. He was such a great tour guide. This tour was a bit different from what I had wanted, but I didn’t even mind because he made it so much fun.

My tour on Thursday went from Edinburgh to Glasgow to pick up more people. Then we drove up to Stirling Castle. From there we had a lovely drive that ended with lunch near Loch Lomond, and finally we hit a Scotch whiskey distillery. I was happy that I at least got to see Glasgow. I’m so glad I decided to go to Edinburgh rather than Glasgow. Glasgow is fine, but it feels like any other big city. It looks like it could be pretty shady in parts, and I would not have enjoyed my trip nearly as much if I had been there. An older couple from New Mexico joined us in Glasgow and sat by me. When Chris asked where we were from, I told them Chicago. The couple from New Mexico said that they were originally from there too. Then we started talking and it came out that they were both Kelley grads! Haha…What a small world. Well, they were IU Business grads. It wasn’t called Kelley yet when they were there. So funny, though.

When we got to Stirling Castle I was pretty excited. I really enjoy looking at the old stuff like that. This couple from Michigan invited me to explore with them and we had a really fun time wandering around together. Avery is an anesthesiologist and Karen is a middle school English teacher. They were very funny and we had a good time. There was a free tour in the grounds of Stirling Castle that was actually really good. The tour guide gave a really succinct but full history of the castle and showed us different significant places within the grounds. This was the favorite castle of Mary Queen of Scots. Incidentally, I learned that we really are descended from the Royal Stewarts because Mary Stuart changed the spelling from the ‘u’ to the ‘ew’ because she thought the u was too French sounding. So that’s pretty cool. Haha…Anyway, Stirling Castle was really neat and offered great views of the William Wallace memorial and the countryside in general. The castle is built on a big volcanic rock so the views were quite beautiful. On the way to the castle, Chris told us the first half of the real story of the Wars of Independence (aka Braveheart). Alas, the movie is completely historically inaccurate and most Scots think it’s Hollywood trash. Sad story. I still love it though. Apparently, William Wallace actually left Scotland in quite a lurch and didn’t do a good job. Chris said that he would just drink with his soldiers instead of getting them new equipment and stuff. He got everyone all riled up, but it was really Robert the Bruce who got the job done. Chris was saying that he’s terribly disappointed that the movie wasn’t about Robert the Bruce instead. He told us that the French princess who helped William Wallace in Braveheart was actually only 2 at the time of the wars. Ick. Hahah… Robert the Bruce was actually the selfless hero who just wanted freedom for Scotland and who made famous speeches that sound an awful lot like the ones that Mel Gibson gave in the movie. Oh well…I still love Braveheart.

After Stirling Castle, we headed over to Loch Lomond to have lunch. The drive to the loch was absolutely stunning. We actually had to take a detour because the road Chris normally takes was closed for construction, but I was glad because the countryside there is just beautiful. It made me want to get off the bus and just wander around taking naps whenever I pleased on the grass. And the lambs!! There were all these teeny tiny lambs running around being adorable and I just wanted to run around and play with them. Lambs are the world’s cutest animal; I’m certain of it. The restaurant at which we ate was really good, but the food took a long time and we were unable to spend any amount of time seeing the loch. By the time I finished eating, I only had time to run over to the loch, take a quick look and a couple of pictures and then we had to get back on the coach. The part of the loch we were on wasn’t even really the loch. It was a little harbor section thing that was not very impressive. I was a little disappointed with that stop on the trip, but stuff happens. After our “Loch Lomond”, but really lunch stop we headed on to the Glengoyne scotch distillery. These Scots love their whiskey, that’s for sure. We went through the world’s smelliest tour (…which was of the distillery itself. I am really not a fan of whiskey’s smell or taste.) and got samples to try. I took a tiny sip of mine and hated it so I gave it to Avery who loved it. Haha…

The funniest part of both of the tours was the way that the guides and everyone associated with the companies would make a huge stink about the fact that I was “a Stewart.” When they learned my first name, they made an even bigger deal. It was really funny. “Oh! We have a royal with us today, ladies and gentlemen. Please be polite and watch your backs…” It was really funny. Tiffany asked me if Stewart was like Smith and I didn’t think it was because I hadn’t run into any other Stewarts. But then when I was at a war memorial I saw a list of the dead from just one unit and there were three pages of Stewarts. There were at least 5 Alexander Stewarts and a couple of Malcolm Stewarts. So it is exactly like Smith. There are a million Stewarts. Haha…I’ve never claimed that I don’t like attention, especially from gorgeous Scots. I have to say that I think all those Scots are just wonderful. I would be in big trouble if I’d have studied there. Did I mention that I’m keeping University of Edinburgh on my radar for grad school? Haha… I’ll find me an adorable Scot to marry! Haha…

When we arrived back in Edinburgh, I decided to go on a ghost tour of Edinburgh that I had heard about through the New Europe company. I went back to the hostel first to chill out and eat some dinner and drop some stuff off. When I was in my room, I noticed that one of the girls in my room was just reading in her bed. So I asked her if she wanted to come with me and get scared like little girls together and she agreed. Her name is Aleta. She’s from Australia and she’s maybe Tiff’s age, maybe a little older. I LOVE her. We talked all night and did the tour and had a drink afterwards and it was so fun. I told her to come visit me in Chicago and she said I could come visit her on the Gold Coast of Australia. Yes please!

