Monthly Archives: July 2008

Brugge 4th of July, Part 2

Another day, another train, another sandwich from a train station vendor.

Yesterday was awesome. My hosts barbecued carne asada and char siu, There was potato salad (the good kind, with egg). There was homemade sponge cake and strawberries and cream.

The internet crapped out sometime during the evening for no apparent reason and I was unable to connect with my possible ride from Brugge to Werchter, but oh well. I guess I hadn’t sent my mobile number to Thomas after all. Also unable to check trains or weather or all those million things one does as a matter of course these days.

This morning, woke up early after a nice sleep (unfortunately, the cat didn’t visit, but what a supersweet cat! man I miss my dogs). We eventually got ourselves out of the house and wandered Brugge, really pretty town. Got some chocolates, yay! went to the market, but my hostess was having an allergic reaction, maybe to the strawberries she had for breakfast? not sure but I hope she’s better soon.

Anyway, waited for the late bus, made it to the station and (of course) missed my train by three minutes. Silver lining: the train I am currently on (yes, typing offline, it’s kinda weird but) goes through to Leuven so I won’t have to change in Brussels. I also found my ticket from Brussels to Leuven that was included with my festival ticket, so yay! I had forgotten that I printed it.

It’s raining but perhaps it will stop by the time I get to Werchter. Wardrobe choices will be rather tricky of it’s really wet. My warmest shoes are my Adidas, but if they get all muddy and stuff, I will be pretty unhappy. I only brought my good Adidas, not the older, muckier ones. I also didn’t really have a good choice for rain jacket, and forgot to pack that wee umbrella I have, dammit. I had intended to. I don’t even have a hat! which is another thing I had tossed around but didn’t come to a decision.

Sigh. We’ll see. Perhaps there will be ponchos for sale at the station in Leuven or something.

Brugge 4th of July, Part 1

So I have spent today trying to get to Bruges from Amsterdam. It’s a matter of a couple hundred kilometres, no big deal. From one country to the next, one train ticket, yada yada yada.

This morning I get up bright and early and have my breakfast, pack up my stuff, pick up a bouquet for my hosts in Bruges, and go to the train station to get my ticket. I go first to the lady, who tells me it’s cheaper if I get the ticket from the machine. I get the impression that she doesn’t want to stop surfing Perez Hilton or whatever it is she’s doing to actually serve a customer. OK fine. I go to the machine. The machine eventually lets me know that it doesn’t take my credit card. Oh, OK. My budget included transport on credit cards; I actually have bought some of my tickets in advance–with credit cards. but not this one as I wasn’t sure of my timing exactly.

So I go back to the lady and she tells me that she doesn’t take credit cards either. OhhhhhhhhK. We try my bank card. No go. Fine, cash it is. (FUCK.)

I get my ticket, I decide to hop an earlier train for Schiphol so I can change some more of my dwindling cash supply. I do that, get raped not quite as badly as by the last money changer,

I find my platform for my IC train to Antwerpen and beyond. I get on my train, which is announced many times as “International IC train to Belgium.” I ride through charming, be-cowed countryside with little canals everywhere. The train eventually stops somewhere, I can’t read the town name, and it doesn’t continue. I think, hmmm. I wait. I look out the door and find that it’s scheduled to depart at 43 after the hour, it’s now the half hour. OK, I didn’t have a proper schedule and my ideas of distance in these (relatively) miniature countries are sketchy at best. Eventually it stairs, the train, and it …goes back the way it came. WHAT?

A conductor passes by, I ask if we’re in the direction for Antwerpen. No! he says, we’re going to Amsterdam Centraal. Well shit I just came from Amsterdam, what should I do, I’m supposed to go to Antwerp and there was no announcement on the train, I thought it was my IC train to Belgium!

Oh you’d better get out at Rotterdam and catch another train there. OK.

I get out at Rotterdam, ask a train lady at the bottom of the stairs which platform for Antwerpen, and miss the train by, literally, seconds. No train for half an hour, it’s a Thalys to Paris Nord. Or I can wait and get the next one that I missed in an hour. I want to get there ASAP, people are waiting and likely have reorganized their days for me. So I talk my way onto the Thalys with no reservation, it’s an €18 supplement to sit in the little jumpseat. Well I have this annoying rolly bag and big bunch of flowers, so I’m OK with the jumpseat really, it saves me either leaving my bag unattended or trying to hoist it somewhere unhoistable, and dealing with the bouquet.

