paralyzedbynotcaring

Hallo from Berlin

Yesterday I traveled from Amsterdam to Berlin. There was only one transfer that was a bit difficult, but only because my reserved seat was in the very first car and I had to walk along the length of the train for a long time. When I say I walk I mean run madly waving my ticket so they don’t leave without me. Always a pleasure.

It was of course raining because that is what it does in Europe. The rain however did treat me to this as I sped across the German countryside.

That’s a rainbow, in case it’s too light to see. Only three trains and a taxi ride and I was at my airbnb in Berlin (Kreuzberg district–west Berlin) meeting my new roommate Molly.

She likes to sleep on shoes and watch you eat snacks. I got in about 8pm and my other roommates asked if I was going to go out lol. Anyway the streets were bedlam because Deutschland and Italia were playing futbol. It only got crazier after that penalty kick.

Today then was a bus tour. I was very happy to find one somewhat easily, considering that the tourism office was not where it was supposed to be and two policemen had no idea where it was.

However, the bus driver wasn’t all that helpful and the tour guide said most things in German. I did make out that the bus loop map wasn’t going to be followed because of all the street closures due to the soccer game. Soccer. Why do you keep ruining my vacation? Unfortunately this meant the bus tour was a bit haphazard and I couldn’t keep track of where we were supposed to be on the tour guide, let alone where we actually were. The stops were not announced by their names or by their numbers on the itinerary. I thought Germany would be the most exact in general and especially in this manner, but soccer. Soccer. Soccer. The tour guide did mention that Albert Einstein went to college here right across the street from where the bonfires ate all those piles of books. I’d rather know which bus stop we were on, frankly.

My tour included a boat trip up the Spree river. Did you know that Berlin has more bridges than Venice? (Side note, the boat tour in Amsterdam said that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice, but fewer bridges. I think there is some serious Venice-envy happening all over Europe.)

The plus side is that the boats serve drinks.

Do not be seduced by how bright and sunny these pictures look. Berlin has a horrible case of hotcold. When the sun is out, it is a punisher. Then a cloud comes by and everyone puts on parkas and watches their breath fog. I believe hotcold is a form of torture, am I right? I did feel a few rain drops, but they seemed to be isolated incidents.

The bus tour did not yield a lot of photo ops, mostly because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking at until it had already passed by and the English announcement finally started. This bus tour is really failing. Did I mention it had no wifi and the Coke Lite I bought on board was undrinkable because the tab came off without opening the mouth of the can? I am dis. pleased.

However, despite this oppression, I did manage to take this stunner.

Bam. That my friends is Victoria, goddess of, you guessed it, victory.

I am not sure what Germany won or what this is in relation to. It looks to me like she’s surrendering anyway. I didn’t ask because I was already having an attitude about my wasted diet coke that was 2 Euros. I have discovered that when I am not around someone I feel compelled to please (I am a people pleaser), I easily fall in to being sullen and misanthropic. Not following YOUR OWN ITINERARY adds to this. Hotcold torture adds to this. Lack of wifi adds to this.

Lastly, the bar I read about on Lonely Planet is only a block away from my airbnb and I was all set to try it until I read that it doesn’t even open until 10pm. I like to be well into my tylenol pm/wine stupor by then. Maybe tomorrow, but I doubt it.

Tomorrow I will go to the museum island, though I can’t decide which of the five museums to explore (don’t say five, you know I can’t).

The bus drove by parts of the wall, which I figured out before the English version announced it, so maybe I will investigate that area as well. It’s quite famous.

I am reading Catherine the Great.

“Isn’t it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?” – Albert Einstein

Sex, drugs, and black cats

Today my priorities were getting packed and buying more cheese. What a compelling first sentence. Any second now you’re going to make me smoke tobacco and-and have drugs.

First though I went to a cafe ruled by a cat.

This black cat’s reign of terror included the whole bar. No one’s seat, once warmed, was safe.This guy literally took his beer outside in the rain to finish. When I left, I passed him, and said “Cats, eh?” He said, “There’s nothing I could have done.”

Some of you may know that, in addition to legal sex work, Amsterdam also has legal drug use. It’s not the same for the rest of the Netherlands, but Amsterdam remains special. I went into a coffeeshop, which here means drug store, and asked for the mildest brownie. They suggested this space cake.