The ghost tour was pretty fun. It wasn’t that scary, but we really had a fun time. Our tour guide, Grant, was good at telling the creepy stories and he showed us all sorts of stuff that really did seem weird. He told us all about the Scottish beliefs about death and how they believe that your ghost will haunt the world if you don’t have a memorial or if your body is exhumed or anything. There really has been some creepy stuff that’s gone on in Scotland due to the violent past. One really crep one happened during the plague. The government walled in a whole bunch of people living in underground tenements because some of them had contracted the plague. CRAZY. Anyway the ghost tour was really pretty fun and it was really nice to get to know Aleta.

The next morning, I wanted to visit Edinburgh castle and go on the long free New Europe tour to get a little more information about the city itself and make sure I wasn’t missing anything huge. I went to the castle first and happened to show up just as the guard installation ceremony thing was starting. It was really cool. I actually have no idea what the ceremony was called, but this bagpipe band marched out and then this formation of kilt-clad soldiers marched out in formation. Then these two officers marched around and inspected the soldiers. It was funny because one of the inspecting officers’ socks had fallen down….haha…Anyway, the castle itself was really cool inside. It was also built on top of a big volcanic rock like Stirling. There’s a beautiful war memorial built at the top to all the fallen Scots from every war on record. There are books for each regiment with the names of each person and it’s really striking. I’m an emotional type, obviously, but it definitely got to me. The Honors of Scotland are there too. It’s the sword and crown of Scotland including the Stone of Destiny. Pretty neat. All the old Scottish kings were crowned on it and then the British stole it. It was given back in the 90’s.

After the castle, I went on the free tour and it was awesome. Grant, the same guy from the ghost tour from the night before, was the tour guide and he was even better at the regular tour. It was actually a three-hour tour, but it was awesome the whole time. Grant told lots of really good stories and showed us all the important stuff. There was a nice guy on the tour with whom I went to St. Giles Cathedral after the tour. We wanted to see the angel playing the bagpipes that Grant had told us about. After that, we went to a pub to have dinner. I finally tried haggis. I was really afraid to do it because I know what’s in it, but thank goodness I did it because it’s one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Haha…bizarre.

Getting back from Edinburgh was a huge problem. Using the Dusseldorf airport is really difficult to do because there's not a train that goes near it. So I had to go from the airport to Kevelaer because the bus to Venlo wasn't there. Then I had to get on a train that would hopefully get me to Maastricht. But the ticket machine was broken, so I had to just guess and get on a train (by this time it was almost 11pm and so I needed to guess right or the trains would stop running). So I guessed and got on the next train because it was headed in somewhat the right direction. When I tried to buy my ticket to Maastricht from the ticket guy on the train, he tried and tried for like 15 minutes to figure out where to send me but there was no way to get me home. So eventually I had him just sell me a ticket to Cologne where I knew there was a Hotel Ibis in the train station that I could hopefully sleep in. Unfortunately, the Hotel Ibis was all booked up, so I walked in what I thought was the direction of the hostel I used when I stayed in Cologne. Unfortunately, I was exhausted and it was almost 1:30 am by this time and I just wanted to sleep. So I stopped in the next hotel I passed and booked a room for the night and fell asleep. I slept really well, but it sucks SO bad that I had to do that. I made it back to Maastricht the next day without incident even though it took FOREVER.

Anyway, I LOVE Scotland and I do believe that it is first on my list of places to which I want to return as soon as possible. I would like to go back and spend like 10 days. I want to do some of the tourist stuff more thoroughly, but I really want to do a bunch of outdoorsy-type stuff. I would love to hike the Highland Way, which is a 95 mile trail through the Highlands. I think that would be amazing, but I don’t know who I’d do it with. We’ll see. I also think it would be really fun to go on a day long or two day long trip into the Highlands on horseback. Not that I ride horses at all, but for some reason I think it would be amazing to do that. I really can’t wait to go back to Scotland. I was really sad when I was leaving and I honestly feel like Scotland could easily feel like home, Edinburgh in particular. It’s an absolutely incredible place.

It's good to be the king...

15-17 May 2009

Madrid is awesome!!!! I really wasn’t excited about this trip because I’ve been traveling so much lately that I was burning out. It also didn’t help that I had a paper due the following Tuesday in addition to a group project looming. It also had to do with my dread of having to make the trek to the dreaded Charleroi airport again. Caitlin booked the tickets going out of that miserable airport of bad memories for me for a 9am flight going out. I was pretty sure we were going to have to sleep in Charleroi the night before in order to make it to the flight on time because of all the train connections we needed. Caitlin and I both were against doing that though, so we decided to take the risk and try to make it in the morning. Luck was definitely on our side. I completely thought we would be back in our beds in Maastricht by noon, but we somehow talked our way onto a speedtrain and then found a cab to take us to the airport. It was amazing.

We made it to Madrid in one piece (always a question on Ryanair) and set out to find our hostel. We successfully navigated our way to the correct metro stop and after minimal trouble, found our hostel. It wasn’t marked, so we just had to look at the buzzer names to find it. It was okay, though. Our hostel, the University Club, was located in the Chueca district of Madrid because there were no other hostels available in the city because of the Fiestas de San Isidro which started the day we arrived. As it turned out, though, our hostel was incredibly charming. The lady who runs it speaks absolutely no English, so we had to guess at what she was telling us when we checked in, but we figured it out eventually.

