The Netherlands

So this trip started like all the others, in the airport bar...

Those 2 beers cost more than our round trip flight.

 I like to use the excuse "I'm on vacation" to justify paying $8 for a beer.  Which is the same price you pay everywhere else actually.  So for this Ryanair flight we paid 12 euro's each (round trip!)  When I was looking for flights I had in mind that some of my parent's family friends (The Van Alphen's)  have family in the southern part of Netherlands.  My dad's friend Tom is from a village called Leende outside of the city of Eindhoven.  His mother and her other half (Marriette & Whim (sp?)) sister and brother-in-law (Mariekke & Jacky (Shuck-ee)), brother and sister-in-law (Franz and Eugenie.)  Over the years I had met all of them at some point while they were visiting Brandon.

L to R:(Back) Jess, Mariette, Your's Truly, Franz (Middle) Cinzo, Dito, Whim (Front) Eugenie holding Taiko.

Even though I barely knew these people I was so excited to go and visit them to experience some hospitality.  My parents took their only trip to Europe a few years back and had a hell of a time with the Dutchies.  So after our short flight from Vaxjo to Dusseldorf our gracious hosts had driven two hours to pick us up.  When we got through customs I saw Jacky holding a cardboard sign with pAm? written in electrical tape!  So bummed I didn't get a photo.  To my surprise it was only Jacky and Franz, Mariekke end up getting pretty sick a couple of days before we were coming.  So to the car we went!  This was the 3rd car I've been in since leaving home, so that's always and exciting thing.  Jess and I sat in the back and b-s'ed with the two for the next hour and a half all the way home.  I'm not sure if it's all dutch or just the Van Alphen men, but they have quite the sense of humor.  It was pitch black outside for the whole ride and Franz kept explaining everything we were passing by, like "those lights you see over there in the sky are from green houses, or that's the wooden shoe museum."  Then as we were coming up to a large area with all sorts of buildings in the distance he exclaims "now up here girls is a very exclusive resort, it's really expensive and they only allow certain people to get in."  Expecting a huge lavish resort where I could see people from the highway in bikini's at an indoor pool sipping on fruity drinks and getting massages... I was at first extremely confused and then annoyed at my own gullibility.  It only took a few seconds to realize this resort was not a "resort" when I saw all of the spot lights, 30' high fences topped with barbed wire.  But the guys got a kick out of it, which I think most people who could convince someone there was a 5 star resort in the middle of nowhere next to a highway would.

Next we dropped Franz off at home and headed to Mariekke and Jacky's.  When we arrived we greeted Mariekke who was not feeling well at all and then sat down.  One of the first things she said was "Well you look a lot better than you did a few years ago when I saw you!  You didn't look so good back then, and you were not a very nice girl."

She was referring to her wedding night.  Which was also combined with my sister and Deb & Tom's daughter (my friend Breanna's) graduation party.  Yes these sort of things actually happen where I grew up (wedding/grad party/reception) This event marked the second time in my life when I got the go ahead from my parent's to have a few cocktails.  The first time was the weekend before when we were in Canada for a family get together.  At least then I only embarrassed them in front of family and not all of their friends, and friends relatives, and almost the entire town of Brandon who attended.

My sister in law mixed me a few Amaretto sours and I had a few beers with my dad, then I started dipping into the bottle of vodka I had stashed in my car.  After that point in the night I only draw blanks about what happened.  But I woke up at about 6 am in the back of my little Explorer with some blankets thrown on me and the doors locked.  Apparently I was dancing like an idiot, trying to get on stage (my dad's band was playing at the party,) trying to go shot for shot with one of my parent's friends, and walking around trying to get everyone to talk a photo with me.  My dad was absolutely pissed his daughter handled her alcohol like a 12 year old native american and forced me into the hatch of my own car and locked me in there for the rest of the night, but not before I fell out of it and nearly rolled in to the lake.  (I had parked right next to the shore in there yard, which has a big drop off right into Devil's Lake.)  The next day at lunch my mom announced "it was time"... Time for what?  "I think you should go on birth control."  That is how stupid I was acting, enough to instill the fear into my mother that one night I would become intoxicated enough and procreate.  I told her I'd already been on the pill for about a year and that was that.