I bought it with cash, and when I passed a walking policeman down the block, I avoided eye contact. I don’t really need pot to be paranoid.

(Half of this brownie has been eaten, but I am experiencing no noticeable effects.)

After the coffeeshop I popped into the Sex Museum for lessons, but I’m afraid most of the information there was unenlightening.

As societies have progressed, their art related to sensuality has become coarser. Around one corner, a mannequin prostitute jumps out at you from behind a curtain. Fun times.

Tomorrow I travel to Berlin. I have only a bus to a train to a train to a train to a taxi to navigate, so it’s like a totally easy day.

I am reading Catherine the Great and The Stand.

“Your wit makes others witty.” C the G

(Entire brownie has been eaten per MP)

Probability

I think the weather station here should just say winter is coming and leave it at that. Yesterday the forecast was 0% chance of rain and it rained. Today had a 90% chance and there was no rain. Two things: one, stop with the percentages. You don’t understand probability. Two, I was not prepared for how winterlike summer in Europe can be. Barcelona was scorching hot, but everywhere since has had more than enough rain/wind/coldness. KB tried to tell me to bring a jacket, but that sounded like such nonsense to my California brain. Now I’ll probably have to buy one when I head further north. 90% chance of that happening.

Because it was supposed to rain I didn’t plan all that much to do today. I went to the Hermitage Museum, which had a Catherine the Great exhibit and a Dutch People in Large Groups exhibit. Here is Catherine the Great’s everyday outfit.

Just a FEW layers there. Here she is posing with a pimp cane.

Just put that vat of diamonds over there, please.

She apparently was large and in charge and liked snuff quite a lot.

The other exhibit was literally a bunch of huge paintings of groups of Dutch men looking around for wine and/or women. Observe.

What the hell is happening here. They came, they ate, the looked around. They put on their knee ribbons and got all fancy. But where are the women? I can’t decide if they are anxiously awaiting them or resigned to keep eating and drinking until it doesn’t matter anymore.

Outside where it was 90% not raining there were some statues of a few favorites, starting with this party animal.

In vino veritas, right?

And of course, my astrological ruler.

Goddess of love, beauty, victory, and other important things like prostitutes.

Getting a little hungry? I found the restaurant I had been looking for yesterday and ordered this pizza.

I had to cut it myself because everything and I mean everything is eaten with a knife and fork here.

Now, you may be thinking, no rain, good art and food, seems like a perfect day, right?

I thought that too.

Until.

The Return of the DEMON.

The “Diemen” stop is just a few before mine, and guess how Diemen is pronounced?

Demon. I’ve been riding his train this whole time.

Mind. Blown.

Thanks, Obama.

0%

Today weather dot com said there was a 0% chance of rain for Amsterdam, so I put on my sandals and walked about town. First I went to the Rembrandt House Museum. This is his actual house before his debtors made him move into more humble accommodations, and it is full of many of the things he hoarded, such as busts of famous men, art, and taxidermy.

Here are some of the heads he had staring out into space. Perhaps one or two look familiar?

This is a pile of books. He read a lot about art.

The house itself is a normal Amsterdam tall-and-skinny affair with a narrow spiral staircase and large rooms with lots of windows. He had his own studio and another studio for his students. Every room had paintings; he was a collector and a dealer as well as a painter. I am not sure if this one is his, but it is in his entry way–a room that served as a gallery for what he had for sale.

I particularly like this Jesus picture because the puppies seem to be totally feeling the divinity and Jesus looks like he is failing at trying to get some coffee incognito.

Some people say that Rembrandt couldn’t draw, or else why are his brush strokes so messy and wild? Well, actually Rembrandt did a metric ton of sketch work and drawings. His painting style was just that, rough around the edges but exact where it mattered.

Here is one of his drawings.

Those strokes outlining the leaves are pretty frickin precise.

After Rembrandt’s house I decided to get some cookies I read about on Pinterest. It was quite cloudy but I persevered and found the most perfect chocolate cookie ever made.

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It might not look like much, but it was still warm.

Does this picture look blurry to you? Well that is because this cookie was so good I started shaking. Look at that vanilla creme filling–also still warm and extra sweet. I had to sit down to eat it because my knees were knocking together.