We headed out from the hostel in the direction of a market we had heard about called El Rastro. It’s basically a really big flea market where all these vendors sell all sorts of unique stuff. It runs for about 3 blocks at the south end of the city, and we were really stoked to get there. On the walk there, we saw a parade of people celebrating the festival, playing instruments, dancing and wearing beautiful traditional costumes. It sort of reminded me of the fasching parades we saw in Germany, only more sedate. After we saw the parade, we found a smaller market going on in a square on the way to El Rastro. We shopped around there a bit and found a couple of neat items like this star light thing that I am stoked to put in my room.

Finally, we made it to El Rastro around 2:20. Unfortunately, the market closes at 3 and everyone was already packing all of their stuff up. So we didn’t get much shopping time in, but we definitely got the feel for the place. We also learned that very few people in Spain speak English. It was one of the only times when I’ve had a hard time communicating. There is usually someone around who can help, but in Spain we were forced to function on my VERY limited Spanish vocabulary. (Hola. Donde ____?? No habla Espanol.) It was an adventure, though. Lots of fun.

After El Rastro, we decided to wander until we found some touristy stuff. We ran right into the most incredible church, the Cathedral de la Almudena. This church was one of the coolest I’ve seen. In structure, it’s very similar to the rest of the churches I’ve seen, but the paintings and all the decorations inside were just incredible. The paintings were all incredibly vibrant colors depicting bible scenes painted in interesting style. It made the whole church feel jubilant. There’s no other word for it. That is a church in which you can worship. It’s happy in there. There was also really ornate decoration all over besides the bright colors. Oh! And they had electric candles that you would “light” in the chapels. You know, like when you light a candle because you’re praying for someone or something. In this church, though, they didn’t want real fire so you put in your coin and a candle light pops on. Crazy!

Next door to the Cathedral was the Palacio Real. It’s the most stunning palace. Honestly, it reminded me of Versailles, and Versailles is supposed to be the most amazing palace there is. Apparently the Palacio Real was built to dwarf all other palaces, and I must say that it was stunning from the outside. Unfortunately, it was closed to visitors because of the holiday, but it was still great to see it.

After that, we wandered for a little bit, then tried to find a tourist office where we could get a better map and a better idea of what we should be doing in the city. The lady in the tourist office spoke English (!!!) and gave us some great information about what we should see while we were there. She even told us that because of the festival there were bullfights every night. We were under the impression that they were only on Sundays, and we were upset that we wouldn’t get to see one. Because of the festival, they were fighting every night for a month.

We decided to go to an internet café that was nearby to try to see if we could score some bullfight tickets. Unfortunately they didn’t even have English on the website, so we couldn’t accomplish anything. We grabbed some dinner, and then headed over to the bullfighting arena, the Plaza de Ventas. It looked an awful lot like the Colleseum. We tried to buy tickets, but the only ones for sale were for like 50 euro and we didn’t want to see violence that badly. Just as we were about to give up, this really shady looking older guy came up to us and asked us if we needed two tickets. At least, I think that’s what he was asking us since he was speaking rapid Spanish. We said yes, and then he shadily looked around for the cops and made us follow him to a different spot. We got him to show us the tickets and then we paid him 20 euro each for tickets that cost 4.50 each when bought them. We were seated all the way at the top of the arena, and I thank my lucky stars for that. I am not sure I would have been able to stand the bullfight much closer than that. It is terribly violent. I mean, I knew it would be, but it’s different when you actually see it. I would never presume to say they shouldn’t do it, but I don’t plan on seeing another bullfight any time in the near future. The way it works is this. They have the bull come out and there are like 8 junior matadors that just play with it and tick it off for a while. They don’t do anything except get it to run around and rile it up a bit. Then these two dudes on horse back come in (I think they’re called Lancers) with these long spear type things and they stab the bull in the spine to make its head stay down for the remainder of the fight so the main matador can get the right angle for the kill. Then the junior matador guys come out again and poke the bull with these hooky thingies that get it all riled up again. Those are just surface wounds to hurt it, but not really cause any damage. At that point, the main matador comes out to much fanfare and dances around all effeminately with the cape thing and starts playing with the bull. That guy makes the bull run around and around until finally he gets bored and stabs it between the shoulder blades with his sword. At that point, the junior matadors come out again and drive it crazy until it collapses. When it collapses, they stab it in the head a few times to make sure it’s dead and then it’s all over and these horse guys come out and drag the bull’s body out to more fanfare. If the main matador was particularly good, the crowd waves white handkerchiefs to petition the judges to give the matador the bull’s ear or tail depending on how good he was. Repeat that process about 10 times, and you have a bullfight. Frankly, it’s pretty disgusting. I’m glad I went though. I almost asked Caitlin if we could leave after the first fight, though, because it got really messy. The bull attacked the horse of the lancer and knocked it to the ground twice. The horse was bleeding so badly and I was kind of upset about it, but the horse got up and walked out of the arena and it was okay, I guess. Then, the bull ended up attacking the main matador during the final stage and throwing him into the air and stabbing a big old gash in his leg. Not pretty. The matador ended up being able to still kill the bull in the end, but it was SCARY! And I thought that if all the fights were going to be like that, I didn’t want to stay for another two hours. It was too violent. But the rest of the fights went like clockwork just the way they were supposed to go. The bulls really have no chance at all. It’s like 15 dudes versus 1 bull when it comes down to it. Anyway, after the bullfight, Caitlin and I walked back to our hostel and passed out. We had been up early and we were exhausted.

