At the end of the flight!
Sorry! So I just didn't touch a computer for awhile. But this is what happened for the last couple of days ;)
Day 5
Sooooooooo, we got up way to early for me….we had like at least three alarms going. The front desk, the two tvs and their alarms. But we got up and did our thing and got in the taxi to the north part of paris. We actually ended up driving past Moulin Rouge, which was kind of cool considering we didn’t get to go in and the taxi driver & Aaron told me that its kind of shady part of town, lots of dance shows and prostitution. He had some very definite opinions about prostitution, tourism, and parking traffic.
We then rode the bullet train out of paris. It was the same stop that was in amelie. That was pretty cool. I took pictures and look like the tourist that I am. Yeah so, the bullet only took about 1.5 hrs to get to Brussels. It was cool, most of the fam snored on the way there. I put some thoughts on paper.
So we arrived here and my uncle and aunt picked us up. We went to eat at an Chinese restaurant. And I realized that after eating, that I wasn’t full and that I hadn’t had Chinese food in awhile and they could probably set out 6 more plates and I could have eaten them all. I have a bottomless pit for Chinese food, nothing else but Chinese. So from there we drove home to move all our luggage in and take a break. On our way to the suburbs the last thing I remember was seeing the smart cars made by Mercedes. They are cute two seaters that can fit anywhere, kind of like a small dinosaur head. I zoned out. And then I went into the house and zoned out on the couch. Seriously, falling asleep around other people who are awake is kind of scary, you wake up and you don’t know what happened for the last couple of hours, yet you don’t know what they did.
So we went to pick up my three cousins and headed to Waterloo. We climbed like 300 stairs to reach the top of this artifical hill. It just makes me wonder what people are actually thinking…when they dump more dirt on more dirt. My cousins are really cute. They are 5, 7, and 11. The oldest is a girl and the other two are boys. You are totally asking for trouble. They definatlly liven things up but they are kind of scary too. I keep wondering if I was like that when I was younger. Hoooooope not. So then we went home and then let my oldest cousin go to extra classes. And then we got to the interesting part of the evening. We went to an all you can eat restaurant called Mexican BBQ.
So, I’m thinking, I flew across the Atlantic to eat Mexican. But it wasn’t but it was. There was a lot of seafood, fries, cold veggies, mozzarella, etc. And then they had an area for raw meat which you could go and BBQ yourself. But I’m sure that most of the people didn’t go for any of that…they went for the free beer and wine. Once you had paid….there was no end to the alcohol to be had. Can totally imagine a few people into that. But what got me about the place is that they have pictures of Nevada, the grand canyon, nature of the Americans, and then pictures of the Iraqui or Navaho (is that how you spell it? I can’ remember but) They had pics of plains Indians, and the chief of the tribe in California which were moved on the….trail of tears? No? So yeah, I mean you could stretch it and say that the N. Natives Americans had ties with the Aztecs, Incans…etc. but still. And yet all these French people just don’t know…gah. Oh dear. Brittany would be slightly angry if she was there. I thought it was just too weird. The place was packed too cause the holiday started tomorrow and my uncle was like, everyone has money now ;D
Day 6
So we started the day off at 10am. We all piled in the car that was rented, 9 person van, which is huge on the streets of Europe. And I apologize now. Not to you. But to all the people in Europe who need to drive next to this van driven by my father. Yes I’m sorry, the pain is all yours. So we headed for Holland/dutchland/Netherlands for some extra phun. My mom told me that when she heard about Netherlands, that she initially thought of Never Neverland, you know in peter pan. And she only heard about the Netherlands about 5 years ago when she started working for Phillips, who’s headquarters are there. I kind of just played with hemp string most of the way. I used to make necklaces etc all the time when I was little….where did I find all that patient to make such things, I lasted like 1.5 hrs. And then I fell asleep. Belgium and the Netherlands are a lot like Seattle. Lots of rain, cloudy, and green. Awwww home. I kind of want to go home right now. I mean it’s phun being in Europe and all but at the same time, I just want to be at home and comfy.
Anyways, it takes about 3 hrs to make it to Holland and the tulip garden, Keukenhof. It’s pretty cold out and I’m wearing my berks. At least I have my helly hanson coat, it’s pretty warm, but damn it where the hell are those fields on fields of tulips? Guess we will never know eh? Actually they are moved into the garden and replanted. And once they wilt, their heads are chopped off. Most of the fields are chopped off, we came a little too late, too bad. In part of the garden there was this young guy chasing these kids around, and he was making growling noised. He was fake kidding, but he reminded me of hugo, except hugo I’m sure would eat the children after catching them. So after that, we headed to the hotel. As we were driving in, it came to my attention that there were trees surrounded by tall blocks of wood. Doesn’t it seem sadist to purposely wrap live trees with dead ones? I know I wouldn’t grow.
After settling and scoping out the sauna room, we headed into Amsterdam and I forgot to switch out of my berks. Actually, I realized that I had been insatiable for the last couple days, and really tired. I think it’s a sign that my period is coming. I always get tired and can’t seem to get full when I’m about to start. Actually, in paris, my brother finally learned that we are probably part jewish. Aww the slow and the ugly. It’s a story that’s pretty old (ask me about it if you want to know) and that’s why my mom and I probably have smaller red blood cells, it’s a Mediterranean thing I guess. And that might make my periods more difficult, since I’m gushing blood from a certain area.