So in the end what can I say, I couldn't hold my liquor when I was 16... so hoping to prove them wrong and not start off on the wrong foot I declared that when they took us to the pub the following night I would prove them wrong.  They laughed and said it was nice to see me again and a few minutes later we all went to bed.

The next morning we awoke in the guest bedroom and drew the blinds, only to discover: grey.  Didn't matter though because it was still warmer than Sweden and they are still getting a few more hours of daylight than what we're accustomed to now.  Mariekke ended up feeling even worse the next day, which we felt horrible about imposing on them, but she insisted that everything would be fine and she had even arranged for a friend to take us around the area and show us around.

After Jess and I cooked Jacky some breakfast Carla showed up and asked us what we wanted to do for the day.  We decided on seeing the rest of the Van Alphen family, a windmill, a Belgian monastery with a brewery (obviously going for the brewery,) and then head into Eindhoven for some food and shopping.

Jess attempting to be "cultured" (she's not fooling anyone.)

"Kristine Pad"

This windmill was awesome, 4 stories and it just so happened that we were there on the one day of the week when they produce flour in the windmill.

gapers at the windmill.

The next place we headed to was in Belgium, which was about 10 minutes away.  It was pretty wild to leave Sweden, fly into Germany, drive to The Netherlands and visit Belgium all in less than 24 hours!  So on the way there Carolyn takes us past this....

apologies about the water stained car window.

This my friends is what the Dutchies like to call a "hashsparagus" field.  Every coffeeshop in Amsterdam is allowed to have up to 6 plants (or so I'm told.)  So a lot of people like to get into the pot business because it's big $.  In order to disguise these fields they will plant asparagus and put a marijuana plant in between each one.  But all good things must come to an end, and this field was discovered by a government helicopter flying over searching for these dual purpose plots.

After crossing the border without even realizing it we arrived at St. Benedicts, the cathedral was closed, the beverage bar was not.  We sat down in a room right next to the brewery with only glass dividing all the bulk tanks and our tables.  Unfortunately all the monks were busy doing monk stuff that Saturday and we didn't get to see any of them.

Next we headed into Eindhoven and walked around the shopping center.  I bought a pair of cheap shoes and then inquired about the nearest food court.  I had been instructed that if I wanted to experience true Dutch cuisine I needed to have a Frikandel Special.  A casingless sausage with a combo of some red meats, then deep fried and smothered with curry ketchup, mayonnaise and diced onions.  Fricken awesome... the whole time I thought about Bittner though because she absolutely hates mayo and says it reminds her of something else, that I'm not going to put down in writing and offend anyone.

The last thing we did as far as sightseeing for the day was walk around Eindhoven and tour the Glow Exhibition.  They had a 3 km path mapped out for you that included 20 displays with anything from some crazy looking lightbulbs, to projectors set up to display a light show in a cathedral.

After Carla's husband and Jacky got really sick of walking around we left after seeing the 12th attraction I see.  There was drinking in a Dutch pub to be had!  

Next stop Freek's (pronounced freck) Roothan's

Freek Roothan himself and his girlfriend Willeke

 Freek like's to introduce himself to American's and other english speaking people in the way you would assume his name to be pronounced: Freak.  But my parent's warned me so I had a smartass remark for him when the time came.  My parents and Tom and Deb and Mariekke all warned me that this pub is famous for causing American's to vomit.  Well Jess and I have been doing some training over in Sweden so we felt up to the challenge.

The face of a champion. 