The next day we went straight back to the bullfighting arena because we had heard there was a museum about the fighting there. They hold crazy hours there in Madrid and the museum was already closed by the time we got there, so we decided to see if we could find a New Europe walking tour of Madrid. So we went to an internet café again. Unfortunately, New Europe has discontinued their Madrid tour. So we decided to go to Plaza Mayor, where we knew there was a tourist office offering walking tours. We ended up taking a tour with a lovely lady named Isabella that focused on the contributions of the Bourbon Dynasty within Madrid. The Bourbon Dynasty is one of the more recent ones and they changed a lot of the style in architecture within the city. It was a very interesting tour.

After our tour, we wanted to go and see the botanical gardens while we waited for the free opening hours at the Museo del Prado to start. The botanical gardens were nice, but once again I realize that Keukenhof has really ruined me for all gardens. I just won’t be impressed very easily ever again. Haha! After we took a tour around the botanical garden, we went back to the Museo del Prado and laid in the grass for a half an hour or so to enjoy the sun and relax a bit. The weather in Madrid is really fabulous. In the sun, it’s incredibly hot but if you get in the shade it’s almost too cold. It’s amazing. I LOVED it. Around 6:30, we went into the museum. The Museo del Prado is an art museum and it’s quite impressive. We saw some Rembrandts and some other famous artists whose names escape me at the moment. I am terrible at remembering what I see in art museums. I really enjoy it while I’m there, but the details are always impossible for me to remember. There was a good stretch in there, though, that was all paintings depicting different ancient myths and I was so proud of myself for remembering most of the stories’ details. Caitlin was even interested in the stories and asked me to tell her what I could remember. It was fun. Hahah…I love classical mythology. What a dork!

After the museum, we headed back to our hostel to tell our landlady that we would be checking out that night. We also had tickets to see a flamenco show just around the corner from our hostel. We got to the show just in time, and spent the next hour and a half in awe of the passion of these dancers. There were probably 10 girls and 5 guys dancing and they were incredible. The show did a mix between ballet and flamenco; some dances were one style, some the other, some a mixture. It was really interesting. More importantly it was HOT. The guys were so masculine and strong and talented and it was almost too much to bear. The girls were amazing too. There was one girl who was so beautiful it was almost impossible. The coolest thing was that these girls were real women. They were attractive and thin and everything, but they had curves and they weren’t rails. It was just wonderful. I want to take a Spanish dancing class because that is some sexy stuff and I want to learn to do it. Haha…

After the show, we walked around trying to find either some good looking tapas or some good looking paella. We were having a bit of trouble finding either because neither of us speaks Spanish and we were never sure what we were looking at on the menu. Eventually we asked a man on the street who was trying to get people into a bar where we should go and he sent us into the bar to ask his friend. His friend told us to go to a place around the corner called La Barracas and we set off to find it. Let me tell you something, that place was amazing. We ordered a bottle of sangria to split (YUM) and a paella (rice with stuff mixed in it) with shrimp, pork, chicken, and mussels. We also had a bruschetta type appetizer and bread with this amazing garlic/sour cream/butter stuff. Basically, it was as good as that lobster pasta I had in Milan that I say is my best meal in Europe. La Barraca may have overtaken the lobster pasta…I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. It was amazing though.

After dinner (it was about 1230 am by the time we left the restaurant—they eat incredibly late over there) we ran back to the hostel, grabbed our bags and jumped on the metro to get to the airport where we were going to have to sleep because our flight out was at 615 am and the metro doesn’t run that early. We did fine until the last metro line when we blew it rushing and got on the right line going the wrong direction and ended up at the end of the line on the wrong end as the metro closed for the night. BUMMER. Hahah…we’re lame. So we had to take a cab to the airport, but luckily we found one easily enough. Sleeping in the airport sucked majorly, but it made it very easy to sleep on the plane/bus/train that we were on later so the trip home went really fast. Hahah…

Madrid was incredible. I really really really like Spain. The people we met would go out of their way to help us in a way that I haven’t really experienced elsewhere. We also saw a lot of homeless people, and even ended up in the middle of a police chase at one point when this cop on a moped was chasing a pickpocketer. The bad guy tried to hide behind Caitlin and me as the cop zoomed around to get him….haha… But the people in Madrid were amazing. Even though we didn’t speak Spanish (que hora metro close-o?) the people were patient and kind with us and I just love it there.

I leave for Scotland tomorrow. It should be a riot. I’m doing the tour thing again, so it’s guaranteed (almost) to be great. ☺

Well, my name is Jim, but most people call me... Jim.

