Side Note: London

Day 1: In which I feel well-traveled and well-connected

After a late night spent going to the Concertgebouw, Skyping with my family and packing for the weekend, I dragged myself out of bed at 6 in the morning to go with Conny to the airport to catch our planes. I was going to London to visit Kristin, and Conny was going to visit a friend, coincidentally also named Kristin, in Florence.

Like the rest of Amsterdam the evening before, Schiphol was looking festive and Christmas-y, even though it was barely November (November 5th, to be exact). It was enough to put me in a happy enough mood, however, to sustain me through my uneventful flight to Stansted and my tedious bus ride from the airport into London proper.

Kristin had class until about 5 that evening, so I was originally going to entertain myself for a few hours before she was finished. A few days before I left, however, I managed to get in touch with a good friend of mine from Williams, also studying in London, to see if she had time to grab lunch or hang out for a bit in the four or five hours I had to spare.

As luck would have it, this friend – whose name is Yue-Yi and whose relationship with me I think we’ve managed to keep intact almost exclusively through lunch dates – not only had a couple of hours free herself, but had had a 3-5pm class canceled that morning, meaning she could stay with me from the time I arrived until the time I could meet up with Kristin. I love having friends in so many places.

Yue-Yi and set off through the streets of London, skirting the edge of Hyde Park and then walking down until we came to Harrods. The giant mall was decked out both in Christmas and in 160th Anniversary decorations, and since I wanted to see it and Yue-Yi wanted to buy something “typically London” before she went to visit a friend, we decided to explore inside.

I was obliged by a polite but insistent doorman to check my small carry-on suitcase for a fee, but I think the couple of pounds I had to pay were worth being able to gawk around the place. Unfortunately, I managed to leave my camera inside the suitcase, which means I have no pictures of Harrods’s splendor or any of our afternoon’s excursion.

We strolled through Harrods, getting lost a couple of times, buying fancy candies, sampling Christmas tea, and then getting pasties for lunch (Harrod's salesman: “We actually call them PASS-tees. PACE-tee is like… the complexion.”). We left my bag at the mall and strolled with our pasties (which are savory pockets of pastry dough/pie crust filled with chicken, vegetables, and a creamy sauce) down the posher streets of London, passing fancy bakeries, stylish shops, and of course, a Burberry store.

We ended up at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we essentially just wandered around chatting with each other and admiring art on the side. A special Islamic art exhibition was charging a hefty ₤15 admission fee, but the rest of the museum was free (well, technically “suggested donation” but you know what that means to a college student strapped for cash).

When we had thoroughly toured all of the museum that was free to tour, we reclaimed my bag from Harrods and ventured down to the Tube, where Yue-Yi patiently explained/inquired at desks for me as to how I could acquire an “oyster card” (pay-as-you-go metro pass) for the weekend, waited while I bought and loaded money onto one, and then accompanied me onto the proper train. We were conveniently headed places on the same line, and Yue-Yi’s stop was just one before mine, so there was no chance of my getting lost somewhere strange underneath London.

After a short ride I reluctantly bade goodbye to Yue-Yi, hopped off at the stop after hers, headed up the long and crowded escalators, and found Kristin waiting just outside the station. We embraced, reunited for the third time during our European adventures, and then pushed our way through the busy streets back to the quieter neighborhood where Kristin’s flat is.

I managed to unwittingly pick the best night possible to arrive in London. It was November 5th, and as those of you who know anything about British History (or have seen the movie V for Vendetta), might remember, there’s something rather special about the 5th of November:

It’s Guy Fawkes Day! (aka Bonfire Night) Guy Fawkes Day is the day the British commemorate the foiled plot of a disgruntled citizen (Guy Fawkes) to blow up the Parliament building. The holiday is typically celebrated by festivals and fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes in giant bonfires, hence the different names for the date. Kristin had scoped out a good place to join the festivities, so after I deposited my luggage at her place, we bused over to them.

We arrived at the site (a little park-like area in a residential neighborhood) just in time to see the effigy of Guy go up in flames.

(photo courtesy of Kristin)

After that, we watched some fire-jugglers and sundry performers and little children scampering around with flashing bunny-ear hats, before pushing our way through a massive crowd to get a good vantage point for fireworks.