Our Dutch dates, and in the end we did not "go dutch" because they paid
the entire bar tab.
(Far left Jacky, no idea, Cihnt (Carla's husband), no idea about the last two either)

After about 3 pints, 4 .5 liters, and 6 shots of Flugel.  We had felt that we'd proven ourselves worthy.  They tried everything ales, pilsners, blonde, brown and even a raspberry beer (which was the worst.)  Then when it hit midnight they set an ashtray in front of us with two cigars, which thank god only contained tobacco or I would have been talking to the porcelain gods all night.  They were all pretty impressed.  One very handsome man sitting across the bar from us even wanted a picture with the "good drinking American girls."

"Dirty Harry" as everyone was referring to him wasn't much of a romantic.
He walked up to us, said "I want you to make photo with me." and left...
two heartbroken girls in his wake.

After Carla (who so kindly put up with us, and stayed completely sober) got us home they decided to come in and Jacky, whom I think was missing Mariekke a lot because she ended up staying overnight at the hospital, asked me to "bake" him some eggs.  Who knew?  even middle aged foreigners get the drunk munchies too.  Of course I obliged and we ended the night around the dining room table eating eggs and toast like a bunch of college girls working on their freshman 15.  One of the funnest nights of my life.

The next morning however was not so fun.  I wasn't "crawling" like my mother said I would be (she underestimates my drinking ability,) but I certainly wasn't performing at top speed!  We got showered and put all of our things together and Jacky brought us to the train station.  I still feel so bad I didn't get to give Mariekke a proper thanks for everything she had done for us in those two days.  Jacky wouldn't take any money from us but we told him once we got home we'd send him some Swedish treats and I think he liked that idea.  It could not have been a better experience and I felt so lucky to have gotten treated with so much kindness.  So we gave Jacky a hug goodbye and headed to the train.

 Next we were off to Amsterdam.

Stoked for The Netherlands!

London calling!

So we had reluctantly left the land of gingers and Guinness and made our way to London.  We almost did a tour of the old Jameson distillery before leaving town, but had heard you get to sample 7 kinds of whiskey... probably not a good idea.

After flying into Gatwick airport we had to take the tube about a half hour to get into the city.  We waited patiently, and then I started yelling "can anyone tell me where platform 9 and three quarters is?" in the worst British accent I could manage.  For any of you people that haven't read Harry Potter, f' off.  A minute for before the train arrives this obnoxiously monotone man starts telling you to "mind the gap."

Either Brits just like to be bossy (my conclusion) or a lot of people have had fatal accidents falling into the
ENORMOUS gap in between the platform and the tube (subway.)

 Once we arrived in London I had to call my friend Davis to get directions to his place... not expecting to have to oogle naked women while I did so, I was a bit taken aback.  Then I remembered I'm not in America anymore and people can put pretty much whatever they want, wherever they want.  Including vegas style prostitute cards in a telephone booth in the wealthiest district of London.

 Yes, after living out of a backpack for 3 days and probably only getting about one shower during that time Jess and I had to waltz our grungy looking selves past people dressed in outfits more expensive than my car.  Kensington is home to the likes of J.K. Rowling, foreign ambassadors and lots of other people shell out more money for lunch than I did on my whole trip.  It was so nice to see some Americans, so we hung out for awhile but Dublin had taken it's toll and our hosts had class in the morning so we called it an early night.

The very expensive view outside Davis' "dorm"

In the morning Jess and I awoke and decided to take a peek outside on the balcony.  Yep we were still completely out of place!  We got ready and headed toward all of the embarrassingly gaper tourist attractions...

Sometime during all of these shenanigans Jess's friend Andy met up with us.  The did a summer together for the Conservation Core in Reno together.  Why you would choose Reno when you're from Scotland is beyond me.  Andy was super nice and had no idea where anything was, but he had a map the size of smart car and did a good job navigating...  this is a horrible picture, but I don't care he'll never see it because he's one of those "anti-facebook" people, and this blogs never going to get any international recognition.