So we park, and head to one of the main canals of Amsterdam. I found out htat Amsterdam is below sea level and that they have tons of canals. We took a little boat cruise through the area and went down a lot of canals. A lot of the building architecture is different and yet the same in paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and suburbs. It’s kind of interesting. After the boat cruise, where the captain showed off his skill at boat driving through the canals, we walk a ways in to a square. There were lots of cool souvenir shops etc on the street which I wished we could have stopped up, lots of cool tshirts that I’m sure many people would enjoy, Stephen perhaps. There were lots of Marijuana shirts. The fact that I can spell Marijuana without spell check must say something. There was also a sex museum, which I couldn’t go in with the children around…but I was very curious. My understanding is that that is not the worse there is in the city.
We ate at another Chinese restaurant till we were full, sort of…period and all. Actually, some Europeans came and in and when their food was served, they had hot grills on the table. My uncle said it was cause they take so long to eat, that this way the food stays warm. Cause they could eat for like 2 hrs. I was like…2 hr? wow…but it makes sense, the heating not the two hr eating.
As we were walking back to the car, at like 10:30, I realized how I really should go on vacations with people my age. I wanted to shop through the shops and check out the interesting areas…instead I continued walking with a 5, 7, 11, 18, 21(me), and 4 adults past the age of 45. I talked to my mom about it and she was like…yeah you should. And then talked about how she went to palm springs with her friends, and they got a massage, pickup some Chinese takeout, went back the hotel and….knitted. And don’t that just say it all. Wonder if I will get that when I get older. Does anyone want to make any future orders? I will make scarfs, little hats…whatever else.
That’s it for the wild ride in Amsterdam. Disappointing but still phun sort of ;)
Day 7
So I was in a bad mood for about the first half of the day. I had to sleep in a bed with an 11 year old. And even though she’s in 5th grade and looks how I looked when I was that age, tall and way older than my 11 years of age, she still sleeps like a child. This includes a lot of turning and tossing, arm and leg flailing. I had also happened to drink a bit of water before sleeping and when her leg slammed into my abs…lets just say there was no way that I wasn’t going to wake up. And because I didn’t fall all the way asleep, I remembered a dream I had, a horrible dream about UAAO. Let us not stain this area with it. And on top of all that, I woke up with a scratchy throat…which totally means..yeah I got a cold. UuuuuuuuuuG. Everyone’s going to be like “again?!” but I don’t get a cold that often anymore. I think I got so many colds 1st semester cause I just took on too much, 5 classes, UAAO, Utter Mandarin, Swimming just killed me.
Ok, so me and bad mood, got in the car and we drove up north to the dyke that the Dutch built, its about 32 miles across I want to say. It’s really a big dam with grass growing on it. It was kind of windy and cool. But if you look one way, there was water and the otherside was water too. They built the dam so that they could add land. Since they are below sea level, they keep losing land and the harbor keeps getting bigger. So they damed the harbor and then started dumping in more dirt.
From there, we drove back south to Haven. A cute little seaside city, a lot of the stuff was much cheaper there than paris, its amazing the difference. We had some weird ice cream dipped in chocolat. It had some light banana flavoring. It was interesting. The roads are really narrow and stoned. Parking was hard with the 9 person van and it was windy and cold.
I will just put on paper here. Beth asked me if paris guys are all they are rumored to be. And I will say, they are ok, maybe not up the rumor. But let me tell you, Dutch boys ;D HAHAHAA they are all blond, spiky gel hair, good clothes taste, tall….yum yum, sooo cute. Not all of them but lots of them. I kind of want a darker haired version. But I can’t be that choosy neh?
So continuing. We piled in the car and drove to the otherside of the little harbor thing, on the opposite side of Haven, which is a little town call Marken I believe. And here, is the oldest little fishing dutch town left standing in Holland, and with hand made traditional dutch clothing on sale. We pay to get in and start walking the streets. Part of the town is build on the sea, they piled dunes of dirt and built the houses on top. The houses are not very big, we went in the oldest one and the beds are built into the walls, at least in the old ones. The interesting part of the town, other than the fact that everything was stone and almost all the houses were green, is that people actually live and work in the town. There is a supermarket, there are bikes going all over the place etc. I think they made it into a tourist town after they couldn’t be a fishing town anymore. Can’t remember the reason why. But there are so old people there and they are all wearing old traditional dutch wear and stuff. It’s kind of amazing how well you can preserve the culture. But I think it would be weird to make your town a tourist attraction. Its kind of like when the Native American’s open casinos or set up their traditions to attract tourist to make money. It takes a lot of guts and willpower to stand there and do that. I really admire those people, but at the same time I don’t know if I could do something like that. I have a hard enough time when others do it for my culture. Sigh.
Oh did I mention that there are cows and sheep everywhere in Holland. And there were some in the town, everyone just had babies so it was really cute. But the black sheeps were off by themselves while all the white ones were together. Discrimination! No just kidding…but for a sec there I thought it was and I was like…EVEN AMOUNG SHEEP!? jk
So we all pile in the car and start to head home to Brussels. On the way home, we stop in Antwerp, which is a town just past the border, which there was no custom and no money has been needed to be exchanged to get some food. Of course we stop for Chinese food, blaaaaaaaaaah. I like but still ;) It’s not as good as last nights, but still munch munch. However, the Chinatown of the city is kind of shady, but cool. There’s a lot of mix, there’s some Himalayan, African, Indian, Chinese, etc. I really wanted to try the Himalayan food but…Chinese here we come!
