it could change my world
So I sat down to check out the girl in the café on HBO. Enticed by the alluring girlish and very Scottish voice of Kelly Macdonald (whom buy the way, along with Rachael Buckley and Rhona Mitra, I shall add to the small list of women that make me wish that I was not me but rather the of person they fancied) and an opportunity to watch yet another serendipitous romance blossom out of the uncommon (you know the lonely schmuck with no one and nothing in his life who, upon happenstance, is given the opportunity of happily ever after). Fully expecting that I would be so enamored with the beautiful Ms. Macdonald I’d push aside my own feelings of longing and wonderings of when such a chance may befall my path, which would surely follow such a film, I was caught incredibly off guard at how I felt at the end credits
Perhaps I was still in the post-departure depression from leaving Europe or caught in my own ongoing angst over why I don’t know what I want my life to be and why I don’t have a significant other in it, but I’d say all of it played a part in the end result of this movie’s effect on me. Long after the movie I just kept thinking about Kelly Macdonald’s portrayal of Gina and the things her character brought to light. Certainly this movie was far from your usual romantic comedy or just romantic movie in general. Perhaps HBO’s advertising wanted you to think it was to get you to watch. Then it sucker punches you with its true intention. Or perhaps you were aware of what the movie was about, but I’d still imagine Gina still got you just as flummoxed as she did the chancellors. I’m not sure if it was the power of the message or the moving work of Ms. Macdonald. Either way the point got across and has lodged itself in my mind.
So caught up in the moment I actually had to get in my car and drive around to get my head straight and calm down my sudden and very real urge to sell everything and begin my stint of volunteer work in third world countries. But while contemplating the many rushing thoughts I kept coming back to the speech Gina gave at the G8 dinner. Then I wondered how could I turn away? How could I not do something, in any capacity, to help in such a huge undertaking that has an achievable goal that could go a long way to righting humanity. So I started with The One Org and netaid.org as places to take the first steps. I’d ask you take a look as well to see if there’s anything or anyway you could help.
Someone once told me that if you get caught up in trying to solve the world’s inequities yourself you’d go mad. I, you, can’t do it all or expect to be big enough individually to affect any real change. But I’d suspect any small, medium or large effort when combined with those of others could. And most definitely if the leaders of the bigger nations got involved as well. I never paid that much attention to the G8, but perhaps this year I’ll pay a bit more attention at what comes out of this and future meetings.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2005
um... pictures?
Okay, yeah it's been awhile. So maybe I'll get to the pictures this weekend? Then again, I still haven't put the Key West pictures up and those were far less and from three months ago. Hmmm...
Okay, okay this weekend for sure... maybe I think.
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Friday, June 10, 2005
yeah baby yeeahh!
So we’ve made it back, seasoned European travelers! Right, not even close. But we traveled some nonetheless and really, probably just slightly salted. Man, you should have definitely come with! Perhaps next time? Save some pennies now! I think we’re planning an annual vacation trip overseas, but next year might have to be to a less expensive destination. Way less! Maybe Central Mexico or South America.
Okay so the trip, yeah? A full report follows, yeah, so you may want to finish up your chores and brush your teeth, yeah. Seriously, it’s a long read so maybe you should reschedule some stuff, yeah? By the way that was an annoying quirk I picked up on while in London, much like our very annoying quirk over here of saying, you know, you know?
Yes the trip was cool as all get it out, but it was not without some less than stellar moments. Though those were very few and relatively minor. But, the pre-trip drama dealt with Sheldon almost not getting his stupid Canadian passport renewed. He sent out the paperwork a full seven weeks prior to our departure. However, unbeknownst to me and apparently him, the passport photos were not approved (believe it or not, because he was too, umm… let’s say he wasn’t properly lit enough to make out his facial features for the passport authorities). I found out about all of that stuff four days before we were supposed to leave. Long, angsty story short, the renewed Canadian passport arrived in his hands four hours before we were supposed to leave. Had eight months of prior trip preparation but of course procrastination, busy work schedules and no passport in hand (for the Canadian) pretty much culminated into a four-hour scramble to get things ready to go for the trip. Unreal. But we managed to get everything in order and leave for Orlando (had the cheapest tickets to New York which had the cheapest tickets to London) almost on time. But it’s all good cause we’re on a plane to London baby! Or so we thought. Actually, we got out of Orlando and into New York fine (JFK is a hideous airport by the way, worst I’ve been through to date). For some odd reason it took like 45 mins to unload the luggage off the flight from Orlando. We finally get to the ticket counter and barely get checked into the flight. Except, the flight was overbooked and only one of us could get on the 9pm flight out. So we had to wait for the next one at 10pm. No prob, except that the 10pm flight had some mechanical issue and a new plane had to come in. Flight is now delayed to 3 AM. We didn’t actually take off until 4 AM. Result? Essentially we lost a whole day in London. Instead of getting in at 9am Friday morning we arrive at 4pm. By the time we get through customs and figure out how to get to the hotel, it’s 8pm. So instead of great day in London I got to spend vacation time in JFK, terminal 4. Kinda fumed about that one, but it was all right because we were still going to kick it in Europe! The plane flight was pretty cool. We took a Virgin Atlantic plane, outfitted with individual tv’s running all the latest rental movies (even some that haven’t been released yet… which I guess could really be first run movies over there), TV shows, even radio and CD tracks to listen to. Pretty swank, even for the lowly economy class. So at least the flights across the pond were pretty cool. If you have the option, sign up with Virgin if you’re still heading that way.
