Amsterdam

We (btw, "we" refers to Nora and I, we planned, and executed, this trip together) arrived in Amsterdam at night, which was a mistake, and also very appropriate. I have mixed feelings about Amsterdam. It was the kind of place (this also includes Barcelona) where I could see how people could have a much better experience than I did. I found the place to be too shady for me to stomach.

As we walked around Amsterdam we saw many a sex shop. I've never seen so many vibrators in my entire life. And of course there were a lot of coffee shops, which is where they sell pot. We met this guy in our hostel who knows some people at WashU, and he went to a coffee shop and I'm pretty sure he got sold a fake space cake and a joint that smelled overwhelmingly like basil. So, I was a little wary of the coffee shops and did not participate in the typical Amsterdam experience.

We did, however, find the red light district. In fact, our hostel was located in a mini red light district. I didn't realize that the sex workers actually stand in windows, and they are super close to you as you pass by. Nora couldn't look at them, but I could. And they looked unhappy and bored. Occasionally we saw them texting. I also saw a couple of men walk out of the houses, and they looked really unhappy. One guy looked like he was about to cry. Before seeing it, I had imagined that legalized prostitution would take some of the sexist, oppressiveness out of it. It didn't. Of course I know that people can choose to be sex workers and that it is a personal choice of what to do with your own body, but a lot of what I saw was just depressing.

In fact, Amsterdam was the place where I experienced the most sexism and creepiness of any place we went. Well, that leads into my creepy hostel stories. Not one, or two but three creepy hostel stories.

Sketchy story number 1.

It all begins when Nora and I get back from walking around Amsterdam at night. Since I thought the Dam was a sketch place to begin with, I was already feeling weird, and then we walk in and see basically porn on the TV in the room. I didn't even know that there was a TV, and suddenly there were images of buxom blonds rubbing themselves and asking the viewer to call a sex line. So that was weird. Then we keep walking into the room and find that one of our roommates was incredibly high. He didn't even register that we had walked in, let alone change the channel. He just continued slowly eating a bag of chips.

Nora and I flipped out and so we ran downstairs to tell the management that there was a weirdo in our room, and first thing the hotel guy said was, "is he big?" We responded that he was medium sized, and so he said that we should just take him if he gives us problems. He told us to be "two strong women." He was not reassuring. So we went back and druggie boy gave Nora the remote so she turned off the porn and he went to sleep. He occasionally laughed in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming about the look on our faces when we walked in and saw the TV.

Sketchy story number 2.

The morning we left for Berlin, we get up to pack our things and head to the train station. I should start by saying that Scottish people had taken over Amsterdam the weekend we were there. They all descended for a football game. They mostly wore kilts, and carried Scottish flags and bagpipes. At one point, I looked around and realized that 50% of the people we could see were wearing kilts. At least one of the guys in our room was Scottish. I know this because his kilt was on the ground. Well, I guess he wore his kilt the traditional way (without underwear) and instead of putting pajamas on, he just took it off and went to bed. In the morning we awake to find him completely naked. And mind you, this room has five other people staying in it--two of them female. And the covers weren't covering anything. So we had to try and pack up our stuff while dealing with a naked Scotsman in our face. It was not pleasant.

Sketchy story number three.

This is a quickie. At one point Nora needed a nap and so I decided to write in my journal in the hostel lobby. My company for the evening was a middle aged lady who looked a lot like my Grandma did when she was middle aged. She had purchased a huge spread of McDonald's and laid it all out, but she wasn't eating. Instead, she had the TV remote in her hand and was changing channels mechanically, as if she wasn't really seeing what was on screen, but just pushing buttons. And then, periodically, she would laugh, but there was nothing funny on screen. Meanwhile, some super drunk Scots were harassing the hotel management about how they thought the breakfast was shit. The hotel management responded by getting frustrated and saying "I shoot you, I shoot you" and pretending to hold a gun. And all the while, I can look out the hostel windows and see sex workers in their neon lighted windows. I felt like I had accidentally wandered into an insane asylum.

There were nice things that happened in Amsterdam as well, but unfortunately the weird experiences stick out the most. The last weird experience of note takes place in the little exhibition space at the end of the Anne Frank house. I believe it was called "You choose!," but it was a space where you could vote on issues of free speech. So for example, the video would show clips of media coverage of a neo-nazi protest outside a synagogue, and then ask, "should anti-Semitic groups be allowed to protest outside of synagogues" and you could press a button, indicating yes or no.

Well one of the questions concerned the way the Catholic church in Poland promotes discrimination and violence against homosexual people. So the video asked, "should the catholic church in Poland be allowed to target homosexual people?" (or something along those lines).
There was this big group of French teenagers and this one kid leans over to Nora and I and told us to "press yes, press yes, press yes" in an aggressive manner. I could only conclude that he wished to express to us how much he dislikes gay people.

I couldn't believe that this kid had just gone through the Anne Frank house and could still act that way. I also think that was the first time I had experienced someone being openly and enthusiastically anti-gay to my face, which means that I have been extremely lucky.

Freiburg im Breisgau

Today was another gorgeous day in Sussex. I just hope this lasts until all of my visitors (Daniel, Maryse, Martha, Eric, possibly Jordan) come. I've heard it gets rainy again, but I'm choosing not to believe. Instead of doing work, I went out and took pictures of the stunning Sussex countryside, which is fast becoming my favorite activity. And I will probably continue to post an annoying amount of photos on facebook.