I think what made my day today was, as we were heading back from Antwerp, my middle cousin is talking to my mom and calls her the wrong honorable title, he calls her grandma. And my mom is like “NO NO!” I’m your aunt blah blah. And he’s like oops sorry, aunt. And my mom continues to explain and is like you also have an uncle. And my great wonderful cousin is like uh-hu, yeah he’s dead. And I just can’t stop laughing cause he’s not dead, but it’s so great. It’s my older uncle that I mentioned in other entries. If you really want the whole story, you can ask but its something else that I will not stain here. We also sang old Chinese lullabies and riddles which I haven’t heard it so long, its kind of soothing. Well that’s about it. We are going to an antique market tomorrow and I’m excited, we shall see.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay 8
Soooooo I woke up this morning. And it was rainy and windy and the antique trip was called off. I also woke up at 9:30, which was too late. Geez…we are suppose to get up at 7 for this? Ummm we might do it tomorrow and I will try but it will be nasty. I’m getting more use to the time difference though, cause I woke up without someone calling me or noises going on. And so we watched TV with the kiddos for awhile. My Middle cousin is great…he started to sign “I’m too sexy” in Dutch. That’s just great, I leave Hugo and the English version to come to a miniature and a dutch version. It just started the day correctly.
So instead, we first went shopping for food for tonight, HOT POT! Yum yum I can’t wait. So we first went to the pharmacy first. Three in the family, me, my mom, my dad are all sick. The pharmacy is pretty interesting. There’s very little in the actually store that you can grab. But you have to talk to the lady behind the counter and be like, this is wrong and this is what I need. And then she/he will pick it out for you. The medicine is stored in these cabinate things, that pull right out of the wall and can be accessed from bothsides. And there are about 10 of them all side by side. Its pretty cool, but makes for a long line wait since everyone needs to talk to the person behind the counter. But obviously the person behind the counter has a lot of good nknowledge of what works and what doesn’t. It made me think of OMS and queues…stupid bschool intruding on my trip.
After that, my oldest cousin and I went to Blockers, which I felt like was equivalent to the dollar store, while the rest of the group went to a chocolate store…which I didn’t know ;( god…the horror and the pain. My mom’s like we can go back..and I’m like please…I’m not going to make everyone do the same thing again just cause I want to. Unlike some people I know…cough..ahem dad and michael.
From there we headed to this Japanese store where we picked up the hot pot stuff. But there was also a lot of Korean and some Chinese stuff. The employees there could speak, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, all major e.asian languages covered. There was a really cute little kid in there, she was about 2 -3 and she was screaming and calling out to her mommy. So cute.
Oh my bad. We are having Hot pot tomorrow. Tonight we had dumplings, hot and sour, and some sushi rice, and red wine.
Anyways back to the Japanese store. We got lots of food…and I tried to not seem to obvious about viewing the alcohol section, lots of plum wine and sake…eeps ;)
After the Japanese store we went to the European supermarket, Delaize. So we shop a little, getting other stuff we will need. We come across this little CD section and I’m taking down artists like the shady person that I am. Dl here I come. We also got a ton of cheese. Yeah for cheese! We got some Brie, some old Amsterdam, some…chocobloc, some creamy white stuff…etc etc. That chocobloc…yeah its chocolate and cheese…it’s pretty sweet and pasty like, so that you can spread it across crackers. It’s sweet and pretty nice…even covered with chocolate sprinkles.
So then we head home, stuff ourselves some more and then head out to brussel’s downtown. My aunt and uncle live in the suburbs of Brussel about 10K out. So we park about a block from the EU building and then take the subway into the center. And the first thing that we hear/see when we come out of the subway…is the LGBT Parade. There’s flags, floats with the europe’s version of the fab five. I personally really liked the long bus with about 5 palm trees of two lines. And around each palm tree, was men…wearing little briefs and and necklaces?...can’t remember and they were dancing…and there was loud music…I have pictures and that’s all that matters. It was a pretty cool parade. I wished we could have watched longer, but everyone one was like…oh man..its too loud and crowed…side streets it was… But walking in the opposite direction of the parade were people holding pink signs that said things like “do you know where you are going” and I was just like…man…just leave..this is not your parade ugg.
Anyways we walked around, it was pretty cool…all the old architecture and there happen to be a tin tin shop. I almost bought a tshirt, but it cost about like 30 bucks and I was like..nothing is that cute. Tin Tin is cute but Milou is much much cuter ;) I’ll check it out on the web. We also went and rubbed some lady’s arm…she’s made of gold….I still need to get the story from my uncle why we rubbed it. But you rub it with a wish you want.
After that we headed to another part of town and went shopping. On the subway ride there, some guy got on the subway with us…and has an accordion….is that what it is? It compresses and has holes for fingers and has a keyboard…accordion? Anyways he starts playing….its kind of nice to ride the subway with music….but other people ewere not so happy. It’s really hard to shop with so many people and there are so many different. I think I will have to come back to Europe with my friends. I think with my family I get one experience but with my friends another and one that I can enjoy and go into shops more often. Maybe after graduation? I saw these really cute shoes that I will have to try on eventually, when I can. I figured out there’s and H & M store around the place, but no one doesn’t know where it is…soo sad. I did want to go and buy some cheap nice clothes. But we instead went to Hagen Daas and had high priced, fancified ice cream. It was phun and it was kind of cool. The store was huge and there was places to sit and stuff like that.