Fire jugglers (photo courtesy of Kristin)

Child in hilarious bunny ears (photo courtesy of Kristin)

The fireworks display did not disappoint either, and I even saw a couple types that I’ve never seen before. The crowd thinned out pretty quickly after the show, however, so Kristin and I decided to make our way back and grab something substantial to eat.

What better meal to eat in England on a national holiday than a traditional meal of fish ‘n’ chips? No better, that’s what. We went to an adorable pub called “The Cambridge” and proceeded to have the most British meal ever: fish ‘n’ chips with mashed peas on the side. It was simple and delicious and very filling, but I managed to save just a little bit of room for our dessert: typically British dish (and “Harry Potter’s favorite,” reminded Kristin) – treacle tart.

Although I’d heard of it before, I actually had no idea what treacle tart really was. I imagined it to be sweet and vaguely toffee-ish, and I wasn’t too far from the mark. We were served what was essentially a very dense slice of brownie-like cake, except instead of being chocolatey, it was rich with some unique flavor. I literally spent a good ten minutes trying to puzzle out just what the flavor reminded me of, cleansing my palette with sips of water in between bites and acting slightly obsessive compulsive. It wasn’t quite toffee, it wasn’t quite brown sugar… eventually it hit me – it was like really mild molasses. I looked it up later when I got home, and discovered it is indeed molasses-based. But I suppose you don’t really care about that – all you need to know is that it was delicious, and that it will surely be given a coveted spot on my “Most Delicious Desserts Encountered in Europe” list.

Anyway, full of hearty English food, Kristin and I made our way back to her flat. It was already sort of late, but we decided we would stay up for awhile longer, chatting and swapping music, because we both had our laptops. Considering I had been up since 6 am, this was a questionable decision on my part, but when I started getting a little loopy around 2 am we called it quits and went to bed. After all, we had to be rested for another day full of London fun in the morning.

Het Concertgebouw

Sometimes I actually stay in Amsterdam. You wouldn’t think it from reading my last six posts. But despite how it seems from all my traveling weekends and random day-trips with classes and such, I spend quite a lot of time just hanging out in Amsterdam, seeing things here and making sure I know this city better than any other place I visit.

IES helps a bit with that from time to time. Most of the excursions they plan are to places a bit out of the Amsterdam city limits – to places like the Zuiderzeemuseum and Hoge Veluwe, etc, that we might not normally get to see otherwise. But the week after I returned from Paris, Chantal, Eva, and Margarethe had planned a very cultured night for us in the city.

They had arranged for us to go see a performance at the Concertgebouw, with a nice dinner at an Indonesian restaurant beforehand. Now when I say “arranged” I mean we paid them to do this, but it was money well-spent for a classy night out. On that Wednesday night we all got dressed up and made our way first to the restaurant, which was called “Kantijl en de Tijger” and had a funny little shadow-puppet logo:

Dinner was served “rijsttafel” (rice table) style, which meant that many small dishes were passed around for the entire group to share. It’s a similar idea to a tapas restaurant. We had a huge variety of dishes, including different types of rice, fried noodles, satay, kebabs, salads – the dishes kept coming and coming. I tried a little bit of just about everything that came my way, and I can officially say it was delicious. The Netherlands is known for having some of the best Indonesian food outside of Indonesia, a quirky little distinction due to the substantial population of Indonesian people in the country (a result of its days as a colonial power).

We finished up dinner with coffee and some kek lapis – a traditional Indonesian layered spice cake that takes over two hours to make, as each layer is baked on over a griddle. It was a beautiful and delicious dessert.

Internet stock photo of kek lapis. Isn't it pretty?

Following that, we boarded a tram that would take us down to Museumplein and the Concertgebouw. Het Concertgebouw (which literally translates to “The Concert Building”) is a lovely old concert hall that is home to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This orchestra has been voted “the top symphony orchestra in the world” for two years running, now, by top music critics in Gramophone magazine. In other words, they’re kind of a big deal.

That evening the orchestra was going to play four pieces of Mozart for us, but they were joined for two of the numbers by a guest pianist, Maria Joao Pirez, who is apparently also highly acclaimed. I confess I know very little about classical music, so I can’t attest to the subtle refinement of the performance or anything. I enjoyed it very much, however, and I can attest to the fact that a man sitting across the aisle from me was moved to tears by it, and both pianist and orchestra received a standing ovation.