Anytime he opened his mouth all I could think about was the character Fat Bastard 
the Austin Powers movies, oh and people in kilts.

After that her other British friend Rob met us and we grabbed something to eat and headed to meet Simon.  The best thing would have been if Simon accent matched his hair color and he was Irish.

Simon is in denial that he's a ginger.  If his hair was any
more red I'd mistake him for Carrot Top. (hahaha)

Then we could have had the British, Scottish and Irish accents which all sound hilarious to me!  We were staying at Simon's the remaining two nights of our trip.  After unpacking and having a few drinks we headed to a local pub and had a few beers and ate dinner.  Our appetizers were these things called pork pies.  They are pretty much self-explanitory, purred pork in a flaky pastry kind of thing... pretty good though.  Simon had to go to his desk job in the morning, so it was a short stint at the pub followed by a nice walk home where we met up with this...

"My what sharp teeth you have!"

 I've always wanted to be attacked by an angry pit bull, even better if it's British. 

This dog was literally by itself running down the street with this traffic cone that towered over it when stood up.  Shortly followed by a drunk guy trying to sell us cigarettes, whom I refused to buy any from unless he would call it a "fag"  (apparently that's not a very modern term.)  He then gave this dog orders to attack the cone.  We decided to get out of there before the dog ate one of our legs off while the drunk man laughed hysterically.

  The next day we saw what must have been an extended family of 40 Orthodox Jews who followed us wherever we went for about an hour.  I saw more ringlets of hair that day than you would at a 90's high school prom.  But back to my story... we went to a few museums and passed a few cathedrals that we decided weren't worth dipping into our pub money to pay for a tour of the inside.  After walking around the city and seeing some sights for about 6 hours we said goodbye to Rob who was heading to his girlfriends for the remainder of the weekend, and headed back towards Simon's for a nap while we waited for him to get done with work.

Later their other friend from the summer job came Mandy and another French girl who's name I don't remember because I was trying to block out her continuous babbling from the moment she walked in.  We had some Indian take out decided to head to a bar called the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.  I've never been to gay bar... I have quite a few gay friends who've always told me to go to some of the Minneapolis, but it's never worked out.  I couldn't have asked for a better first time experience.  When I think of British men I think of smartass or stern ones, like the stuck up people from the movies.  

Not men dressed in drag and doing the twist.  But that's what this whole trip is about, a learning experience. Yes it was Mo-Town night at the Tavern and they were playing all the classics.  Aretha Franklin would have felt she'd done herself a solid had she seen the way these men were swing their hips and snapping their fingers.  There were 6 women in the bar, the 3 I came with, myself and 2 more whose faces I never saw because they were attached at their mouths in a dark corner only stopping for oxygen breaks every few minutes.  Yes it was great and the staff were awesome, having fun and handing out condoms to everyone that left.  After being outdanced for over an hour by these middle aged and a few beers later we went home so we could make the most of our last day.

The next morning we woke up and decided we'd go out for a full English breakfast, and then on the way Simon thought it would be better to take us to Borough Market.  After getting halfway there it started to downpour so we had to make our way by the tube instead and by the time we got there it was about 2 pm and we hadn't eaten breakfast.  WELL worth the wait, the food was absolutely amazing and everything had flavor and there was so many weird things like ostrich and kangaroo steaks, then all sorts of baked treats.  I decided to get a burger at the Posh Banger Boys... 

ordered right from the cook who took the fresh patty right out of the fridge and
assembled it all right in front of you, my kind of burger.

ughmazing!  Fresh ground beef topped with a toasty bun smeared with some blue cheese, then some chili sauce and salad, hot cone of chips on the side.  That is the only hamburger I've ordered at a restaurant since leaving home and it was great.

walking across Millenium Bridge looking back on St. Pauls Cathedral

The rest of the day we did a bit more sight seeing including the business district of London,South Bank, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge.