After that we headed home, ate dinner and then proceed to watch old videos. We watched the wedding ceremony of my uncle and aunt, from 1989. My brother was the ring boy and I was the ring girl, I was 5 and my brother had just turned 3. Yeah, so my brother was almost asleep even before walking down the aisle and fell asleep during the ceremony…his head was against the pillow as he walked down. I felt like the aisle was much much longer in my memory, but its defiantly a lot shorter. I was pretty good about sitting there through out the ceremony but my brother was all over the place, climbing over things and stuff. And then when I walked back down the aisle throwing flowers…I was a bit slow about throwing it and moving down the aisle. It was phunny though, the video took about 30 -40 min, everyone was focusing on the two kids, not on the ceremony of love going on…of dear…important things really do come out 15 years down the line. We watched a few more movies of my 3 cousins.
I forgot to mention that, a lot of Europeans seem to smoke better. Well at least in regarding of releasing smoke and effecting others. A lot of them smoke, but in blowing smoke they seem to do better, blowing up instead of at other people. Also, the restaurants and areas seems to be better ventilated with the expectation of the smoke to come. A lot of Europeans seem to smoke a lot more but it doesn’t smell like it ;)
Well I’m going to bed early so that we can get up early for the antique market and some mineral cave. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY 9 here I come! UGG
Day 9!!
Yeah for last day! So we got up early this morning…like 7:45ish to go the antique market. I took a little nap before we left and I took a little nap after we got back. So anyways. The market wasn’t that big, but it was in the city of Brussels. We headed in and walked around. It was pretty cool. There was a lot of old stuff there, but I think you need to pick through and figure out what was good and what was new…I saw some bracelets from Hawaii in the mix. My brother wanted to buy a dagger for 130 e. And I was like…uhhh like there would be any use. And he’s like oh I could hang it on my wall. My parents then rec that he take a pic and I’m like yeah and then you can hang the pic on the wall, same effect ;). I found a pin that I really liked and ended up buying. But it was really phunny cause the lady was like, its Art Nuevo, made out of plastic not the real thing…laaaa, oh buy.
So we got home, ate spaghetti…my favorite bleh and then took a nice long nap. I think the cold is getting into to me….I think everyone else thinks I have strep throat….and I hope to hell not. So then we climbed into the big van and headed for parts unknown of Belgium.
We went to a Mineral Cave called Domain of the Grottoes of Han. (www.grotte-de-han.be). It’s actually a huge cave and pretty cool. Only a majority of my pics came out cause the flash is pretty lame. But you have to take a train out to the cave and then after the cave you get to take a little boat ride back. It’s kind of phunny cause we went into one of the biggest parts of the cave…it was huge and then they played music and light up different portions of the cave with the music….It just made me laugh…honestly they were trying to keep the cave natural…and that’s why you have to ride the train in, but all the lights and people walking through probably doesn’t help at all. And they dug up portions so that they could be placed in a museum, trees and such. Ohhugg. But the place we went seems to be a tourist place but not for Americans. Cause they gave tours but only in French and dutch…so we were kind of out of luck. But when they were flashing the lights and it was pitch dark I couldn’t see a think…my hand was right in front of my face and I couldn’t see it at all. Ohhh scary.
So we left the boat and walked back. Most of the public bathrooms need to be paid for in Europe so when we found out one was for free…my family of course rushed the bathroom. I don’t think we would survive well here. The water needs to be bottled, tap is not ok, and going to the bathroom costs lots of money. A lot of the European public bathrooms are different from the American ones and this free one was probably the closest in terms of soap dispensers and towel dispensers. Most don’t have towels and the soap is dispensed in interesting ways. The most interesting is this bottle attached to the wall and you flip over and squeeze. But the one here was just a regular one, and my mom said one little kid was so fascinated that she pumped her had full of it and it was dripping off down to the floor. My mom was saying that she thinks most of the kids in Europe don’t have as many experiences…like being able to get out of the house and exploring other things…their lives are much more bitter than those of kids in like the US. So they are amazed just leaving their houses and towns. I agree but at the same time…for kids in the US, to get that OMG feeling they have to leave the nation to get it and very few do. I mean…I thought everyone had a passport until like jr. high. And I think that’s kind of sad and that its not encouraged in any sort of way. Especially language learning. Most of the kids here know at least one other language fluently…or pretty close. Take my uncle’s family, the parents speak mandarin and French and the kids speak dutch and mandarin, and understand English and can speak a little. Aren’t we a much better equipped family? No?
Oh I forgot to mention, that the bathrooms here are pretty sweet. There often time is only one door to the bathroom and then two hallways off with one for guys and one for girls. It’s so great. That way if girl is full you can hop over to guys. Also, the stalls are like little rooms, so it doesn’t really matter who’s next to you. And they usually only have one set of sinks for everyone. Waste not want not no?
Anyways. So we had hot pot tonight! Yeah! Instead of a huge pot, it was Korean style? Well it had the BBQ thing in the middle and the water around the side. All the oil and sauce from the meat would fall off the BBQ and into the moat around the thing. It’s pretty good. Except I think we killed it, the light stopped shinnying after awhile. So we stopped. But I did get some good soup out of it before we really stopped. After that we watched one of Andy Lau’s earlier films…it was pretty good…about the imperial cat and shinning mouse about back in the time of emperors and talked about a famous fighter who was so good that he was called a cat and his friend from war, a court official who was very wise and solved many crimes. Fighting, phunniness, and more. So now I need to go to bed and close this out. We are getting up at 6 tomorrow morning and I feel like that’s a bad idea already. Well that’s about it for the phun and madness. Will be home soon.