7-10 May 2009

So this weekend I took my second big train trip; I went to Copenhagen with Michelle. We left Thursday evening around 7pm after my International Marketing class. It was the exact same train schedule as my trip to Prague, so it felt pretty familiar. We took the bus to Aachen, the train to Cologne, and then got on the overnight all the way to Copenhagen. The trip went pretty smoothly because we were alone for the first couple of hours. A guy came in then and so I slept on the floor until he got off a few hours later.

When we made it to Copenhagen, we went to find my friend Mary McConnell who was letting us stay with her in her host family’s house. We ran into a little trouble because my cell phone was low on minutes and so I couldn’t call her. We finally found each other through a slew of text messages at the train station near her house. We dropped our stuff off at her host family’s house (Adorable family, cute little one-year-old daughter named Lotus. It really made me miss Harper) and headed out into the city to see some sights.

We decided to go and see the Little Mermaid before anything else. It’s the famous statue of Hans Christian Anderson’s little mermaid. We had kind of a hard time finding it. The statue is in the water at the north end of this really beautiful park shaped like a star. We walked through the park to get to it, but we got a little turned around. I thought I saw it at one point and we walked toward this statue we saw in some water. Once we got to it, we realized that it wasn’t the real one, but a modern interpretation of the original. Very strange, actually. The real statue, which we found eventually after a lot more wandering, is really lovely though. It’s on a rock just in the water by this harbor. I really liked it. It was lucky that we were there when we were because Mary told us that the statue is actually going to be moving to China temporarily for an exhibition there in June. I’m glad I got to see it.


After we saw the statue, we walked to the Amalienborg Palace where the royal family lives. It’s a neat square with similar looking buildings around it where the royals live and a statue in the center. There’s also a really ornate Lutheran church just off the square. There was actually a movie being shot in the square when we were there. There were all these actors in period costumes walking around. It was fun to see that. I did not, however, recognize any of the actors. Sad story.

After we looked around the square and the church, we went back to the Central train station to grab a quick bite to eat and get on the train that goes to Sweden over the water. The bridge is called the Oresundsbron. It’s five miles long and goes right over the water into Sweden. Pretty neat. As we went over the bridge, I looked out and noticed that there were a whole bunch of the modern windmills in the water. It was a really cool sight. When we got to Malmo, Sweden we just wandered around for a bit and explored the city. We looked around the main square with the town hall and the church. We walked over to the beach side of the city and looked out over the water and saw Sweden’s tallest building. After that, we headed back to Copenhagen. We got a little nervous because we didn’t have our passports with us. Luckily, there was no passport control on either end. Wouldn’t that have been fun if we’d gotten stuck in Sweden? Haha…

When we got back to Copenhagen, we walked down the Stroget. It’s the longest shopping street in Europe. It reminded me a lot of Maastricht down by the shops. Unfortunately, we were there on National Prayer day and so everything was closed. During this walk, we were desperately trying to find a restaurant that would give us some food for less than 20 bucks per person. Copenhagen is outrageously expensive. OUTRAGEOUS. We almost ate at this Chinese buffet that was probably the worst I’ve ever seen. It was 15 dollars a plate, and that was one of the cheapest places we found. That didn’t include drinks, which were another 4 bucks each. Finally we went to this little Mexican burrito bar place where we had chicken burritos for about 13 dollars. Crazy.

After dinner, we headed back to Mary’s house to freshen up before we went out. Mary had to study all weekend, but she took us out that night. She took us to a place where you paid about 11 dollars for all you can drink beer for two hours. It was a crazy night. I don’t usually drink beer, but if I wanted to drink for less than a million dollars it would have to be that. We had a LOT of fun. A whole bunch of people from Kelley studies in Copenhagen with Mary. It was really fun to see all those people I know from school. It made me miss Bloomington pretty badly. We had a really fun night, though. And we made it home, too!

Saturday, we slept off our fun night and then said goodbye to Mary and her host family. We decided to spend the day in Tivoli Gardens, a theme park in the middle of Copenhagen. It’s really a lovely, fairy tale place. There are stages where they do pantomime shows and rides that are old school, but fun. I went on the world’s tallest swing ride. It was pretty scary, actually. It was really high and when the wind would blow the swings would catch and spin around in a rather terrifying way. Haha…I survived, though. There was also a Giant Drop-type ride that was really fun. I went on one of the coasters, which was a lot like the Whizzer at Great America. It was pretty fun. We decided to leave around 5, but stopped in the bathroom first. I got locked into my stall and couldn’t get out. The lock was turning on my end, but not catching so I was just stuck in there. Haha! They had to go and get a groundskeeper to let me out of the bathroom stall. It was pretty funny.

We grabbed some food, and jumped on our train. We had reserved just regular seats for the ride back like we usually do. When we got to our wagon, though, it was a couchette train instead of a sitting car. Couchette cars are basically regular cabins but instead of six seats, there are six bunks (three on each side) stacked up. They usually cost 30 euro to reserve, but there was something wrong with the sitting car so we got them for free! Score! We made it back to Maastricht without incident. The whole trip was really smooth. Next weekend I’m going to Spain with Caitlin. Should be fun!

"Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one.