Okay, so we finally get into London. Like I mentioned earlier it took forever to get through customs and then figure out how to get to the hotel. Eventually we discovered the benefits of the Heathrow Express. However, that just got us to Waterloo and we needed to be at Jubilee Station. The hotel we were staying at was just a little bit a ways off. But Sheldon, already aggravated with the late arrival and some latent issues with the passport, decided to say screw it and get a cab to get us the rest of the way. A side note on that. I found that attitude, which persisted throughout the trip, a tad annoying; the wanting to get a cab instead of making use of the underground rails I mean. One, it turned out that the hotel was actually like right across the street (and waterway) from the Jubilee station (within a five minute walking distance at the most or a single train stop had we known about it, but just found out the next day after arrival), but the cab drove us around at least three city blocks before depositing us at the hotel’s front door, so my annoyance with taking taxis in that regard was that the cabbies know you’re visiting from out of town and will (most of the time) take advantage of that fact, which played out almost entirely every time a cab was utilized and we didn’t really save that much on time (just walking effort). Thus we spent $12 to get across the street. Two, taking the “Tube” and the “Metro” was for more efficient in terms of time as well as expense (granted if planned out). But in Sheldon’s defense, he was lugging around a small refrigerator around for all his gear (due to lack of prior prep time and Virgin Atlantic’s carry-on luggage policy which stipulates you only get one carry on in economy and that included backpacks and laptop cases). Anyway we finally get into the hotel room at around eight, which didn’t seem that late because the sun didn’t set until 10pm. But when we finally got to just chill for a bit after all the traveling, it felt really late.
We got some dinner at a pretty cool Indian restaurant (Dockmaster’s, I believe) right down the street from the hotel. Really great food. And also my first slap in the face at the expense this Europe trip was going to cost. Heh, we didn’t figure out until Amsterdam that maybe it wasn’t the best plan to eat at full-blown restaurants every night. $40-$70 meals a pop ate away at the spending budget in large chunks REAL fast. And really, some of the places we ate at weren’t even remotely fancy or those that you’d associate with such pricey entrees. For the most part the food was good (just didn’t think it was worth the price we paid), but in retrospect had we done some better planning for the evening/dining activities, it would have been better if reservations were made at a renowned restaurant one night, and subway paninis or other “fast food cuisine” the rest of the evenings. Anyway, after the dinner we called it a night to get caught up from the traveling and rest up for the next day of sight seeing.