Day 5
Sooooooooo, we got up way to early for me….we had like at least three alarms going. The front desk, the two tvs and their alarms. But we got up and did our thing and got in the taxi to the north part of paris. We actually ended up driving past Moulin Rouge, which was kind of cool considering we didn’t get to go in and the taxi driver & Aaron told me that its kind of shady part of town, lots of dance shows and prostitution. He had some very definite opinions about prostitution, tourism, and parking traffic.
We then rode the bullet train out of paris. It was the same stop that was in amelie. That was pretty cool. I took pictures and look like the tourist that I am. Yeah so, the bullet only took about 1.5 hrs to get to Brussels. It was cool, most of the fam snored on the way there. I put some thoughts on paper.
So we arrived here and my uncle and aunt picked us up. We went to eat at an Chinese restaurant. And I realized that after eating, that I wasn’t full and that I hadn’t had Chinese food in awhile and they could probably set out 6 more plates and I could have eaten them all. I have a bottomless pit for Chinese food, nothing else but Chinese. So from there we drove home to move all our luggage in and take a break. On our way to the suburbs the last thing I remember was seeing the smart cars made by Mercedes. They are cute two seaters that can fit anywhere, kind of like a small dinosaur head. I zoned out. And then I went into the house and zoned out on the couch. Seriously, falling asleep around other people who are awake is kind of scary, you wake up and you don’t know what happened for the last couple of hours, yet you don’t know what they did.
So we went to pick up my three cousins and headed to Waterloo. We climbed like 300 stairs to reach the top of this artifical hill. It just makes me wonder what people are actually thinking…when they dump more dirt on more dirt. My cousins are really cute. They are 5, 7, and 11. The oldest is a girl and the other two are boys. You are totally asking for trouble. They definatlly liven things up but they are kind of scary too. I keep wondering if I was like that when I was younger. Hoooooope not. So then we went home and then let my oldest cousin go to extra classes. And then we got to the interesting part of the evening. We went to an all you can eat restaurant called Mexican BBQ.
So, I’m thinking, I flew across the Atlantic to eat Mexican. But it wasn’t but it was. There was a lot of seafood, fries, cold veggies, mozzarella, etc. And then they had an area for raw meat which you could go and BBQ yourself. But I’m sure that most of the people didn’t go for any of that…they went for the free beer and wine. Once you had paid….there was no end to the alcohol to be had. Can totally imagine a few people into that. But what got me about the place is that they have pictures of Nevada, the grand canyon, nature of the Americans, and then pictures of the Iraqui or Navaho (is that how you spell it? I can’ remember but) They had pics of plains Indians, and the chief of the tribe in California which were moved on the….trail of tears? No? So yeah, I mean you could stretch it and say that the N. Natives Americans had ties with the Aztecs, Incans…etc. but still. And yet all these French people just don’t know…gah. Oh dear. Brittany would be slightly angry if she was there. I thought it was just too weird. The place was packed too cause the holiday started tomorrow and my uncle was like, everyone has money now ;D
Day 6
So we started the day off at 10am. We all piled in the car that was rented, 9 person van, which is huge on the streets of Europe. And I apologize now. Not to you. But to all the people in Europe who need to drive next to this van driven by my father. Yes I’m sorry, the pain is all yours. So we headed for Holland/dutchland/Netherlands for some extra phun. My mom told me that when she heard about Netherlands, that she initially thought of Never Neverland, you know in peter pan. And she only heard about the Netherlands about 5 years ago when she started working for Phillips, who’s headquarters are there. I kind of just played with hemp string most of the way. I used to make necklaces etc all the time when I was little….where did I find all that patient to make such things, I lasted like 1.5 hrs. And then I fell asleep. Belgium and the Netherlands are a lot like Seattle. Lots of rain, cloudy, and green. Awwww home. I kind of want to go home right now. I mean it’s phun being in Europe and all but at the same time, I just want to be at home and comfy.
Anyways, it takes about 3 hrs to make it to Holland and the tulip garden, Keukenhof. It’s pretty cold out and I’m wearing my berks. At least I have my helly hanson coat, it’s pretty warm, but damn it where the hell are those fields on fields of tulips? Guess we will never know eh? Actually they are moved into the garden and replanted. And once they wilt, their heads are chopped off. Most of the fields are chopped off, we came a little too late, too bad. In part of the garden there was this young guy chasing these kids around, and he was making growling noised. He was fake kidding, but he reminded me of hugo, except hugo I’m sure would eat the children after catching them. So after that, we headed to the hotel. As we were driving in, it came to my attention that there were trees surrounded by tall blocks of wood. Doesn’t it seem sadist to purposely wrap live trees with dead ones? I know I wouldn’t grow.
After settling and scoping out the sauna room, we headed into Amsterdam and I forgot to switch out of my berks. Actually, I realized that I had been insatiable for the last couple days, and really tired. I think it’s a sign that my period is coming. I always get tired and can’t seem to get full when I’m about to start. Actually, in paris, my brother finally learned that we are probably part jewish. Aww the slow and the ugly. It’s a story that’s pretty old (ask me about it if you want to know) and that’s why my mom and I probably have smaller red blood cells, it’s a Mediterranean thing I guess. And that might make my periods more difficult, since I’m gushing blood from a certain area.