28 April – 2 May 2009

London was one of the places that I have desperately wanted to visit for years and years and years. Basically since I became aware that other countries existed, and I think I first realized that when Princess Diana died. Shortly thereafter I read Harry Potter, and it was all over. I have wanted to visit London since then. I had gotten kind of nervous since I’d been here, though, that I wouldn’t like it as well as I had been liking other places. I guess I was just thinking that if my two favorite places so far have been Pompeii and Prague, there was no way that I would enjoy London any more than the other huge cities I’d visited. I thought maybe it would be too metropolitan, too much like the US, and just not one of the places that would stand out as a favorite. In retrospect, I think that maybe I was trying to keep my expectations low in case it wasn’t what I had always hoped it would be. I was, happily, completely WRONG. London was awesome times a million.

Betsy and I took the EuroStar train from Brussels to London via the “Chunnel.” I was really stoked because I thought it would be really neat to travel under a giant body of water. It was actually not as exciting as I thought it would be. On the way there, it was dark outside anyway so it wasn’t all that different. On the way back, I passed out and slept the whole way. There was a lot of ear popping, but otherwise it was just like riding in any other train. Still pretty neat though, when I think about what that train really does. We made it to London around 9, and went off in search of Jen Payen’s (Abbott’s) apartment. She had given me really great instructions and we found her place with no trouble. Jen and Jassen are incredible and they let us stay in their spare bedroom in a real bed in a real house where we could leave our stuff without worrying that someone would steal it! Amazing! Seriously, though, it was SO nice to be able to have a friend to stay with who knows the city and everything. She was a godsend this week.

Wednesday morning we got up early to go and meet our bus tour group and have “The Total London Experience.” We jumped on one of those fancy coach busses and away we went. First off, we just tooled around the city in the coach while Margot, our tour guide, told us about different London stuff. We stopped at Westminster Abbey just to take pictures outside and then got back on the bus again to head for the Household Cavalry Museum where we would also get to see the changing of the guard. The Cavalry was pretty neat. It’s actually the official entrance to Buckingham Palace, so the guards are supposed to be the “best.” In the museum I learned that being the “best” meant that they paid the most money for their commission. So that’s interesting. The changing of the guard was neat. The old guards lined up on their horses and yelled a bunch of commands I couldn’t understand. Then the one dude on the white horse with the trumpet rode out and announced the approach of the fresh set of guards (They’re the Life Guards or the Blues and Royals regiments. Each day it switches.) When the new set arrived, they yelled some more unintelligible commands and then it was over. Actually, it was terribly anticlimactic, but it was AMAZING to watch these ancient traditions in action. Apparently every day at 4pm there is an inspection at the household cavalry to make sure the soldiers aren’t drunk because Queen Victoria found them drunk at their posts once and it ticked her off. It was pretty neat. Anyway, so we jumped back on the bus and headed for Covent Garden where most of the group was eating lunch together at this pub where they had all prepaid. Betsy and I decided not to go in on the group lunch that day because we figured we could find something cheaper. We found the cutest little pub where we got hot roast beef sandwiches that were TO DIE FOR for only 5 pounds. It was a huge sandwich, a salad, and some chips too. Great deal. After we ate, we walked to the opera house where I had to have my picture taken. If you recall, Eliza Doolittle met Henry Higgins outside the opera house (“You’re a disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns!!”). Naturally I needed to take a picture. The columns don’t actually go all the way to the street level, though, so that was sort of a bummer. I also got to see the theatre where Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison premiered My Fair Lady. That was pretty neat too. We also walked around the market that’s in Covent Garden and I bought tickets for A Little Night Music for that night from a discount ticket booth place. My ticket was for the dress circle, row E, and was very reasonably priced. I was stoked.

After lunch and wandering around Covent Garden for a bit, we hopped back on the coach to head to St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London. St. Paul’s Cathedral was really amazing. It’s the second biggest dome on a church (St. Peter’s in the Vatican is the only one that’s bigger). Queen Victoria had the place decked out with mosaics when she was queen and it’s just breathtaking in there. Really. Plus, tons of really famous people are buried in the crypts. It’s an amazing place. I was super excited about seeing the Tower because so much of the action in my silly Phillipa Gregory books about the Tudors happens in the Tower. It’s really not just a tower, but a whole castle. And even though all those people were imprisoned in there, there’s actually no prison within the wall. There are just houses in there. The people who were imprisoned just weren’t allowed to leave, they had all the comforts of home with them including families and furniture. We saw the crown jewels which, honestly, were almost impossible to believe. I mean, I’m talking about a 530 carat diamond in a scepter. That’s a big diamond! It’s really hard to believe that it’s real and that it’s right in front of you. The jewels were so impressive. I wish we could have taken pictures in there. After the jewel house, we went over to the Tower Green where Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were granted their private executions. It’s a much smaller area than I expected it to be. They just erected a lovely memorial to the people who were executed there. It’s small and understated and just perfect for the area. It’s sort of a glass pillow with some nice words around it in the memory of those who’d been killed there. There was also an exhibition going on called “Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill” where they displayed his armor from the beginning to the end. He really was a big old dude by the end. Ick. Finally, we got to go on this exclusive tour with a Yeoman, or Beefeater, guard. The Yeoman traditionally were the king’s guards who were in the Tower. Now they’re highly decorated soldiers from the British service units who’ve served at least 20 some years. Our guide was really funny and he took us on a walk around the tower through what used to be the moat. He told us about the tower, how it was built, and different facts about it. He also told us all about life inside the tower (Yeoman live in the tower until they’re 65 when they have to leave) and answered any questions that anyone had. It was really, really neat.

