The roof, the roof…

July 14, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Accomodation

Friday, by far, was the most difficult day of the week. Some of the guys had only gone to bed at 5:00am, getting up at 8 again. Building went terribly slow. However, a human chain we formed at the end of the day to get all 1400 tiles on the roof, and that made quite a difference. We even convinced Habitat into us painting a number of tiles red to make VETO appear in huge letters on the roof.

Not that the house was completely finished. Just the walls and the roof were standing and all windows still had to be fitted. Still, all that was already planned to happen at a specific later time. We were just needed to make the house waterproof. Although you could easily argue that a house with holes for windows isn't really waterproof.

After being finished, some speeches followed, the most emotional, by far, being the speech by the future owner of the house, whom had also helped in building the thing during the week. Occasinally, his pregnant wife would come and visit us to see how we were doing. During lunch on Friday, we had one pizza left, since Marco was staying at home because of his strained ankle. I went round with the pizza and also stopped by the couple, future-to-be owners of the house. The guy didn't want the pizza but urged his wife to have some. First only one slice, but when I also offered a second slice, her husband also pressed her to eat the second slice.

Everyone had planned to leave on Friday evening. About half the group would take a train from Oradea to Bucharest, the other half would go in the opposite direction, to Budapest and then on to the Netherlands. Just before taking off, the same lady who had made us the typical Romanian sandwhiches earlier in the week, now cooked us dinner. Truly truly wonderful stuff, filling everyone to the brim. In addition, she also made everyone a good lunch packet of sandwiches for on the road. Again, the amount of butter occasionally surpassed the amount of bread in the sandwiches.

Saying goodbye to Emil and the owners of the house, leaving our poker table and an unused coverall as tokens of our appreciation, we left a tiring but very interesting and fulfilling week behind us.

We were driven to Oradea in two shifts, the Bucharest group going first. Our train was some 50 minutes late. But when it finally arrived I located my cabin and was sleeping in less then 10 minutes.

Live!

July 13, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Principessa restaurant

On Thursday, we had hoped to visit the local Penguin factory. We were out of luck since no one at the factory dared to take a decision whether we were allowed to visit or not. The owner was out of town and only returned on Thursday afternoon. Penguin, together with Polar and Johnny's Castle Whiskey are some of the more well known local brands of liquor, all produced by the same distillery in Beius. Our nights in Beius had been positively influenced by the use of these infamous drinks.

In stead we had dinner at a reasonable restaurant in town, the Principessa (some saying the only restaurant in town), and ate cow's stomach which, surprisingly, not everyone found very palatable. What was considered even worse, though, were the cheese, ehm, rolls that were served as desserts. Two of these things could stuff a cow, how could they expect us to eat these as dessert!?

Just before dinner, Art and I had gone live on the local radio station Sonyvest. Earlier in the week, we bumped into one of the station's DJs, a very nice girl called Ramona, who invited us over. When we did stop by on Thursday evening however, we were welcomed by Bogdan. A friendly guy, but no Ramona!

Bogdan asked us to come up with something of a playlist for his show. He was very much into classic rock and I tried a little bit to cater to that. Art, totally oblivious to it all, selected recent dance tracks and house music. I believe Bogdan wasn't all that disappointed by us leaving later on. By then, luckily, Ramona had stopped by, unfortunately only to say hi. During the show, Art and myself told of one of the games we played at the building site, naming a number of actors from the same movie, where others then had to guess the name of the movie. Only briefly explaining it, Bogdan interrupted quickly: 'Ah, we play that game for ages, it is called Mima!'

When we stopped by on Friday morning once more, he didn't invite us to go on air again. Probably being very reluctant of having to play the music we then would choose for the show.

After dinner at the Principessa, we went dancing in one of Beius' three (!) discos, the Nicholas.

Music maestro

The disco we went to after dinner, the Nicholas, was quite good. It was a cinema-turned-club, where many of the seats in the arena had been left, making for a very awkard set up that allowed almost everyone in the club to look at everyone else. Surprisingly, almost everyone was dressed very well. Considering Beius is a very, very small town, I found this remarkable. On the other hand, to the local youngsters, clubbing the night away in Nicholas might be the only way to escape from Beius a little.

The music was a strange combination of Romanian Europop, Turkish beats and mainstream house. Not all that bad and luckily not being played at a very high sound level. Meanwhile, Data was turned down by a former miss Beius, our Chinese Wing Chun champion Wong was scored by a blond dance-Goddess, Taas snogged Habitat's representative for Eastern Europe and Art came closer and closer to finally getting close with Amalia.