I somewhat recovered from eating this cookie by eating a second. By now it was starting to get a bit blustery and the clouds moved quickly across the sky. That is what 0% looks like here, I guess. My plan was to go to dinner at the place the Pinterest lady who recommended that cookie liked (clearly she and I have compatible taste), and after examining my map I took off.

Along the way, can you believe it, I found a canal! Here is a picture. Later I came by a tall tower and just as I was deciding which way to turn, it clanged into action.

I did that thing I do where I run away from loud noises. Unfortunately I ran (slash shuffled along at my unique walking pace) about eight blocks in the wrong direction. it was raining steadily now, and the wind had picked up. Taking out my map resulted in flapping futility. I took the first tram that said Centraal Station and just ate a snack at the station before catching a train back to my room.

0%–bah. Always bring your umbrella!

XXX

The city’s coat of arms, or what I would call a logo, is XXX. Apparently it does not refer to the liberal attitude towards sex workers here, but rather to the three disasters the city has survived: water, fire, and pestilence. So when you see a pole with XXX on it, like this one

it just means you are in Amsterdam. It has NOTHING to do with the lady who was just sitting in this nearby window.

I also learned that you are not allowed to take pictures at the Van Gogh museum, so these three that I took are ILLEGAL.

The first one is of a peasant lady working her ass off. A lot of his paintings are rural. Most of the people working in the paintings are women, whereas the people who are sitting around doing nothing are usually men. I was going to take more pictures to illustrate this point, but I got in trouble with the museum anti camera campaign.

Just look at this workin girl. Bent and dark and almost moving.

Now look at this guy.

Chillin smokin a pipe.

I actually took a photo of this painting because the subject looks JUST LIKE my airbnb host. There were several other paintings that better proved my point about the female vs male subjects, but I didn’t want to get escorted out. Imagine the page 17 headline, “San Mateo Co. Resident Kicked Out of Most Accepting Country on Planet.”

Here is the final picture I took before the axe came down. It is called “The Potato Eaters.”

Earlier in his career, VG thought this was the one that was going to make it for him.

I’d never heard of it before.

Not that I know much about art, but when I thing of VG I think of flowers and landscapes and his self portraits and oh yeah idk a starry night sky? (Starry Night is actually in NCY right now so I didn’t get to see it).

I did see his famous “Almond Blossoms,” which KB and I did excellent copies of a few years ago at a wine-and-paint event, and the sunflowers, and the smoking skeleton. Also about 500 others. VG did sketching/drawings, was a prolific letter writer, and he spent a bit of time in an asylum. Also, those blue irises on all the greeting cards? Yeah they used to be purple. The more you know.

Outside the VG Museum is the Iamsterdam sculpture/sign, so I took this obligatory shot.

It wasn’t raining yet, so I walked to the Heineken Experience, which is an interactive tour/museum/tasting at one of Heineken’s original brewery locations. No brewing happens there anymore, but a lot of the old equipment was there. I don’t really drink much beer. That’s a lie. I never drink beer. But the tour was right there and I had a discount card and when in Rome/Amsterdam. Well, today I drank more beer than I have had in the last ten years and I think my stomach is dying. I learned that I have been drinking beer incorrectly in that you must not drink the foam. What did we learn about beer? FOAMY!

Probably a bit more than 99 bottles of beer on this wall.

To settle my stomach, I had some ribs.

I ordered these based on a yelp review, and then people at the tables on either side of me ordered them also.

I think these ribs cured my beer disease stomach problem and would prescribe them to anyone with a similar or dissimilar ailment. By the time I was done with dinner, it started raining. Luckily there was a tram stop nearby and I was able to figure out how to get back to the train station. Navigating Amsterdam isn’t easy because the bikes are everywhere. I read that there are a lot of bikes here, and I thought well I’ve survived Davis, CA, how different can it be?

Very, very different. The city is basically designed for bikes, so pedestrians just have to look the hell out for their lives. Suddenly that cheery brrring-brrring of a bike bell becomes the sinister sound of death by pedals. I already hate crossing streets–I know everyone is out to kill me–but here each intersection involves cars, taxis, rickshaws, stoned pedestrians, city buses, motorcycles, trams, double-decker tour buses, tourists, and a swarm of bicyclists. It is a total circus and when the rain started, complete with tent-like umbrellas. Bikes have their own lanes, but they share them with motorcycles. It’s just all a little too much sharing for me. I was so paralyzed at an intersection, a bicyclist pointed at me and then motioned for me to go. I clearly need assistance.

