Reading – Page 4 – paralyzedbynotcaring

The three big ones

Today I went to the Rijks (rhymes with bikes) museum to see the famous art. This Monet I recognized immediately, though we’d never been introduced.

This VG also needed no introduction.

And finally, the large and in charge Rembrandt, “The Night Watch.”

For the watch. For the watch. For the watch.

This painting is famous not only because of the artist, but also because portraits of militia had all been posed before. This one had action, including a gun going off, a dude cleaning is gear, conversations, and a little girl with a dead chicken. Genius. A rumor says that the half face peaking out from behind the guy in the upper left with his hand out as if to say BUT SOFT WHAT LIGHT THROUGH YONDER yadda yadda is Rembrandt himself. This painting is huge and overwhelming. I moved on to art I could digest without the madding crowd.

I found a few gems. Here is a drunken couple getting robbed.

Here is a landscape with animals.

Such a sweet scene with a camel, some goats, an elephant, a stag, and a–

Hold. The. Bus. I think that might be the last unicorn, right here chillin with grown up Bambi. How is THIS not the main attraction? HALF the “Night’s Watch” is just dark background nothing. This is pure magic.

Art is hard to digest to I went to the Pancake Bakery and ordered the apple pancake.

Yes, the pancake is bigger than my plate. Yes, that is ice cream and powdered sugar. Yes I made the right decision in ordering only one.

Can we talk about condiments for a second.

Cuz America has a lot of condiments. But we do not have a pot with a wooden stick at every table like this.

I don’t know what’s in there. My pancake didn’t need anything else on it, and no one else was using their sticks at their table, so I just stared at it for 20 minutes like a normal person.

I’m guessing it’s nutella? I don’t know! How is it not congealing! This is going to keep me up at night.

After a pancake that I swear was bigger on the inside, I took a walk down a canal. The pancake place was near a semi famous house.

This is the door to the house where Anne Frank was in hiding with her fam. The line to get in to the museum was reminiscent of the line at Disneyland to go see Anna and Elsa, only this line didn’t end with warm hugs. People were lined up as if Anne was going to do a signing. Now, it’s time for some truth telling. Forget all the lies you’ve read so far. The fact is that I have not actually read Anne Frank’s diary. Gasp. Cry. Lookit, I got through school without it ever being assigned; I have had only an obligatory desire to read it; and I’ve read many WWII books, fiction and non, that I know how draining it can be to get in that head space. And, spoiler alert, Anne is definitely NOT doing a meet-and-greet.

So I didn’t go in the museum. Honestly, I think I can do only one museum per day. It’s like looking at a bunch of 14th, 15th, or 16th century buildings. The more you see, the less impressive they become.

“I am not performing miracles. I am using up and wasting a lot of paint.”~ Claude Monet.

I am injured

I think with all the running around I did when I traveled from France to Belgium I must have broken my left knee. This knee is making some double cracking noises now at every opportunity. Oh, and it hurts to bend it. Yesterday I took a bus tour of Bruges as a bit of a rest. Twenty euros for a 45-minute ride was a bit much, but as it was raining and the museums were closed, there wasn’t much else in the way of indoor activities other than eating and drinking or climbing to the top of the Belfry. Even though the rain blurred the view from the bus windows and the breath of the passengers fogged the rest, the bus tour was still worth it.

Happy to be on the bus almost seeing the sights!

I considered attempting the Belfry. There was no line. But my knee being broken led me instead to get some fries and waffles. I did a bit of window shopping–there are a lot of shops selling very beautiful, detailed lace works–but in the rain everything becomes a drag and I came back to my airbnb and took a four hour nap.

After a nap and then waking up so I could put myself to bed, I caught the train to Bruge (I’m staying one stop away). Look how cute and put together I was.

My knee felt a bit better, so I stared this behemoth down.

For 10 euros I was permitted to attempt the 366 steps to the top. I started counting but lost track around 7 when I wondered if it was the noun or the verb I was supposed to be counting. A few steps later (nouns) I came upon some descenders and I asked if I was almost there. That made their day and possibly their lives, judging by their screaming hysteria.

Here is the staircase.

Luckily there are a few rest stops along the way to the top. The stairs get more and more narrow and I think a bit steeper as you ascend. A few rooms branch off the stairs and you can sit your ass down and remember you gave yourself asthma and TB just two days ago.

By the time I got do the top I had stripped off both my sweatshirt and my blouse and was wearing my undershirt as an outer shirt and did not care. Everyone else kept their jackets on because they are pod people.

Here I am enjoying the view from the top/dying.

My hair is out of control, makeup long ago sweated off, and I can’t feel the lower half of my body. Look at me at the train station. Now look at me at the top of the Belfry. Don’t tell me exercise is healthy.

Here is the other view you might be interested in.