The following day, Saturday, was spent almost entirely checking out all the world famous London tourist sites. Even got one of those double decker bus tours, which actually worked out great. You could get on and off at whatever stops of interest and it pretty much took you to all the major ones. But we spent most of the time just walking around. Pretty cool stuff. Saw Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace etc. Even walked ourselves in some scenes from Notting Hill. Pretty cool. The weather was fantastic, actually pretty much the whole trip the weather was great. Sunshine and blue skies mostly. Mid 60s to mid 70s during the day and low to mid 50s at night. It only rained a total of three hours the whole trip and that was really one evening in Amsterdam. So after the day of site seeing and stuff we got some dinner then prepped for the amazing night life scene, right! No, the nightlife scene was pretty uneventful and really a bit of a disappointment. But I think most of that was a function of us not knowing where the hell to go (again poor proper prior preparation). But we did find a cool spot after wondering around and getting ourselves in the middle of the “gay town”. Luckily a local club bouncer/doorman dude navigated us out of the gay zone to some more hetero appreciative spots. And I don’t know why, but apparently lists and invites are very much all the rage over there as well. I mean really why put on the show of exclusivity? Of course we didn’t have trouble getting into one of these “exclusive” nightspots, being dapper, dashing Americans. The spot was fine enough as far as bar/clubs go, but nothing I thought would befit the grandness of London - world destination! I don’t know if it was because we didn’t know the “spots” or my expectations were a wee bit high, either way it was a slight disappointment. After the first spot we attempted to migrate to another “chill” spot (a place we were first shown by the dude, but passed cause it was kinda too chill and a 11pm wasn’t really “going off”, but did have some fine chickies digging our chilli, again in hindsight, we should have stayed there, met some girls and asked them were to… dang it!) but the imbibing and inability to navigate the crowded and cramped streets at 3 in the morning prevented that return so we ended up grabbing some Chinese food ($70 total by the way, $70 !@#$!? On freaking Chinese food! It was good but dayum) and catching a cab back to the hotel. So not only was the initial night out a bust, but the resulting weak “wiling out” caused us to oversleep till 1 the next afternoon. A half a day wasted and I was really pissed about that especially since losing out a day already. Sheldon wasn’t all that upset cause he got some much needed rest according to him. It was a vacation and rest and relaxation was a part of that, but still sleeping that late bothered me. So Sunday basically all we did was check out the British museum, walked around some other random places and took a ride on the London Eye. Got some dinner at a really cool Italian restaurant, nice atmosphere, but again way too pricey. And called it a day… and night. Had to catch a train the next day.
Ah yes the high-speed train through the Chunnel! It was, well, quick and quiet as advertised. The two and half hour ride didn’t seem that long at all, even the later three-hour ride to Amsterdam was quick and uneventful (except for the silly American tourists who couldn’t read Centraal Station on the map). It really went by fast. Maybe it was the novelty of it, I dunno. I guess if you have to commute, it gets old and tedious really quick. And actually going through the Chunnel was pretty anti-climatic. It was 19mins in the dark (lights were on in the train of course, but it was just black outside the window). I knew it would be like that, but I guess I fantasized about windows providing a peak into the English Channel, but I guess even if that were the case, it’d still be dark. Silly boy, I know.
So then we arrived in Paris without any fanfare and then promptly waited in line for a taxi, because again Sheldon had little patience for figuring out the Metro. Which actually in that specific instance was a better choice because we didn’t exactly know where the hotel was. And looking back, had we taken the subway we would have been some seriously lost fools dragging around luggage because one, where we expected the hotel to be was about two miles away from the actual hotel (there’s a difference between Boulevard Victor Hugo and Avenue Victor Hugo, but only) and two, Neuilly sur Seine is a “suburb” of Paris thus being outside of the actual city limits repeatedly bleating “but it says it’s in Paris” would have definitely gotten us pelted to death with day old, crusty pain. So the taxi was a rare good call, because we had no skills in obtaining directions from the hotel due to lack of proper telephone skills.
Arriving in the late afternoon and getting to the hotel in the early evening yielded an opportunity to walk to the Arc de Triumph (which was twenty minute walk from the hotel) at sunset and a night stroll down Les Champs-Elysées and subsequent dining at Brasserie L'Alsace. Great food, nice enough waiter dude happy (at least on the surface) to serve American tourists. Much like in London and Amsterdam, Paris was a great place to visit to do some serious couture shopping. But being a guy and not gay, that part of the experience went largely overlooked. Though when looking for gifts to bring back home, I failed to browse amongst the many, many, many varieties of fine stores and elected instead to visit the most offending of tacky touristy venues to purchase the best in cheap t-shirts (though they really weren’t all that cheap). But there’s nothing like authentic tourist trap gear. Great souvenirs I say! It’s a running joke between my sister and I about the gift giving skills of our dad when he came home from tours and stuff. Aww, but we love him so!
So day two in Paris started out early enough. We headed out to the Arc to climb all up in it and check out the panoramic of L’Etoile and the city in a morning midweek bustle. Sheldon asked why we had to walk specifically to the North end of the Arc to cross the traffic roundabout that provides a nice safe underground walkway instead of just crossing the street. I thought looking at the chaos of nearly five lanes of traffic swirling around the Arc with no discernable lane markers, traffic signals or any sort of driving etiquette all fed by TWELVE separate avenues of traffic would be self evident along with the knowledge that the Parisian drivers wouldn’t make much of an effort to avoid hitting, if in fact not actively trying to hit you, if your dumbass was stupid enough to attempt a surface crossing. I wonder if it had been attempted? But being on vacation and not wanting to spend it in traction, we thought it best to take the tunnel.