So we park, and head to one of the main canals of Amsterdam. I found out htat Amsterdam is below sea level and that they have tons of canals. We took a little boat cruise through the area and went down a lot of canals. A lot of the building architecture is different and yet the same in paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and suburbs. It’s kind of interesting. After the boat cruise, where the captain showed off his skill at boat driving through the canals, we walk a ways in to a square. There were lots of cool souvenir shops etc on the street which I wished we could have stopped up, lots of cool tshirts that I’m sure many people would enjoy, Stephen perhaps. There were lots of Marijuana shirts. The fact that I can spell Marijuana without spell check must say something. There was also a sex museum, which I couldn’t go in with the children around…but I was very curious. My understanding is that that is not the worse there is in the city.
We ate at another Chinese restaurant till we were full, sort of…period and all. Actually, some Europeans came and in and when their food was served, they had hot grills on the table. My uncle said it was cause they take so long to eat, that this way the food stays warm. Cause they could eat for like 2 hrs. I was like…2 hr? wow…but it makes sense, the heating not the two hr eating.
As we were walking back to the car, at like 10:30, I realized how I really should go on vacations with people my age. I wanted to shop through the shops and check out the interesting areas…instead I continued walking with a 5, 7, 11, 18, 21(me), and 4 adults past the age of 45. I talked to my mom about it and she was like…yeah you should. And then talked about how she went to palm springs with her friends, and they got a massage, pickup some Chinese takeout, went back the hotel and….knitted. And don’t that just say it all. Wonder if I will get that when I get older. Does anyone want to make any future orders? I will make scarfs, little hats…whatever else.
That’s it for the wild ride in Amsterdam. Disappointing but still phun sort of ;)
Day 7
So I was in a bad mood for about the first half of the day. I had to sleep in a bed with an 11 year old. And even though she’s in 5th grade and looks how I looked when I was that age, tall and way older than my 11 years of age, she still sleeps like a child. This includes a lot of turning and tossing, arm and leg flailing. I had also happened to drink a bit of water before sleeping and when her leg slammed into my abs…lets just say there was no way that I wasn’t going to wake up. And because I didn’t fall all the way asleep, I remembered a dream I had, a horrible dream about UAAO. Let us not stain this area with it. And on top of all that, I woke up with a scratchy throat…which totally means..yeah I got a cold. UuuuuuuuuuG. Everyone’s going to be like “again?!” but I don’t get a cold that often anymore. I think I got so many colds 1st semester cause I just took on too much, 5 classes, UAAO, Utter Mandarin, Swimming just killed me.
Ok, so me and bad mood, got in the car and we drove up north to the dyke that the Dutch built, its about 32 miles across I want to say. It’s really a big dam with grass growing on it. It was kind of windy and cool. But if you look one way, there was water and the otherside was water too. They built the dam so that they could add land. Since they are below sea level, they keep losing land and the harbor keeps getting bigger. So they damed the harbor and then started dumping in more dirt.
From there, we drove back south to Haven. A cute little seaside city, a lot of the stuff was much cheaper there than paris, its amazing the difference. We had some weird ice cream dipped in chocolat. It had some light banana flavoring. It was interesting. The roads are really narrow and stoned. Parking was hard with the 9 person van and it was windy and cold.
I will just put on paper here. Beth asked me if paris guys are all they are rumored to be. And I will say, they are ok, maybe not up the rumor. But let me tell you, Dutch boys ;D HAHAHAA they are all blond, spiky gel hair, good clothes taste, tall….yum yum, sooo cute. Not all of them but lots of them. I kind of want a darker haired version. But I can’t be that choosy neh?
So continuing. We piled in the car and drove to the otherside of the little harbor thing, on the opposite side of Haven, which is a little town call Marken I believe. And here, is the oldest little fishing dutch town left standing in Holland, and with hand made traditional dutch clothing on sale. We pay to get in and start walking the streets. Part of the town is build on the sea, they piled dunes of dirt and built the houses on top. The houses are not very big, we went in the oldest one and the beds are built into the walls, at least in the old ones. The interesting part of the town, other than the fact that everything was stone and almost all the houses were green, is that people actually live and work in the town. There is a supermarket, there are bikes going all over the place etc. I think they made it into a tourist town after they couldn’t be a fishing town anymore. Can’t remember the reason why. But there are so old people there and they are all wearing old traditional dutch wear and stuff. It’s kind of amazing how well you can preserve the culture. But I think it would be weird to make your town a tourist attraction. Its kind of like when the Native American’s open casinos or set up their traditions to attract tourist to make money. It takes a lot of guts and willpower to stand there and do that. I really admire those people, but at the same time I don’t know if I could do something like that. I have a hard enough time when others do it for my culture. Sigh.
Oh did I mention that there are cows and sheep everywhere in Holland. And there were some in the town, everyone just had babies so it was really cute. But the black sheeps were off by themselves while all the white ones were together. Discrimination! No just kidding…but for a sec there I thought it was and I was like…EVEN AMOUNG SHEEP!? jk
So we all pile in the car and start to head home to Brussels. On the way home, we stop in Antwerp, which is a town just past the border, which there was no custom and no money has been needed to be exchanged to get some food. Of course we stop for Chinese food, blaaaaaaaaaah. I like but still ;) It’s not as good as last nights, but still munch munch. However, the Chinatown of the city is kind of shady, but cool. There’s a lot of mix, there’s some Himalayan, African, Indian, Chinese, etc. I really wanted to try the Himalayan food but…Chinese here we come!