One of the coolest things Simon pointed out were some old faded paintings of the artist Ben Wilson.  The paintings were sweet because they were on pieces of chewing gum!  This guy takes a little torch melts the gnawed on, spit out, stepped on chewing gum melts it flat and creates little works of art.  Here are some I found online since the ones we saw weren't very good.

wonder if this gig's enough to escape a day job?

So now it was time to say goodbye and head home.  We thanked Simon and called him a ginger one last time while running to our train in Victoria Station that was about to take off with or without us.  We made it to our flight fine and were greeted in Sweden with weather in the 30's.  We arrived at about midnight and took a bus from the airport to a town an hour away where we'd take another bus to a train that would bring us back to Vaxjo.  Well after the first bus we had a 4 hour wait until our next one arrived, this was unavoidable so we were going to just sleep in the train station and everything would be fine.

Everything would have been fine if the train station would have been open, yes we had to sit outside the whole time at 2 am (pub close time) and it was about 25 degrees by this time.  All the hotels in the town were closed and when we asked a city bus driver about hostels he laughed at us and said they would all be closed to because "it was the middle of the night!"  Well no shit I replied, that's the point of a hostel!  So here we are waiting with 2 pairs of pants on, a couple scarves and socks for gloves.

In the end it all worked out and the bus driver who picked us up couldn't speak English so we got to ride for free due his computer not accepting our credit cards.  After a few more trains we made it home at about noon and passed out for 6 hours due to lack of sleep.  I ended up with a cold and a story for the grandchildren.  

So in the end London was absolutely amazing and if I'm ever able to afford a flat for $2000 a month maybe I'd live there.

'til next time.

Lovely day for a Guinness..

Ahhh Dublin, where to begin?

Well I guess I'll start here...

So after taking a train from Vaxjo to Alvesta, another train from Alvesta to Norrkoping (nor-show-ping), then a bus form Norrkoping to Linkoping (lean-show-ping) Jess and I had worked up an appetite after sitting on our asses for 4 hours.  We decided to bust out this funky looking cheese in a tube we had seen at the grocery store.

Surprisingly it was pretty good!  Sundried tomato and feta (I think..) we put it on some ciabatta bread and put it back in my backpack for later for when we got hungry again.  

Since we were going to Dublin it was an absolute must to have a few pre-arrival Guinness' at the Skavsta airport.  So after having a few just to make sure we would remember exactly what they tasted like in Sweden and compare it to the pints we'd be getting served in Ireland we were a bit giggly and decided to go through airport customs.  Going through the motions, taking off my belt, making sure my water bottle was empty, putting my laptop in a seperate tray.   Walked through the scanner, and for some reason I always get nervous going through those damn things.  Like my nose ring or button snaps on my flannel will set the alarm off and four airport security guards the size of Jesse Ventura are going to tackle me to the ground.  I always hold my breath and exhale when I make it through unscathed.  So waiting, waiting and watching these people sending my backpack through, and then reversing the conveyer belt and looking at their screen baffled, checking through my bag and then sending it through again, I finally said "Hej Hej, that's my bag is there a problem?"

to which he replied "Svenska eller Engelska?"

I wanted to be a smartass and say "Well obviously since I just spoke English, I'll be speaking to you in that language."  but instead I was polite.

"Well ma'am it appears you have a liquid in your bag, and we can't figure out which pocket it's in..."

After opening up all the zippers on my Dakine pack I discovered the culprit, my god damn cheese spread... they took it from me.  What a life it must be to be a luggage inspector at the airport since they instituted that rule.  I bet they score so much cool shit and then when they're on their breaks they sit around tables trading their loot for the day... 

 I was sad, that cheese was a good find and I planned on getting the rest of my meals for the day out of it.  Instead we went and got another Guinness before our flight took off to ease the pain.