The rest of the day was again spent meandering the streets of gay Paree hitting up one monumental site after another. From the Arc we walked to the Tour Eiffel and checked that out along with the Champs du Mars and the Palais de Chaillot (aka Trocadero). We also caught a bit of a graduation of some sort at L’Ecole Militaire. From there we caught the Metro to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall) checked some political aftershocks (some makeshift groups of protestors) due to the EU constitution voting thing that was constantly on the news while we were over there then headed off towards Notre Dame.
The last time I saw Notre Dame there was scaffolding all over the “front” of the two towers so I was stoked to see the tower facades scaffolding-free this time around. Though there was some restoration work happening on the side of the North tower but no big deal to me. By the way, Notre Dame is still as impressive as my first visit. It still wowed me even more so than Westminster Abbey. It’s just an awesome place. Not sure why, considering the many, many cathedrals around the world, but so far in my limited excursions, Notre Dame still rocks. And this time I got to go up into the North Tower to get more impressive views over the city. Ahh, watching over the city with the gargoyles. Very good stuff. From Notre Dame, we then caught the metro again to catch La Defense the “modern” part of Paris with it’s ugly mishmash of skyscrapers and the Grand Arch (really a big, hallow cube). It’s just something I wanted to see, since I missed it the last time. I also wanted to get some close up experience with the Panthéon, Les Invalides, the Centre Pompidou, and the Place de la Concorde at least. But not enough time. Sheldon was feeling his need for more beauty rest so headed back to the hotel (via a taxi) and I got back on the Metro heading towards Montmarte to once again bask in the glory and lounge on the steps of La Basilique du Sacré Coeur. I hung out there for about an hour and a half sitting on the steps and jotting down notes and impressions of the trip. Didn’t get to stay for sunset since the sun didn’t go down till 10pm and I had to get back to the hotel to meet up with Sheldon to check out a place to chow. We settled on Café Georges and another fun taxi excursion. Good food and GREAT service, but in a familiar refrain, too expensive for the experience. The next day was pretty much spent mostly at the Louvre. I got to catch some artwork I missed out on the last time around, so that was cool. After all day in the Louvre, we headed out to Montmarte again to do some strolling around and get some dinner. Got to see the Moulin Rouge though! Wasn’t really what I was expecting, but then again didn’t have any real idea about it in the first place other than the movie.
So again it was another easy morning to get ready to take the train to Amsterdam, right? Oh no. For some odd reason, Sheldon decided to do some sort of spa routine or something, I don’t know, but he was in the bathroom for a really long time which delayed our departure. And again, not wanting to drag his luggage through the Metro to get the Gare du Nord it was taxi catching time. Except it was a chore to get the hotel to call for a taxi. Then the taxi did arrive, with the meter running from when he got the call to come pick us up! There was already $10 on the meter before we even got in the cab! Oh I was livid. Then there was the Parisian traffic we had to contend with to get to the train station. I was crazy pissed the whole way. Then we get trapped in a traffic jam right in front of the station so we had to jump out of the taxi in the middle of traffic and rush to the station. Then the asshat had the gall to ask for more than what was posted on the meter. Like three bucks more! I was like M*****F***ER! I just about reached over the seat to sock the guy. Oh man, definitely bad vibes for being on vacation. But we got on the train so no worries, but THAT is why I hate taking taxis in foreign places. But the train ride went by smoothly enough and was relaxing enough to ease away the hostility.
Then we arrived in Centraal Station. Amsterdam baby!! I have to admit though, the first few steps in the city and I was sort of underwhelmed. I mean cruising around London and especially Paris, you get used to the grand cityscapes and such. But Amsterdam felt small, disheveled and slightly claustrophobic. But I soon found out why. I didn’t fully understand or comprehend the true nature of the city initially, but as I walked around and became more in step with the city I discovered the gezellig. That cozy, warm, inviting, at peace feeling that you find being there and breathing the air. Of the three cities we visited, Amsterdam, to my surprise and for different reasons than expected, turned out to be my favorite city to visit. In fact so much so, I’m considering options on how I can live there for a bit. Oh and the XXX all over the place; on flags, shirts, banners, shirts, even on all theamsterdammetjes aren’t an homage to the “liberal” nature of its sex industry, but rather the crosses on the city’s coat of arms representing the three major disasters suffered by the city and symbolic of Saint Andrew, patron saint of the city.