When we left the tower, we went on a boat tour down the Thames. (incidentally, there was an old lady from Georgia on our tour who wasn’t all there who kept loudly asking about the Thames river, but pronouncing the “TH” sound at the beginning. She was almost comically ignorant of all things London and constantly made me blush from embarrassment with the questions she would ask. It was actually kind of funny in a sad way.) The boat tour guide was really funny and terribly adorable, so that was a ton of fun for me. The boat tour took us back to our coach, which then took us to the London Eye. The Eye was supposed to end our tour, but I realized that if I went on the big wheel, I would miss my play. So I begged the people at the ticket counter to switch my ticket to Friday and they did, thank goodness. I would have hated to have wasted the money that I paid in my tour ticket that was supposed to be for the Eye. Anyway, I switched my ticket and set off for the Garrick Theatre where A Little Night Music would be held. I had a fantastic seat, I made friends with the ushers, and it was Sondheim. It was the recipe for a perfect evening! The girl playing Anne, the young lead, was actually the runner up in a TV show in Britain called “I would do Anything.” It’s like American Idol, but for Broadway. If they bring it to the States, I will audition. Can you imagine??? My friends, the ushers, told me that they thought it was in production for the US. Awesome.

Thursday morning we also had to get up early in order to catch our coach for our second tour. We had a new tour guide today named Tony who was very typically British, very funny, and didn’t take crap from anyone. We started our day by heading out to Windsor Castle. I think Tony told us that every single monarch of England has lived there. Isn’t that incredible? We went through the state rooms where the queen entertains guests and then we saw Queen Mary’s elaborate dollhouse. It’s a replica of Buckingham Palace, and it’s really amazing. There are so many little accessory pieces on the inside and the outside. It must have been so fun for her to play with as a little girl. I popped into St George’s chapel briefly before the changing of the guard took place. Almost all the monarchs are buried in this chapel. That is so cool. I think Tony said that only 2 were buried outside of it. The changing of the guard was pretty neat. The soldier band marched in, played a bunch of songs, and then the old guards and the band marched out. Again, the traditions are just really neat to see. After Windsor Castle, we headed to Stonehenge! Tony told us that the Beaker People built it 5000 years ago and that it was probably used to tell what time of the year it was as well as a site for the burial of important people in the tribe. Honestly, I didn’t know we knew that much about it. I was under the impression that it was all a big mystery. Shows how much I know, I guess. Haha…It was really neat to see Stonehenge though. It’s terribly big, set in the middle of this field where there are sheep grazing and stuff, and it’s awfully impressive. It’s also a pretty low key tourist thing. There isn’t anything else around it besides the ticket office and the tiny gift shop. Yet still, there’s a Druid priest who protests outside of the entrance. He thinks that Stonehenge should be returned to the free countryside and that no one should have to pay to see it. He looked a little crazy, but apparently he’s very nice. After Stonehenge, we jumped back on the bus to have our lunch at a pub near the rocks. The food was a delicious roast beef thing with Yorkshire pudding and veggies. YUM. When we got back on the bus we headed for Bath, the ancient Roman spa city centered on the hot spring there. The Roman ruins there are quite incredible. Most of the actual main bath is still intact, and the museum there is really informative and interesting. The audio guide was one of the best I’ve ever used. The commentaries were really interesting and the museum itself was fairly interactive. They even had a lady dressed up Connor Prairie style walking around talking to people. Her name was Flavia and she talked to me all about her hairpiece and my hairpiece and how she’d met her husband who worked for the government and all this stuff. It was really fun. When we finished in the museum we had about 45 minutes to wander around Bath before our coach was leaving, but unfortunately most of the shops were closed by then. We did manage to make it into the abbey in Bath before it closed, though. It was quite lovely. They call it the lantern because it’s so light inside thanks to the large number of plain glass windows. I really prefer a church with a lot of light. It seems more cheery and worshipful to me. There was an almost three hour bus ride back to London from Bath. Obviously, I slept most of the way. Betsy and I had dinner in a Patisserie when we got back (it was 8:30 by this time) and then headed back to Jen’s house to get some rest.

