Queen's day in the Netherlands is yet another excuse for all of Holland to whip out an orange (the national color) feather boa and take to the streets with a little plastic tray of fries in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. my bus to the airport took me from city to city where normally neat streets were decorated with crushed cans and packs of teenagers smoking cigarettes and punching text messages into their cell phones. the man in the seat across from mine on the train was engrossed in a massive encyclopedia of dogs and didn't bat an eye out the window. I guess he'd seen it all before, and he was lost somewhere in an article about cocker spaniels.
The overdose in national pride made for a good farewell to the netherlands and I was only on my way to Eindhoven to go to the airport to fly to London. It's a relief to leave small town life and head to the big city. It's cute here, it's peaceful. There are some days that I find a pleasant appreciation for the fact that I can wander ten minutes outside my dorm and stumble upon fields of strawberries and asparagus, but I am stuck a city girl after growing up in the middle of san francisco. I don't even try to fight it. Something about this place makes me more than a little stir crazy, though that's worked as a good incentive to keep traveling and exploring this part of the world.
Though at this point I am getting tired of tourism. I am sick of the maps and the traps and the hostel check ins and check outs. I have wandered though enough postcard photographed/postcard laden streets, dangled my legs off of enough stone walls framing that day's scenic cityscape. I was excited about this trip, because I was visiting friends. I got to see people's lives, not just the standard sights. I was happier on Molly's dorm room floor than any hotel bed.
Molly met me at the airport still glowy and a little giddy after a last minute Mediterranean holidy in Spain, and we took the train into London. The train is more expensive, but we went for it, because I was still reeling from a very bumpy flight. I swear we took off and were basically flying sideways the whole time, and by the time we landed I was not in good shape. Long story short, I've puked all over London. That's right- the plane, the train, the tube, the streets... A very lovely way to start the trip. I was so lucky to have Molly there to guide me through transit and central London, pat me on the back and hand me sips of water.
Once we were done with all of the planes and trains and subway cars, I felt better. We went to a grocery store to pick up some food for dinner. And it was open past 8 pm- amazing. Americans expect 24 hour service. I don't know why, but it seems to be a pretty common sentiment among us that not having the option of buying our groceries or stopping in at the pharmacy at all hours of the night weirds us out. I don't know why I feel like i should be able to pick up a carton of milk and laundry detergent whenever i want, but i just do.
Here's the gorgeous last minute twist on this trip: the day before i flew to london, i bought plane tickets to morocco. the whole affair involved some 7 or 8 hours on skyscanner working out various combinations of flights, calculating connection times and alternate airports somewhere around maastricht. The final winning combo: Eindhoven to London to Madrid to Tangier, and Casablanca back to Charleroi (near Brussels).
My first full day in London was May Day, and I walked right into a protest for migrant laborers' rights. This city was winning me over already. Turkish workers dominated the scene and blared their stories over a bullhorn, and I found myself playing photographer for a large group of Turkish guys striking poses before their banners.
After a few turns meandering in and out of London's FREE! museums, I got into an argument with a priest outside of Westminster Abbey when I tried to just stroll in. I explained that since museums were free, I thought that it was possible that this would be free, too. He said, this is a church, not a museum. I tried to make the point that most churches are free, but he really wasn't having it.
Thank goodness Molly's dorm was near the BT Tower, or else I would never have found my way back in the hours that I explored while she worked or went to class. Or didn't go to class. That's one thing about the british education system; if it's all about the exam, attendance can feel somewhat optional.
The London School of Economics, or dare I say all students in the UK, had been struck by an academic epidemic called 'revising.' Revising means studying, but it is high stakes studying for exams that decides your grade. Basically, all of your grade. It feels like the russian roulette of academia; you do your best (hopefully), you read, you hope you remember, but it's a gamble. You could get sick or panic and just shoot yourself in the foot. None of this knowing your professors, going to class and doing smaller assignments, dinner at the professor's house to discuss the course and the final paper business that we have at Macalester.
In the middle of my trip, I took a beautiful weekend detour up to Scotland to visit my former roommate, traveling companion, and good friend from my summer in Nicaragua. I found plane tickets for five pounds, ten with tax/service charge, so I decided to take advantage. When she met me at the train station in the city, she walked into the coffee shop where I was waiting for her, and seemed instantly so familiar again. I think this is the sign that you've really gotten to know someone, when it seems like no time has past since you've been apart. I felt like we could have been at the cafe we'd always spent time in in Granada.
Her parents left the car for the weekend, and we took it out into the highlands without a destination, only Cathy's intuition, some snacks, and a map, just in case. It was such a moment of freedom driving along the roads, getting out and walking whenever the impulse struck. We parked in a town with bagpipes blaring by the waterfront, and sat by the water with the sun hot on our backs.
The city of London told me it was time to go. The coldness of the place came out on my last night as I made my way to the bus to the train station to the bus to the airport. My bus was got stuck in the middle of the street in Central London due to a back log of limousines and a fight in the middle of the street. I was waiting for the moment when the yelling and the stiletto heel stomping would turn into screaming and hair pulling, but no such luck, and eventually it cleared up and my bus was on its way and back into Standard 3 am London traffic: slow, but chugging along.
morocco SOON.
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