I think what made my day today was, as we were heading back from Antwerp, my middle cousin is talking to my mom and calls her the wrong honorable title, he calls her grandma. And my mom is like “NO NO!” I’m your aunt blah blah. And he’s like oops sorry, aunt. And my mom continues to explain and is like you also have an uncle. And my great wonderful cousin is like uh-hu, yeah he’s dead. And I just can’t stop laughing cause he’s not dead, but it’s so great. It’s my older uncle that I mentioned in other entries. If you really want the whole story, you can ask but its something else that I will not stain here. We also sang old Chinese lullabies and riddles which I haven’t heard it so long, its kind of soothing. Well that’s about it. We are going to an antique market tomorrow and I’m excited, we shall see.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay 8
Soooooo I woke up this morning. And it was rainy and windy and the antique trip was called off. I also woke up at 9:30, which was too late. Geez…we are suppose to get up at 7 for this? Ummm we might do it tomorrow and I will try but it will be nasty. I’m getting more use to the time difference though, cause I woke up without someone calling me or noises going on. And so we watched TV with the kiddos for awhile. My Middle cousin is great…he started to sign “I’m too sexy” in Dutch. That’s just great, I leave Hugo and the English version to come to a miniature and a dutch version. It just started the day correctly.
So instead, we first went shopping for food for tonight, HOT POT! Yum yum I can’t wait. So we first went to the pharmacy first. Three in the family, me, my mom, my dad are all sick. The pharmacy is pretty interesting. There’s very little in the actually store that you can grab. But you have to talk to the lady behind the counter and be like, this is wrong and this is what I need. And then she/he will pick it out for you. The medicine is stored in these cabinate things, that pull right out of the wall and can be accessed from bothsides. And there are about 10 of them all side by side. Its pretty cool, but makes for a long line wait since everyone needs to talk to the person behind the counter. But obviously the person behind the counter has a lot of good nknowledge of what works and what doesn’t. It made me think of OMS and queues…stupid bschool intruding on my trip.
After that, my oldest cousin and I went to Blockers, which I felt like was equivalent to the dollar store, while the rest of the group went to a chocolate store…which I didn’t know ;( god…the horror and the pain. My mom’s like we can go back..and I’m like please…I’m not going to make everyone do the same thing again just cause I want to. Unlike some people I know…cough..ahem dad and michael.
From there we headed to this Japanese store where we picked up the hot pot stuff. But there was also a lot of Korean and some Chinese stuff. The employees there could speak, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, all major e.asian languages covered. There was a really cute little kid in there, she was about 2 -3 and she was screaming and calling out to her mommy. So cute.
Oh my bad. We are having Hot pot tomorrow. Tonight we had dumplings, hot and sour, and some sushi rice, and red wine.
Anyways back to the Japanese store. We got lots of food…and I tried to not seem to obvious about viewing the alcohol section, lots of plum wine and sake…eeps ;)
After the Japanese store we went to the European supermarket, Delaize. So we shop a little, getting other stuff we will need. We come across this little CD section and I’m taking down artists like the shady person that I am. Dl here I come. We also got a ton of cheese. Yeah for cheese! We got some Brie, some old Amsterdam, some…chocobloc, some creamy white stuff…etc etc. That chocobloc…yeah its chocolate and cheese…it’s pretty sweet and pasty like, so that you can spread it across crackers. It’s sweet and pretty nice…even covered with chocolate sprinkles.
So then we head home, stuff ourselves some more and then head out to brussel’s downtown. My aunt and uncle live in the suburbs of Brussel about 10K out. So we park about a block from the EU building and then take the subway into the center. And the first thing that we hear/see when we come out of the subway…is the LGBT Parade. There’s flags, floats with the europe’s version of the fab five. I personally really liked the long bus with about 5 palm trees of two lines. And around each palm tree, was men…wearing little briefs and and necklaces?...can’t remember and they were dancing…and there was loud music…I have pictures and that’s all that matters. It was a pretty cool parade. I wished we could have watched longer, but everyone one was like…oh man..its too loud and crowed…side streets it was… But walking in the opposite direction of the parade were people holding pink signs that said things like “do you know where you are going” and I was just like…man…just leave..this is not your parade ugg.
Anyways we walked around, it was pretty cool…all the old architecture and there happen to be a tin tin shop. I almost bought a tshirt, but it cost about like 30 bucks and I was like..nothing is that cute. Tin Tin is cute but Milou is much much cuter ;) I’ll check it out on the web. We also went and rubbed some lady’s arm…she’s made of gold….I still need to get the story from my uncle why we rubbed it. But you rub it with a wish you want.
After that we headed to another part of town and went shopping. On the subway ride there, some guy got on the subway with us…and has an accordion….is that what it is? It compresses and has holes for fingers and has a keyboard…accordion? Anyways he starts playing….its kind of nice to ride the subway with music….but other people ewere not so happy. It’s really hard to shop with so many people and there are so many different. I think I will have to come back to Europe with my friends. I think with my family I get one experience but with my friends another and one that I can enjoy and go into shops more often. Maybe after graduation? I saw these really cute shoes that I will have to try on eventually, when I can. I figured out there’s and H & M store around the place, but no one doesn’t know where it is…soo sad. I did want to go and buy some cheap nice clothes. But we instead went to Hagen Daas and had high priced, fancified ice cream. It was phun and it was kind of cool. The store was huge and there was places to sit and stuff like that.