Friday Betsy and I decided to do our own things since we each had things that we wanted to see. When we split up, I first headed for the big bookstore, Waterstone’s on Piccadilly Circus. Since I’m going to Scotland in a couple of weeks, I wanted to buy a guidebook that would help me plan my trip before I got there. I bought the book and then wandered down toward where I thought Abbey Road Studios was. I was I the complete wrong corner of the city, so I jumped on the tube and headed for the right place after asking directions from a friendly Apple Store employee. (By the way, the tube is awesome. It’s totally easy to navigate and it makes it so fast to get around the HUGE city.) When I finally got off the Jubilee line at St John’s Wood, I could feel the electricity flying around. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but I was SO excited to see Abbey Road. When I got to the studio and the famous crossing, I just kind of stared for a while. It was awfully surreal. Then I snapped a bunch of pictures of the building, had some other Beatles fanatic snap my pictures walking across the crossing, and headed out. I was reluctant to leave, but there wasn’t anything else to do. Hahaha… From Abbey Road, I headed to the Globe Theatre. It’s a replica of historians’ best guess of what the Globe looked like in Shakespeare’s day. It’s actually about 150 yards from where the real Globe was when it burned down. There is a large exhibition on the inside that talks about the plays, Shakespeare’s life, how the plays are produced, etc. They have a bunch of interactive exhibits in there too where you can read a scene with a Globe actor and stuff with this recording booth they have. It was pretty neat. After I went through the exhibition, I went on the tour of the theatre itself. It’s open to the sky, with bench seating, and the stage in the front and middle. The theatre holds 1500, but something like 400 of those people have to stand for the duration of the show in the middle area under the hole in the roof. It feels very authentic in there. There were actually actors on stage rehearsing a new show when we were on our tour. It was neat because we got to watch the rehearsal for probably 20 minutes or so. It was SO cool. When I left the Globe, I went next door to the Tate Modern. The Tate Modern is a contemporary art museum with 7 floors of exhibits. It’s amazing and it’s free to get in! Awesome. They had some really amazing works: one huge Monet springs to mind. There were also some really strange works that were more disturbing that interesting. Haha…That’s why modern art is so fun. When I left the Tate Modern, I walked in the direction of the London Eye because that was my next scheduled stop. It was a really nice walk by the Thames. Under the Waterloo Bridge there was a second hand book expo thing going on where people had laid out hundreds of old books for sale. It was really neat. As I kept walking toward the Eye, there were a bunch of street performers lining the walk. They weren’t like the street performers in Amsterdam, though, who just stood around in silly costumes. They were really good, many of them. It was a nice atmosphere. I finally made it to the Eye and took my flight on the big wheel. The views are incredible from up there, but it’s not what I would call exciting. It moves so slowly that I couldn’t even tell we were moving most of the time. It takes a full 35 minutes to go all the way around, too. It was neat, though. The capsules are made so that they’re glass almost all the way around in order to provide the best views. It was beautiful. After the Eye, I met up with Jen for dinner and then we walked around for a bit. She is really so fantastic. I had a great time talking to her and relaxing. After dinner, I had to head over to the Hammersmith Apollo venue because Marissa Stark, her roommate Cat, and I were all meeting there for a concert of one of Marissa’s favorite bands. As it turns out, it’s also the favorite band of the British pre-teen crowd and they had all shown up. I felt like I was at a New Kids on the Block concert. These girls had painted shirts and wore crazy makeup and the screaming, oh the screaming. I still don’t think I’m hearing properly after spending an evening in an enclosed space with 5000 screaming 12 year olds. It was fun though. The guy who got second place in American Idol last season, David Archuleta, was the opener. That was neat to see, and the band was pretty good. I had a good time, but I was getting tired, so I left before it ended. I also didn’t want to end up on the underground with 5000 twelve year olds.

Saturday I actually slept for a normal number of hours, which felt awfully good. When I woke up, I packed up my stuff and headed for King’s Cross Station, from where our train would depart. I wanted to drop off my backpack so I could explore freely for the few hours I had left in the city. While I was at the station, though, I found something magnificent. They actually built a platform 9 ¾ wall in the station!!! I, of course, took pictures of it and with it. It was awesome. From there, I went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. Since I’d already seen two changings of the guard, I wasn’t too excited. I felt like I should see it at the palace, though. There were SO many people; it was ridiculous. It was neat to be there though. Tony the tour guide had told us that the best place to be for the ceremony was on the mall leading up to the palace because then one could see them marching. So I stood on the mall for a while and watched them march in. Then I walked up to the gate and watched from 8 people back for a while (no joke…it was that full by the gates). After that, I just walked around the big half circle in front of the palace listening to the music the band was playing. At one point, they played the theme from Indiana Jones, which I found amusing. After the changing of the guard, I walked to Westminster Abbey because I felt like I should go in before I left. Unfortunately, it was 9 pounds to get in with the student discount! I decided that it wasn’t worth that much to me, and I walked on. I walked around the Houses of Parliament where Big Ben is and took some pictures. Incidentally, Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the tower and is not the name of the clock. Isn’t that interesting? By this point, it was time for me to head back to catch our train back to Maastricht. I stopped and grabbed some food and then slept the entire train ride back. Our journey back was smooth as can be.

The London trip was incredibly successful. First of all, nothing was stolen. Hooray for me. I was able to see almost everything I wanted to see in London. I didn’t make it to Fleet Street, but I’ll be back at some point I’m sure. The weather was unbelievable. It was a bit drizzly on Thursday, but it wasn’t even that bad. The rest of the days we were there it was brilliantly sunny and warm outside. It was awesome! I got a pretty good amount of sun while I was there. Finally, despite the media craze, I actually did NOT contract the Swine Flu while traveling. All in all, I absolutely think I could live in London. Other cities I think are great for vacationing and I had fabulous trips there (Pompeii, Rome, Prague, etc.) but London is the first place that I’ve felt I could actually live and be comfortable and happy for a long period of time. That’s definitely something to remember, I think. Wouldn’t it be great if I could land a job for a couple of years in London??

Next weekend we’re heading to Denmark and Sweden where I will get to stay with the lovely Mary McConnell. Looks like it’ll be crazy fun!! ☺