Okay we arrived in the afternoon and a five minute walk from the train station had us in the hotel lobby checking in along with a very large group of Italian tourists, one of which was an extremely hot older lady with an inexplicably and poorly matched husband. Dunno, just really odd. But I suppose that should be taken as hope for all of us non Brad Pitts. Anyway, after settling in a bit we were off in search of Anne Frank’s huis. A little bit of ambling about we stumbled upon it, noted by a small placard on the front of smallish-wedged building. I would have missed it because I was too busy staring at the huge church tower with a crown topping it off right down the road. We took the tour, which was quite sad and sobering. From there we walked around a little bit more and headed off to get some grub.
For the most part, the city didn’t have tons of monuments and great buildings to rush around to. It was a walking city, more in tune with strolling about enjoying the city in good company then chilling at a brown café or coffeeshop, if so desired. Maybe catching some sun in Vondelpark or on the vast plain in front of the Rijksmuseum. And I dug it a lot. Snacking on some good waffles or saucijzenbroodje just enjoying life. OH and the pancakes, oh man so good. Drool. It was great man. It was great. I have to get back there and soon. That was what we did with the remaining time. Just walked around checking random things out. We did catch a canal boat tour, which was cool and checked out the Van Gogh museum. The Rijksmuseum was pretty much closed for the most part with renovations through 2008. Like the museum, much of the city was in a constant renovative state, but that didn’t detract from the enjoyment at all.
Of course we did try to attempt the “crazy” nightlife because this is Amsterdam, wide open with its coffeehouses (the weed shops) and the infamous Red Light District. But really, things turned out pretty tame. In fact, more “wild” times were had in Miami and Atlanta. But again, I’m not sure if the expectations were off or another product of not knowing what to check out. So the second night we checked out the Red Light District. The novelty wore off pretty quickly once it was realized that there wasn’t a whole lot there to check out unless you were set on sampling some of the prostitutes in boxed up in the red hued windows. If you weren’t doing that (which we definitely weren’t doing) or checking out the live “sex” shows in the varied places, there wasn’t much point in hanging around unless you liked watching tourist goggling (which we did too a little bit) and crack dealers hassling. We did check out Casa Rosso, the “premier” sex show venue, for the experience and well, it was interesting to say the least, but nothing to write home about, especially if you’ve caught some of HBO’s Real Sex series. Out of curiosity I did ask a prostitute who seemed keen for my interest how much and for what. She said fifty euro (about 60 to 70 bucks depending) for 20 mins of anything I wanted. Of course I didn’t take her up on the offer, but thought it rather inexpensive considering. But then again, you could get what you pay for.
The second night was to be the go out and party down like it was our last night, because well, it was our last night. Previously in the day we walked around scoping the sites we would visit at night. But we only ended up checking out three of the six I think. We did experience the vaunted Club Escape. A great place if you’re into some really good mixed house and rave tunes, getting your serious dance on and being charged a buck just to use the bathroom, but obviously I wasn’t that type. So it wasn’t all the great for me. We also chilled at a Three Sisters bar or something which was all right then headed over to Rain, which was a “exclusive” bar/lounge type of place, somewhat like the one in Vegas I hear. Nothing special though. Then we attempted to crash the Sinners club, known for being THE hang out for the local celebrities and some not so local ones. Well, obviously there was no shot of getting in there, but I got a peak at some Euro celebrities… I think. All in all a rather disappointing way to end the Amsterdam experience, but it still remained an outstanding one.
We finished up the trip with a quick flight back to London and an overnight stay at the Renaissance - Heathrow, then the melancholy (for me anyway) trip back to the States. So that, in a nutshell, was the experience. Certainly not enough time for me over there. It seems like it never is. On the way back, I mulled long and hard about how I can get myself in a position to work and live in Amsterdam for a bit. Still thinking…
As I go through the pictures and prep them for the website, I’m sure I’ll recall some other memories and experiences. If I can get too it, I’ll post the pics on the website this weekend.
So that was it. I was there, I sampled and now I’m back. I rather feel like those cruise saps in the Celebrity cruise ads where they were treated like royalty only to return to normal life. I certainly wasn’t living it up like royalty, but just being over there made me realize how much I wanted to be there on a more semi-permanent basis. Though, without a doubt, I can still say that the US is still, by far, the best place to live. But having a flat or two in another country to escape to would be real nice. Perhaps one day. Next year, I think the plan is to hit up Central America or Dubai. We’ll see.
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