I get to Antwerpen, approximately 2 minutes after the train to Bruges leaves. I ask at information for the next train to Bruges. Antwerp is under drastic construction, and I’m not the only one asking for help, the big boards are noticeably absent. The girl there looks me up two different trips, one involving a change and getting in a mere 13 minutes sooner…I decide to just go with the original plan, the direct train.

I’m philosophical by this point. I text my host that I’m going to be another hour later than I expected.

I sit on the platform, eat the tuna sandwich I brought from Rotterdam, and wait for the train. The train doesn’t come. It’s not announced on the board on the platform, I think, perhaps it’s late? Eventually a chap who’s been waiting for the same train goes exploring and finds that it’s just left, from another platform. I have been listening closely to the announcements, and can guarantee that none was made regarding this train to Oostende.

And so, another hour.

Three hours late from my original ETA. The train has been announced for its originally scheduled platform now. I should be in Bruges in another hour and a half or so.

I have never ever had this sort of trouble with European trains before. I wonder what happened to them. Language notwithstanding, I know how to, you know, get on a train.

ugh

I’ve been raped by a moneychanger. I thought CAD 1.62 for 1 euro was bad when I dropped Scott off at the airport. I thought CAD 1.74 for 1 euro was theft when I was leaving for Europe. I thought .68 at Schipol was incomprehensible so I didn’t even go there.

Today I paid CAD 1.86. There was no commission as my amount was large enough to qualify for “today’s special” and when I said ECHT! that’s a horrible rate! to the man, he said the US dollar was dragging ours down. I said we have NOTHING to do with that dollar, we’re rock fucking solid. He said don’t change small amounts, the fees will add up. I said DUDE THAT WASN’T A SMALL AMOUNT FOR ME. He said try living with euros all the time. Well but I don’t earn euros, I only earn dollars. And I suck for not buying a whack of euros a week ago, I’m thinking that the “July holiday season” has created an artificial shift in the rate.

OUCH.

FUCK YOU, MONEYCHANGERS!

So yeah back to the all-Currywürst-all-the-time in Berlin plan, babies. But that’s OK, I love teh Currywürst.

In other news, I went to the gallery where Stanley Donwood’s stuff is being exhibited before the moneychanging incident, and while the cheapest prints were already sold (the only ones I might have talked myself into buying), I did buy the book. And the artist was there, too, although I didn’t talk to him. I had seen him in the café across the canal from the gallery earlier and thought “Is that Stanley?” but I’m not one of those OCD Radiohead people (no, really, stop laughing: I’m not) and I really wasn’t sure what he looked like.

There are minotaurs there, kids, and there were some OKC-era prints, and I was sorely tempted, but in light of the later money reality check, it’s really just as well.

So I have the catalog of the exhibit (OKC and Kid A and Eraser and In Rainbows stuff; I don’t know that there was any HTTT stuff?) and I got an overpriced t-shirt (YOU USED TO BE ALRIGHT/WHAT HA_PPENED? or some variation on that typography, too lazy to look) (well it’s going to be available for the same number of dollars, but not until August, I am a SUCKER) and that’s the extent of my Radiohead buying for this album. I must insist.

But it’s all good.

Oh and when I was wandering the arty quarter there, I stopped in to this one place that was showing Alan Macdonald stuff. I’m not in that loop so I’ve never heard of the guy, but WOW, he does these neat mashup things with double-take sorts of images in classic styles (Rembrandt or Goya influenced, e.g.) and then words from pop songs, um one was from The Doors’ The End; another was The Sounds of Silence; the really cool one in the window that sucked me in I can’t remember. Perhaps a New Order song? While I suppose they might pall in time, seriously, if I had cash I would have grabbed a couple of them, most were already marked sold and I thought they were a bargain. I would love to be able to support an artist like that.

OH HAI!

I’m in Amsterdam, saw first Radiohead gig of five this summer last night, may possibly survive jetlag, and promise to write more later, and possibly even post some pictures :D

Right now I’m off to a couple of museums and maybe a canal boat cruise, while the sun shines.