I took several more but they are pretty similar. Reddish tile roofs coming up to a jaunty point. Charming and picturesque. Like I used to be back at the train station. One thing I didn’t read about beforehand was that there are arrows carved along the outer molding indicating where other cities are.

Now I know which way to go to get to Klemskerke.

I was able to descend the stairs without much incident other than telling all the people I passed they were almost there. An older gentleman responded with “I can’t tell if you are an angel or a devil.” Another good subtitle for my autobiography.

After that, my legs had turned to pudding, so I rolled into a tea room for a steak and some booze. The food was great, though remind me not to sit down to a meal if I’m in a hurry.

I didn’t feel like doing a lot more walking. I have TB, after all, and jello for joints, so I decided to save the museum for tomorrow. I did see the outside of St. Salvator’s Cathedral, but as per usual I couldn’t find the door to get inside. Here is a lovely crucifixion statue on the outside.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what shoes to wear here, I took a picture of the most flat and walk-friendly sidewalk I’ve encountered so far (other than the people movers–more of those, please).

(PS I have not forgotten the DEMON, but I saw no signs today)

(PPS I am reading The Stand, Europe Through the Back Door, and How to Not Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking)

Epic throwdown, pt 2

By now I am wary of the rail way and could not make myself get up early and go back to the station to deal with getting the tickets for the next parts of my trip. My body said no. So I slept in, relatively, and then bought a two-day pass for Barcelona City Tours. The 13th stop on the tour was the train station, and I almost got off but decided the ticket counter was probably on siesta anyway. So I completed the western tour of the city, including notable locations such as a bunch of stuff from when the Olympics were in Barcelona, a soccer stadium, and some really epic statues. My favorite was of Columbus, who is raising his hand as if to say, what, like it’s hard? He’s such a dick. Love him.

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After finishing the loop I went the mercado and got a salad. I brought it back to my room and crunched it down, though truth be told it was very hot in my room and without ranch dressing a salad is a fight to eat. I decided that, as it’s Friday, I should find the ticketing office today just in case they are closed on the weekends. I found the information booth more easily this time and gave up completely on asking about “Eurail” and instead said “long distance.” This helped a bit, though I still had to wait in line to ask where to wait in line. Such is travelling without prebooked reservations–

–however, after my number had been called I was told that I could get a ticket from Barcelona to Narbonne, France, but not the intended transfer from Narbonne to my destination, Bordeaux. Why? Because the French train workers are on strike. Why? I asked the clerk at the Barcelona station. He looked at God and said, “France.”

France, you are now my enemy. This is worse than the time Anthony Bourdain said he didn’t like chicken nuggets. Outrageous.

Sources close to my heart hope that the strike will end soon because it also involves the garbage company. Lil Bro texted me with “just take a taxi.”

Let me google that for you, Lil Bro:

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So I have a ticket to the south of France and then… ? Not sure what to tell my Airbnb in Bordeaux. “Hi, I’d love to keep my prepaid reservation, but your country’s trains aren’t running until question mark, sorry”?

And what about, I don’t know, the rest of my stops?

I’m not thrilled at not having plans, especially now when it is clearly not my own fault. That salad has been doing the salsa in my stomach. I continued reading Rick Steves’ guidebook to distract me, but he lets this bomb loose: “Make yourself an extrovert, even if you’re not.” Get out of my comfort zone, huh? Is 9000 kilometers still not enough?

Here is a pretty picture of the Placa Catalunya to remind myself that this should be fun:

These fountains do tricks.

Tomorrow I’m going to a museum and a beach for realsies, not just looking at them from a bus. Take that, Rick Steves.

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” Siggy Freud.

Epic throwdown, pt 1

This morning I took a shuttle to take a train to take a train to take the train (Madrid to Barcelona).

And then a taxi.

The first two trains were pretty straightforward because I started at the airport (end of the line) and could only go one way from there. I was on my way to catching the famed fast train to Barcelona. I just had to find it first.

I exited the commuter train at Chamartin, which should have a Eurail stop. The train station employees I asked told me no and to go to the Atocha stop. Back on the commuter train, then. At Atocha–a mega station attached to a mall– I asked a seguridad where the ticking booth for Eurail is and where the banos are. After the look I’ve come to expect from people I talk to, he said “No Eurail. Banos there.” He clearly spoke English and said banos in a Californian accent. I repressed my rising Eurail panic and paid almost a Euro for the privilege of using a mall privvy. I had my suitcase, my day bag, and my purse with me in the stall and we had a conference.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told my purse. “We will ask every employee here if we have to. Maybe even menfolk.” The purse remained nonplussed and with all of us in the stall I had to shimmy sideways to get to the real business at hand. With that issue aside, the reality of having to haul everything around again and ask anyone in a vest for the Eurail started to crush my spirit. If there was a sign or guide to the station or a helpful hint on the Eurail website, I wold have seen it by now. All I’d seen so far was a directory of the stores, and there wasn’t even a Sephora. And the wifi sucked. I stayed seated sideways and waited.