So, to start recounting my travels. My first stop was Freiburg im Breisgau. I flew from London Gatwick to the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport, which straddles three countries: Switzerland, France and Germany. I was happy to find that I could get around the airport just speaking French, in fact, that is what most people spoke, but as soon as I got on the bus, I was expected to speak German, because the bus was going to Germany. I wanted to tell the bus driver, who only spoke German, "but, they're speaking French twenty feet that way" (in the airport), but alas, my German skills are limited to asking "Do you speak English?" and "Hello, and thank-you".

At first it was super frustrating not being able to speak the language. I've never been to a place where I don't speak the language, or have a fluent speaker with me (Brazil and Thailand), and I wondered what I had got myself into, because none of the countries we were going to spoke either French or English. I also kept responding in French to people speaking German to me. I guess my knee jerk reaction to any foreign language is to speak the only language I (barely) know besides English. It was embarrassing.

Although, knowing French really did come in handy in Freiburg. At one point we were trying to find a museum of tin figurines (it ended up being closed) and so we stopped in at an information point. But the man there couldn't sprechen sie englisch, so we walked away, but then I remembered that I should try French, and he spoke French and that's how we found out that the museum was closed. Wah-wah.

But the craziest linguistic experience we had occurred in this really cute market set up around the church. We had decided to make a picnic of bread, cheese, fruit and honey for ourselves for dinner in the airport before taking our flight to Amsterdam. So we went to buy the cheese and were standing in line when I noticed that the cheese seller was speaking French to the man buying cheese and he was speaking German to her. She would also throw in some German words, but they completely understood each other despite speaking in different languages. When it was our turn to pick out cheese I tried speaking in French and she recognized my accent and said, "I speak English, what cheese would you like," and proceeded to tell us all about the cheeses and give us samples. She was one talented lady.

The same thing happened in the airport. I went to information to ask how to get to my hostel once I arrived in Freiburg, and the information person spoke perfect English to me (with a French accent) and then spoke German (also with a French accent, so cool to hear) to her colleague, and I guessed that her native language was French. It was so mind boggling to me how these people were able to keep so many languages in their head. And more interesting, was why they decided to use which language at which time. Why was the cheese seller speaking French when she obviously knows German, and was in Germany? Was it a cheese thing?

The other highlight of Freiburg was the food. I think in each post I will end by describing the new food and drink I consumed. We had amazing sausage in a bun with mustard and onions for lunch, twice. And we went to a place called Schlappen and got an appetizer that was basically french fries with spaghetti meat sauce and a sauce that tasted kinda like sour cream and onion dip. It sounds gross but I've been craving it ever since I stopped eating it. And they were also really big on honey. We got a variety pack for the airport picnic and we even tried honey wine and honey liqueur. SO tasty. They were also big on fruit flavored alcohol. We got a small bottle of coffee liqueur and made White Russians in Amsterdam.

After Freiburg we went to Amsterdam by plane, which was so odd. Just that morning we had been listening to the cheese seller dazzle us with her language skillz, and then that evening we were wandering around Amsterdam at night trying to find the red light district and eating french fries with mayonnaise.

It is so good to come home

I should go outside and enjoy the gorgeous (and possibly fleeting) weather that Brighton has right now. Its been sunny and warm everyday here since I've been back and I've been going to Brighton beach everyday to enjoy it before the tourists really descend on the south of England.

But before I go wander the hills in the style of Elizabeth Bennet, I wanted to blog a bit about my recent travels. I was lucky enough to be able to go on a long trip to parts of Europe. The trip was a bit excessive, but I figure this is my chance, and I don't know when I'll ever be in Europe again.

So the trip started in Freiburg im Breisgau then proceeded to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Barcelona and Madrid. Berlin and Budapest were my favorite places, without a doubt. I didn't want to leave. In both places I mused over whether it would have been possible to just find a job and stay there forever. But then I remembered how much I miss all the people I am seperated from, and so I kept going. When I tell people at Sussex about the trip, they look at me funny. I guess for them its silly to rush through all those places like I did, which it would be if Europe was in my backyard.

There were a couple of themes and highlights of the trip. I was strongly impressed (meaning it made a strong impression) by how much Europe's recent, and often painful, history (primarily the holocaust and communism) visually marks its cities. I had been expecting to do a lot of acitivites centered on the holocaust (going to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the old Jewish cemetary in Prague) but I wasn't expecting to learn and experience as much as I did about communism in Europe. I feel like we don't really learn much about communism in Europe in the U.S. except from the perspective of what the U.S. did to try and stop it.

Really gaining a love of new (to me) artists and art movements was another surprising result of the trip. The Prado in Madrid was the absolute best museum I visited. Not really because of the way it was set up, because the museums in London are so much better in that regard, but it just had so many stunning works. My favorite works from the whole trip were from Rembrandt (in Amsterdam), Mucha (in Prague), and Goya, Bosch, Frederic Leighton (all at the Prado). And though I feel pretentious while I do it, it is so nice to be able to have animated conversations with people about certian museums and particular artists. If only I smoked and wore a beret.

Ok, well that's a general sketch, but I plan on writing individual posts telling the best stories I have from each place. But right now the Brighton sun (and all of my work) is calling.