After that we headed home, ate dinner and then proceed to watch old videos. We watched the wedding ceremony of my uncle and aunt, from 1989. My brother was the ring boy and I was the ring girl, I was 5 and my brother had just turned 3. Yeah, so my brother was almost asleep even before walking down the aisle and fell asleep during the ceremony…his head was against the pillow as he walked down. I felt like the aisle was much much longer in my memory, but its defiantly a lot shorter. I was pretty good about sitting there through out the ceremony but my brother was all over the place, climbing over things and stuff. And then when I walked back down the aisle throwing flowers…I was a bit slow about throwing it and moving down the aisle. It was phunny though, the video took about 30 -40 min, everyone was focusing on the two kids, not on the ceremony of love going on…of dear…important things really do come out 15 years down the line. We watched a few more movies of my 3 cousins.
I forgot to mention that, a lot of Europeans seem to smoke better. Well at least in regarding of releasing smoke and effecting others. A lot of them smoke, but in blowing smoke they seem to do better, blowing up instead of at other people. Also, the restaurants and areas seems to be better ventilated with the expectation of the smoke to come. A lot of Europeans seem to smoke a lot more but it doesn’t smell like it ;)
Well I’m going to bed early so that we can get up early for the antique market and some mineral cave. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY 9 here I come! UGG
Day 9!!
Yeah for last day! So we got up early this morning…like 7:45ish to go the antique market. I took a little nap before we left and I took a little nap after we got back. So anyways. The market wasn’t that big, but it was in the city of Brussels. We headed in and walked around. It was pretty cool. There was a lot of old stuff there, but I think you need to pick through and figure out what was good and what was new…I saw some bracelets from Hawaii in the mix. My brother wanted to buy a dagger for 130 e. And I was like…uhhh like there would be any use. And he’s like oh I could hang it on my wall. My parents then rec that he take a pic and I’m like yeah and then you can hang the pic on the wall, same effect ;). I found a pin that I really liked and ended up buying. But it was really phunny cause the lady was like, its Art Nuevo, made out of plastic not the real thing…laaaa, oh buy.
So we got home, ate spaghetti…my favorite bleh and then took a nice long nap. I think the cold is getting into to me….I think everyone else thinks I have strep throat….and I hope to hell not. So then we climbed into the big van and headed for parts unknown of Belgium.
We went to a Mineral Cave called Domain of the Grottoes of Han. (www.grotte-de-han.be). It’s actually a huge cave and pretty cool. Only a majority of my pics came out cause the flash is pretty lame. But you have to take a train out to the cave and then after the cave you get to take a little boat ride back. It’s kind of phunny cause we went into one of the biggest parts of the cave…it was huge and then they played music and light up different portions of the cave with the music….It just made me laugh…honestly they were trying to keep the cave natural…and that’s why you have to ride the train in, but all the lights and people walking through probably doesn’t help at all. And they dug up portions so that they could be placed in a museum, trees and such. Ohhugg. But the place we went seems to be a tourist place but not for Americans. Cause they gave tours but only in French and dutch…so we were kind of out of luck. But when they were flashing the lights and it was pitch dark I couldn’t see a think…my hand was right in front of my face and I couldn’t see it at all. Ohhh scary.
So we left the boat and walked back. Most of the public bathrooms need to be paid for in Europe so when we found out one was for free…my family of course rushed the bathroom. I don’t think we would survive well here. The water needs to be bottled, tap is not ok, and going to the bathroom costs lots of money. A lot of the European public bathrooms are different from the American ones and this free one was probably the closest in terms of soap dispensers and towel dispensers. Most don’t have towels and the soap is dispensed in interesting ways. The most interesting is this bottle attached to the wall and you flip over and squeeze. But the one here was just a regular one, and my mom said one little kid was so fascinated that she pumped her had full of it and it was dripping off down to the floor. My mom was saying that she thinks most of the kids in Europe don’t have as many experiences…like being able to get out of the house and exploring other things…their lives are much more bitter than those of kids in like the US. So they are amazed just leaving their houses and towns. I agree but at the same time…for kids in the US, to get that OMG feeling they have to leave the nation to get it and very few do. I mean…I thought everyone had a passport until like jr. high. And I think that’s kind of sad and that its not encouraged in any sort of way. Especially language learning. Most of the kids here know at least one other language fluently…or pretty close. Take my uncle’s family, the parents speak mandarin and French and the kids speak dutch and mandarin, and understand English and can speak a little. Aren’t we a much better equipped family? No?
Oh I forgot to mention, that the bathrooms here are pretty sweet. There often time is only one door to the bathroom and then two hallways off with one for guys and one for girls. It’s so great. That way if girl is full you can hop over to guys. Also, the stalls are like little rooms, so it doesn’t really matter who’s next to you. And they usually only have one set of sinks for everyone. Waste not want not no?
Anyways. So we had hot pot tonight! Yeah! Instead of a huge pot, it was Korean style? Well it had the BBQ thing in the middle and the water around the side. All the oil and sauce from the meat would fall off the BBQ and into the moat around the thing. It’s pretty good. Except I think we killed it, the light stopped shinnying after awhile. So we stopped. But I did get some good soup out of it before we really stopped. After that we watched one of Andy Lau’s earlier films…it was pretty good…about the imperial cat and shinning mouse about back in the time of emperors and talked about a famous fighter who was so good that he was called a cat and his friend from war, a court official who was very wise and solved many crimes. Fighting, phunniness, and more. So now I need to go to bed and close this out. We are getting up at 6 tomorrow morning and I feel like that’s a bad idea already. Well that’s about it for the phun and madness. Will be home soon.
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