You have probably long since figured that out.

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.

Organized chaos

Amsterdam is crazy. I have never seen a more organized train ticketing office nor a more frantic city square. I don’t know what to think about Dutch people. They will sell you marijuana energy drinks (oxymoron?) but you have to buy cigarettes and matches separately.

In other news, I found a bus tour.

Yeahhhhh sitting down and looking at things. I love a bus tour. Amsterdam has three tour lines, but two of them are in BOATS.

I hate boats.

However, unlike in Bruges where the tour boats were small and the number of people on them was large, here the boats are huge and only a few tourists hop on at each stop.

I am ok with this boating system. I still think boats are death machines, though.

From the canals I saw many pretty sites, such as these houses.

Which seemed lovely until this bell of the ball rolled by

Most of the places here, as in Bordeaux, are limited to four stories and traditional facades. I think it’s working for this place.

Here are some bridges.

In Bruges, people would sit near the edge of the canals and eat and chat. Here, people dangle their legs over the side of the canal wall and drink and smoke. It’s the subtle differences that make all the… difference.

No sign of the DEMON. I think either this is his den or I’ve shook him for good.

Tomorrow I’m going to either the sex museum or the Anne Frank house. I guess it just depends on my mood.

“ROSENCRANTZ: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?

GUILDENSTERN: No, no, no… Death is… not. Death isn’t. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can’t not-be on a boat.

ROSENCRANTZ: I’ve frequently not been on boats.”

— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

The Dutch roadrunner

Today had five trains and three problems, which is actually a pretty positive outcome. The first problem was that there is no good way to time when you are going to be hungry when you know you will be anxious all day. I packed a sandwich and hoped for the best. I ate it while a very not-me passenger on the train had a mental break and went crackermuffins when the train conductor announced we would be skipping his stop. I was just impressed they announced it in English. My second problem was that my Eurail pass counted as my ticket from Amsterdam Central to my accommodations stop, but that meant I had no local ticket to scan to open the turnstile to release me into the Netherlands. An elderly lady observed my problem and shook her head and said “Ha! Do like me!” and when a passenger entered the station via the turnstile, she darted through the closing door like the roadrunner in the coyote cartoons. She was so fast I heard a WHOOSH. She pushed the entrance button and yelled for me to RUN. Already I am a criminal. My third problem is that my airbnb has a waterbed. That’s the thing with traveling you know. Sink or swim.

Strike two

Today the Belgian buses went on strike so I had myself a full day of walking. I saw more canals.

one of the city gates

some windmills

and one disturbing wind sculpture.

Apparently it dances when it is windy. (?!) I didn’t hang around to watch. The forecasted rain never fell and instead I got a sunburn and I think a bunion.

After a long, hot day of walking around and looking around, I finally made my way back to the train station.

The train line to my airbnb had been cancelled. The exact translation was “abolished.”

Fun times!

This is how people roll, I guess. Public transportation is convenient except for when it’s not. I have learned to always have enough money for a taxi. I wasn’t even mad, though I had already bought a now worthless ticket and had to spend an obscene amount of money on a taxi. I guess this is what people meant when they said I’d “get used to it.” I am used to it, and it doesn’t feel good or comfortable. It just feels like I’m too worn out and broken to fight it anymore. I’m the public transportation system’s battered wife.

Tomorrow I am going to Amsterdam and have only 5 transfers from here to there.

What could go wrong.

Lists, pt. 3

Things I miss
My bed
ice
extra ice
napkins
extra napkinsbeing able to drive places
Diet 7up
regular internet access
English

Things I did today
canal tour (I hate boats)

Walked down the city’s narrowest street

Saw more canals

Decided that traveling with old people is the way to go

Why traveling with old people is the way to go
Reasonable walking speed
Interest in culture and history
Chill attitude about resting
They don’t miss buses (see above)
They don’t mess with their eating/pills schedules
They go to bed early
People get out of their way
Cars stop for them
They never get arrested

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