Then a message from God came in the form of a terrible cover of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” I put my head down and let it happen.

I left the banos and asked every seguridad, ticket counter, and free-sample peddler how to get a Eurail ticket. The sixth person pointed me to the Information center, which was hidden behind what seemed to be a carousal made of candy. The information desk clerk pointed me further into his office to the separate ticketing office. Not a counter, not a kiosk, a full on DMV style take a number and wait behind the yellow line office. I took two numbers (one for a train today, one for a future train) and waited behind the yellow line. About forty other people were also waiting, but many came and went and the numbers on the Now Serving display ascended from 199 to 647 surprisingly quickly (90 minutes).

Here’s the deal with the Eurail pass: you have to also book a reservation. I have the Eurail pass, but not the actual ticket for a specific route. Now, you can indeed book these online, but only if you do so at least 8 business days before your trip so they can MAIL you a hard copy of the ticket. This totally destroys the ethos of this trip–to be a leaf on the wind–and I am not a little irritated at how archaic this advanced train system is. Paper tickets? Mail? I know I’m from silicon valley and expect everything to have an interactive app and same-day delivery, but come on.

So that is why I had to find the ticketing office before finding the actual train even though I spent almost 2k on the Eurail pass. Oh and don’t forget the booking fee (10 Euros) . The good news is I was able to get on the very next fast train to Barcelona (yay!) but that meant I had to rush to the railway onboarding area right now and not book my subsequent ride from Barcelona to Bordeaux. So, after getting explicit directions to where the Eurail train was from three people along the way, I was able to find my seat and watch the Spanish countryside go by.

Above is a still taken from a 10-second movie I made about the Spanish countryside rolling by.

After I was settled in my seat and listening to my audio book (finishing rereading Ready Player One and then reading more of what the expert Rick Steves says about traveling) I decided not to be angry with the people who told me I was crazy/wrong/misinformed/American when the Eurail ticketing office was actually within shouting distance of their places of work. Though I am still American.*

A short taxi ride after that brought me within blocks of my Barcelona Airbnb, which is an apartment that opens to a small plaza on a pedestrian-only road.

I visited the market and am eating an apple. The sticker says it’s a seduce life variety.

So here’s today’s lessons: keep asking until you get the answer you know is right, and if that fails, seduce something.

*Very, very

Packing and other impossibilities

I leave tomorrow. I’m leaving. The. Country.

As I was separating everything I want to pack into piles, Lil Bro came in my room to observe. He then spent an uncomfortable amount of time trying to teach me to flick my pocket knife open in a sweeping jabbing motion. To do this is simple: I just need to stop being left-handed and caring at all about my nails. Honestly I am bringing a knife to open challenging food packaging and to pry my case off my cell phone to remove my sim card. Lil Bro advised me to perhaps consider buying pepper spray, and then he ambled out to check on his frozen chicken Alfredo.

Food was also on my mind and was my first item to pack. I am worried every meal in Europe will be covered in vinegar, so about a fourth of my suitcase is filled with foodstuff.

Did you spot the ketchup packet? I might bring more of those. You just never know.

Then it was time to color code my psychoses.

Blue for every day, light blue for trouble, white for emergencies, and so on.

Next I checked Pinterest and learned the right way to roll/origami my way through the heap of black clothes I’m bringing. The eight black shirts I packed are rolled into torpedoes lining the bottom of my suitcase. Rolling got a bit tedious and unrealistic–I’m not going to pack this painstakingly every time I need to catch a train. So then I just forced everything else on top of the row of rolled shirts.

That bra is a 36DD for scale.

Today around 6PM, I tried to check-in to my flight, which leaves tomorrow at 5:30PM. After entering my flight information, the Aer Lingus website rejected my check-in with this gem:

As this flight is departing in more than 30 hours, if you choose to check in now for this flight there is a charge for seat allocation (unless previously purchased seats). Alternatively you can check in online for this flight within 30 hours of flight departure time and avail of free seat allocation.

First of all, can we please take a moment to deal with the phrasing “avail of free seat allocation”?

Now, I have recently become mediocre at math, so I know this message is nonsense. I checked back again a few minutes ago–10PM–but the same malarkey manifested. I am displeased and unimpressed. The FAQs said that a transatlantic flight is eligible for check in 24 hours prior to takeoff, but the website still failed this test. I would like to avail of free bullshit. I’ve been spending so much time worrying about how to navigate the ridiculosities of the Eurail system that I completely forgot to fret over the plane ride.

I must remember that “in nonsense is strength.” (Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut)

It might serve you well to remember that, too, when reading these posts.

As for reading, I read a few poems in Imitations by Robert Lowell before returning it unfinished to the library.

Now I am going to lie down and start the long process of saying good bye to my bed.

Category: Reading