Other highlights of the evening (besides good food and beautiful music) included free beverages served in a posh concessions area during intermission (fancy!), being complimented on my “smart” plaid tights by my slightly crazy (but mostly lovable) art history professor, who was also at the concert, and seeing Christmas lights already starting to pop up over the city during the ride home. I returned to Funen feeling full, happy, festive and very cultured. Not bad for a Wednesday evening in Amsterdam.

Side Note: Paris (cont'd)

C’est ça Halloween!

Before I start this note in earnest, I have to explain that ever since I found out that we would be in Paris for Halloween, I had this stuck in my head (thanks to my French II teacher in high school):

So that’s what I woke up thinking about on our last full day in Paris, and what remained in my head throughout the day’s events.

We had planned, appropriately, to spend the morning in a cemetery – the Père Lachaise Cemetery to be precise. This giant graveyard is the final resting place of over 300,000 people, including such notable figures as Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, and Oscar Wilde.

The cemetery seemed to be doing its very best to be Halloween-like for us, too. The leaves were all yellow and orange and scuttling around in the wind, and a black cat even crossed our path at one point. It would have been kind of spooky if the weather hadn’t been so crisp and sunny and clear. Instead it was really beautiful.

After wandering through the cemetery all three of my travel companions went off to meet other friends who were staying in the area, leaving me with a couple of hours to kill before I was supposed to try to meet up with someone myself. I spent that time at the Musée Rodin, which had been highly recommended to me by my Dutch art history professor, my French friend living in Amsterdam, and my American friend studying in Paris as a place worth seeing. The rather small museum, which is a bit off the beaten path in Paris by the Hotel des Invalides, did not disappoint, and I happily passed my time admiring the sculpture both inside and outside the building.

I had been trying since Thursday to get hold of the American friend of mine who is studying abroad in Paris for the semester, and after a bit of crossed-signals back-and-forth, had finally made contact online. She had given me her phone number and we had arranged for a time to meet, but as my phone wasn’t working very well on the French networks, I never managed to get in touch with her to pin down an exact place to meet. I left the Musée Rodin a bit before I was supposed to meet up with her, and I took the Metro down to the 2e arrondissement (which is where she supposedly lives).

I hoped against hope that she would somehow try to call me and manage to break through the bad connections, but alas, that never happened. Instead I wandered around the 2e for over an hour exploring with less and less enthusiasm as it became clearer and clearer I was not going to find anyone.

I did however, see something that made me chuckle (and gave me small hopes of festivities later in the evening): a costume shop with a line of people stretching nearly an entire block out the door. Oh French people, I thought to myself, you’re still getting used to this whole Halloween thing, aren’t you?

I systematically tried calling each of my three friends to see where they were, and was met with voicemails, busy signals and could-not-connects all around. I tried to buy a crepe to boost my spirits, but was blatantly ignored by the vendor – who chose to serve a giant mass of people who barged ahead of me instead. I was frustrated, hungry, and more than a little tired – in short, pretty cranky, by my standards. I decided the best thing to do would be to go back to the hotel and rest until my friends returned from their adventures. So that’s what I did (I also got my crepe – at last – from a kindly old lady selling them at a little shop near our hotel).

One crepe, one nap, and one friendly phone call from Marie later, I was feeling in slightly higher spirits and was ready to meet up with my friends – all of them this time, including the group who had come later – for dinner back near Notre Dame/the Latin Quarter. We met up easily only to split up again, as half of us wanted to find food that was quick and cheap, and the other half wanted to find somewhere to sit down that would likely be more expensive.

Those of us who took the quick, cheap route, ended up finding a place to sit anyway – the basement area of a pita shop that was empty except for us. Dinner was uneventful – until the lights went out in the middle of it and we were momentarily stranded in the dark (we thought they had forgotten we were down there and turned off the light – turns out it was just a brief power outage). But it was cheap and filling and it was nice to sit down and just eat and relax for awhile.

After dinner Adeola accompanied Conny back to our room so that Conny could change into the epic Halloween costume she had made. The rest of us went into to a noisy bar/club place called the Latin Corner, where they served drinks with sparklers in them and played bizarre videos and loud techno music. We didn’t stay there much longer than it took to finish a drink, then we took to the street in search of a quieter and less expensive (I had paid nearly €6 for a soda!) locale. We didn’t really find one, but we did meet up with Adeola, and Conny – who was decked out in her costume.