Let me just say that I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Ireland, and don't ask my why... contrary to popular belief I don't have a thing for gingers (even though I've dated a couple.)  I read the book Angela's Ashes which makes Dublin sound like a damp and dark ghetto with hungry mother's and children sitting at home while the father's are at the local pub pissing the dole away every night.  Their beer is good, but when I go out it's not like I step up to order and say "bartender do you have anything that will make me feel like I ate a loaf of bread and contains less alcohol than normal back there?"  Guinness is good, and don't get me wrong I drank more of it in those 3 days than I probably will for the rest of my life, but I didn't drink it because it's my favorite kind of beer. At one point I'm pretty sure that's all Ireland really had going for itself, when you go to Paris you see the Eifel Tower, while in China maybe the Great Wall, well in Dublin you get a pint, and if you don't your somewhat of pussy.   Do I seem like a pussy to you?

We took a bus from the airport to O'Connel Street.  One piece of advice to any of you ever going to Ireland:  print a damn good map, and don't ask anyone besides a police officer or taxi driver for directions.  We started at the top of the street and after stopping in 4 different convenient stores in going 2 kilometers in the opposite direction of our hostel we finally were told by a group of cab drivers that we had to go back to where we started and walk one block right and one block left.  Thank god we made it without getting mugged, nothing makes you stick out more than carrying backpackers pack.  

"Mug me!"

Finally getting to our hostel we had to walk through a movie set, apparently some other version of Neverland was being filmed outside of it.  We checked in cleaned up and decided we would go out and have a coupe beers.  Walking down O'Connel Street and over River Liffey we went to the Temple Bar area and after passing some traditional looking pubs we came to this one called Gypsy Rose.  There was a guy standing at the entrance smoking a cigarette who appeared to work there so I asked if there was a cover, he laughed at me and walked back behind the bar.  The place was pretty small, and all the store fronts in Dublin are like the kinds they have in shopping malls where there isn't really a door it's just a big gaping hole in the side of the brick building that they pull down a metal gate to close at the end of the night.  This place was awesome, the walls were plastered with posters of all the classics Zeppelin, Doors, Stones, RHCP.  Bittner would have loved it because they especially had an 80's theme going with some Poison, G'n'R and all those bands.  I wanted to pull out my camera but we were afraid we'd get our asses kicked.  It was a pub filled with locals, and even though they all knew where we came from we just sat in the corner and pretended we couldn't hear them saying "oh look over there, those little lasses are from UGHmerka (america)."  This one tough looking broad kept talking about us and gesturing towards us. She especially scared the shit out of me, so after two pints we went back to the hostel and passed out.  

Monday we woke up and decided to commit the ultimate legit traveling sin: hop on hop off bus tour.  Yep I feel like I maybe lost all of my credibility as a backpacker buy purchasing that 2 day pass (which also included free headphones so I could listen in 7 different languages.)  But I don't really care, because we wanted to try and get all the sights in that were possible in 2 days.  So here are some highlights...

These first few are in St. Stephen's Green (city park)

crazy pigeon ladies around the world unite!

For lunch we ate some pb&j's that we had stolen the bread and jam for from our hostels "continental breakfast" which included bread, american cheese, jam and tea.

Apparently the bench we were sitting on was some historical display and this one man passing by started to read the marquee, so I told him "just so you know we're not part of this display" to which he replied "and by the sounds of it you're not a part of Ireland either!"

Next stop was the old Guinness brewery, this was great it starts on the first floor and you travel up each floor which exhibits a different department of the company.  At the top you have the option to get your free pint, or learn how to properly pour your own.  The above one is mine, and I failed because of the stupid shit dripping down the side!

Later on we did a pub crawl.  It's pretty funny their's a company in a lot of the big cities around Europe that do these.  The girl name Anna was our guide for the night.  When we told her we were American's she went "oh shit, can you hold your liquor?"  Of course we can.

This is where I'll end it, every cross walk has this written so people don't walk across looking the wrong way.  I wonder how many tourists got hit by cars before this happened. As many more things I could tell you about on here this thing would be longer than the bible.  So, next stop London!