Riding a train is the absolute best way to relax. All you have to do is sit back and ride. There’s nothing to worry about except getting off at your stop. If I sit down at home to read, my brain jumps from one thing to another, thinking of all of the tasks I need to complete on my To Do List. But on a train, there's nothing to do but wait, so my brain is allowed to shut off completely except for the power needed to read my book. For some reason, planes do not function the same way for me. Maybe because they're so uncomfortable compared with trains. So, when Mom and I got on the train from Antwerp to Amsterdam, I was planning to read and eat chocolate. Turns out that was not
in the cards. Instead, we were to have the honor of a comedian in our midst, whether
he knew that he was our entertainment for the night or not. The ride did start
out quiet, with a very empty train car. There was a dark haired, smartly-dressed man with a sweet face in the row opposite
us (I'll call him Frank because that's what he looked like), and a few other couples dispersed throughout the car. We read our respective
books and ate our snacks for half an hour in contented silence, while Frank worked on his computer. This is when it began. First, the train started slowing down in the middle of nowhere and the loudspeaker voice announced that they were having technical problems. Mom and I began to hear whisperings behind us. At first they
were just mutterings that we could not very well distinguish into actual words,
so we kept reading while listening to these mutterings in the back of our
minds. We could already tell they were not sweet nothings being whispered from
one person to another. After a while, they grew louder and louder. Then we
began to smell cigarette smoke. Someone was smoking on the train!? What, are we
in the 1940’s again? Today, smoking on trains is not allowed. Well, at that moment, the power in the train went out so we were left in almost complete darkness. Mom and I looked around and we could barely see
Smokey McSmokerson standing right outside the glass doors that separated our 2nd
Class seats from 1st Class. He was stuck in the passage between the
electronic doors, talking through the glass and knocking on the door. A few minutes later,
the power came back on and he returned to our carriage, sitting a few seats
behind us and we realized he was the before unidentified mumbler. Except now
they were no longer mumblings… they were coherent sentences. Once our train
started moving again and we could understand his mumblings, Mom and I could
barely keep ourselves from howling with laughter. Obviously, he was a bit
(read: A LOT) drunk, and he didn't appear to have any plans to stop drinking in the near future. This is pretty normal on trains - very different from America. Most young people always have a beer on the trains if it's after 5 on the weekends. Most of them aren't this hammered, though. Now, I will not repeat here exactly
what he was muttering for the sake of my grandparents, but I don’t think Mom or
I have laughed that hard in a REALLY long time. I had to hold my nose and cover
my hand with my mouth so that I wouldn’t laugh out loud and tears were
streaming down both of our faces. We looked across at Frank and he
met our stares with laughter in his eyes, too. It’s not that Smokey had that much to say. He
really repeated the same thing over and over and over and over. He was from
England and apparently had a problem with French people. He actually had a
rather interesting opinion (although not something many people would agree with) on a lot of countries and their inhabitants. Again,
nothing I can repeat here without my grandparent’s eyes burning. We three (Mom,
Frank, and me) sat there for the remainder of the trip just
listening to him and trying not to sob with laughter, although one hackle did
escape from me once and I cringed at the thought of him coming and asking what
I was laughing at. Not that he was scary, per say, but he was doing a good job
of yelling at people and when someone yells at me, I cry. Can’t help it.
So after our unintentional ab workout, we made it to
Amsterdam at around 11. We hopped in a taxi and promptly realized that driving
in Amsterdam is a lot like Paris. No rules. They just drive wherever they feel
like driving, whether that’s on the wrong side of the road or over a sidewalk
and a couple pedestrians, who cares! After 20 minutes of Mom and I squeezing
our eyes shut and muttering “Oh no, did we hit her!?”, we made it to our hotel.
Our beautiful, warm, eco-friendly hotel. With an actual bathroom that had a
toilet, shower, and sink, as all bathrooms should, but which apparently is not
common in all of northern Europe. I turned on the TV when we got settled in the
room and what was on TV, but Saved by the Bell!!! Let me tell you: that was
exciting, that was.
We slept very well that night, then got up to enjoy the day
in Amsterdam. We were only staying in Amsterdam the one night, then going to a
nearby town called Leiden to say, which had just as much charm as Amsterdam, if
not more. Over the next few days, we travelled back and forth between Amsterdam
and Leiden, enjoying both towns. One thing that Mom and I both really wanted to
do was go to the Anne Frank House. After figuring out their tram/bus system, we
finally made it that way only to see a seriously long line. Like 2.5 hour-wait
line. They said the lines are shorter in the late afternoon and we decided to
try back then. Instead, we went on a canal tour, which was really nice and
relaxing, ate a good lunch, went to the Rubens & Van Dyck exhibit at The
Hermitage Museum (awesome, by the way), and wandered around the old canal
districts. When we went back to the Anne Frank House 30 minutes before closing
as instructed, they were already closing and said they were too full. Then they
told us to try back again on Sunday (the day we were leaving) and come right
when they open. So we did that and the line was even LONGER. We didn’t have
time to wait in it before our train back to Germany left, so we didn’t get to
see the inside of the Anne Frank House. But that’s ok, we still got to see a
good bit of Amsterdam and get an idea of the city. Basically, there’s not too
much to write home about. Yes, it’s a neat town to visit, but now that I’ve
been, there are other places I’d much rather go back to than Amsterdam. Not as
beautiful and culturally interesting as seen in photos or magazines. Maybe
Brugge ruined me because it was so magestic. Who knows? I still love The
Netherlands and the people that live there.
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| The Hermitage |
New Year’s Eve was spent in Leiden. We took a train to the
nearby beach and enjoyed that for a while (but not too long because it was
FREEZING). Then on the train ride back to Leiden, we watched fireworks out of
our windows and contemplated what we would do for the rest of the evening. We
didn’t really know what to do and we were worn out from all of our travels and
would be leaving early the next day, so we decided to go back to our B&B to
eat junk food, watch a movie, and listen/watch the fireworks out of our window.
And let me tell you, the dutch know all about fireworks. We learned that The
Netherlands purchases the most fireworks out of any other country in Europe and
I believe it. Fireworks blasted all around us until the early hours of the
morning. It sounded like we were in a war zone, but it made for a good show.
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| Freezing on the North Sea :) |
Sadly, our train ride back to Germany was uneventful without
any crazy people to keep us entertained. We passed the ride reading our books
and eating chocolate. Mom resided in Moenchengladbach, and we explored the town
a little more until she hopped on a plane back to the states on the 4th.
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