Conny had decided to be a lion for Halloween, and had ingeniously crafted a costume from a hooded sweatshirt that she had died yellow. She sewed thick brown yarn and cloth ears onto the hood, wore some yellow tights and fixed a fabric tail to her shorts, painted a nose and some whiskers on her face with eyeliners, and voila! A cute (and stylish) lion costume for a Parisian Halloween. Note – originally I was going to be a lion tamer to go along with Conny’s costume, but a lack of time for crafting and a lack of desire to spend money on a costume nixed that plan. Conny rocked her costume nonetheless.

We did what we do best and wandered around Paris for awhile. There were a couple of other young people dressed up for the occasion, but not really anything else to do. The whole group of us (amount to about 8 or 9 people at this point) sat in front of Notre Dame for awhile, watching the crowds and some random street performers.

Eventually about half the group decided to head back and go to bed, while the other half stayed out awhile longer and looked for some more adventures. I gladly joined the bed-bound crowd and made it back to Montmartre with Marie. I stayed up only long enough to pack most of my things, and then crashed, eager to catch some sleep before our long bus ride back to Amsterdam the next day.

Side Note: Paris - Part Deux

On Day 2, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early to make it to the Louvre before the crowds. We had a delightful breakfast of baguettes and French pastries from the bakery across the street from our hotel, and then we hopped on the Metro and headed to the museum.

Adeola, me, and Conny at the Louvre (photo courtesy of Marie)

For those of you who have never been, you should know that the Louvre is ENORMOUS. It used to be the palace of the French Royal Family before Louis XIV decided to construct Versailles, and it shows. I had been to the Louvre once before, on that same French trip five years back, but we had only been allotted two hours there, after a full day of touring, no less. The rest of the weary, whiny high schoolers in my group wanted nothing more than to see the Mona Lisa and find somewhere to sit down, while I, fresh out of my very first art history class, wanted to see as much as I could.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen, so I was determined to make up for it this time around. Fortunately, I had Conny with me, and she was similarly motivated. We grabbed a map, split off from Adeola and Marie, and charted our course throughout the museum.

Dear readers, I am proud to report that we spent SIX HOURS in the Louvre. Yes, that’s right, six whole hours admiring art – and certainly getting our workout in as well. I’m not sure how many miles of walking we clocked in, but it was probably quite a few. We stopped once, about three-and-a-half hours in, to drink some water, eat the remainder of Conny’s baguette from breakfast, and chart out the rest of our course.

All told, we still probably saw only half of the collection, but we did get to see all the big things we set out to find. I’ll admit that in the interest of time I did once or twice resort to a very touristy move: stopping, scanning the room, spotting the most famous piece of art contained therein, literally pointing at it and proclaiming “THERE!” then charging toward it while ignoring pretty much everything else.

Not really my preferred mode of exploring a museum, but after hour five I couldn’t really be held responsible for my actions.

After the Louvre we were all pretty exhausted. We spent more time than we should have wandering around and bickering mildly about where we should stop for lunch, and in the end just wound up heading back to the mall around the Louvre to grab sandwiches. It was already starting to get dark by the time we were fed and rested enough at our restaurant. We decided to slowly but surely make our way to next big touristy attraction:

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower was just as beautiful as I remembered it being, and was actually a tiny bit LESS crowded than it had been during the summer I’d seen it before. This was probably because it was foggy and pretty cold out, but I’ll take a bit of a chill over a throng of people any day. Plus, this time, I got to go all the way to the top of the tower, which had been closed for some reason the last time I was there.

Terrible, blurry, foggy shot of Paris from the top of the tower. I'm putting it up anyway.

We had planned to eat crepes at the little restaurant on top of the tower, but were dismayed to find that, so late at night, it was already closed. So after we had had our fill of views of Paris at night, we set out to find some crepes that were a bit cheaper than the overpriced places around the Tour Eiffel.

We found them, eventually, in the Latin Quarter, a popular student neighborhood. We stumbled across a pretty pale blue bakery with a crepe vendor stand outside. We bought our crepes (mine was banana with Nutella) and sat under the shelter of the heat-lamp-bedecked bakery awning to eat them. There was lots of talking and joking and a stressful failed attempt to make contact with the rest of our huge original group of Paris-bound friends (they were arriving that night).

Also, a clown showed up and settled down with his non-clown companion at the table next to ours. It was... funny.

My discreet, paparazzi-style photo of Monsieur Clown

And so ended our second night in Paris.