One of the carpenters also working on the house introduced Jimbo and myself to two girls dancing away the night. Both were quite young, but only the blond Goddess spoke some English. The other girl, some 6ft2 tall, could only be viewed from a distance, looking up. Jimbo and I briefly talked to the Goddess (just like the radio DJ she was called Ramona), but from the moment Wong joined the discussion, she only had eyes for the Chinese, totally ignoring us in the process, although at the end of the evening, they had only exchanged addresses.

Art, on the other hand, had a very successful evening. Although it all ended at Amalia's front door. When Art finally came home at 5:00am, he told me that she was still living with her parents, making it impossible for them to enter the house. In stead they did some of their stuff right in front of the main entrance to the house. Art, seeing the light once, Amalia a grand 5 times. When Art finally came home, the smile on his face almost fell off it.

Part of our group went home after Nicholas closed. Some, however, went to some private bar at an undisclosed location somewhere in Beius. Among them Taas and Kelly, Habitat's representative for Eastern Europe. What exactly happened is a mystery to most of us, although they definitely had a snog. Taas's first in over six years! Go Taas! Practice he needed, and on Saturday we pushed him into going out with our tour guide of the House of the People in Bucharest.

Rematch

July 12, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Habitat site

The soccer rematch with the Romanians was set for Wednesday evening. Claudio, one of the Romanians, picked us up, after we had discussed tactics and approaches for our game of soccer. Claudio, driving a van, able to hold nine people, planned to drive twice to Beius' soccer stadium where we were to play. We felt that the 17 of us should be able to fit in. Since a friend of Claudio's had also come along, we were 19, in a van suited for 9. It was cosy.

Just before the match I told Claudio that, given our poor performance earlier on, the Romanians were bound to defeat us some 6-0. Claudio jokingly (or was he?) replied that they would be kind and, allow us at least one point. We lost 6-1.

Marco wasn't the only one to get hurt during the match. The cow, sharing the soccer field with us, once or twice was on the receiving end of a football coming his way and Zwan injured his knee, although he still managed to hop around afterwards. Marco had a very relaxing week, having to stay home. Zwan could still do some jobs at the site, while seated.

Art scores again

Because we lost the soccer game, we had to pay the beer afterwards. Surprisingly, most of the team didn't show up, although Emil, who hadn't played soccer, did, as was his (ex-) girlfriend Andrea and a cousin of his (ex-)girlfriend, Amalia. Marco was going to make dinner first, but, because of his sprained ankle, wasn't really in the mood anymore.

Additionally, we had forgotten to pick up the meat during the day which we ordered the day before, so we went vegetarian for a night. Luckily, Slockers and Stevie took it on themselves to fill our tummies that evening. When Claudio appeared, again with his van, he wanted to know if we were still coming. We came and had a couple of beers with him, Emil, and the two girls.

I talked quite a bit with Amalia, a dark, tall and reasonable handsome lady, owner of a small supermarket in Beius. She spoke good English and later called me, apparently since I talked so much, a 'sticky boy'. I enjoyed myself quite a bit, but when she asked where the handsome young man across the table came from, Art, I immediately gave up my position to Art. I mean, he had to compensate for the midget from earlier in the week. I called Art over and gave him a seat between the two girls.

Art slowly became more and more relaxed, although Amalia didn't really help him (Art already considered Andrea to be lost to Emil and therefore out of his league). Later I asked Amalia what she thought of Art: 'He is very nice, but only a boy'. Well, later in the week, she did have a good time with this 'boy'. Meanwhile, we were off to a strip club.

Stripped

During our evening drink after playing soccer, we learned that in Beius, a city of only some 15000 men, women and children, they also had a strip club. No choice. So with about ten guys, we visited Strip Club Tequila.

The place was VERY tacky. No bigger then a large bathroom, the place held two tables and a tiny stage. In a very small attached room you could pick up your drinks at a bar. Later, we learned that just that week, three girls had been fired. We were stuck with the only girl remaining. However, she did a whole three shows for us, her last performance on our table. Everyone in the group slipped the occasional dollar bill in her panties. The only thing she actually wore and Taas even slipped her a $10 bill! That is to say, he gave it to Art, who was to slip it in her panties.

After she danced on our table and Data found out she had, well, moist female genitals, she sat at our table to talk a bit (and probably hoping for more than just a chit-chat). I turned down her request for a cocktail when asked what she wanted to drink. She could have a soda or a beer. She settled for some orange juice.

Alejandro, a Romanian guy who had joined us when drinking earlier in the evening, had also come with us to the strip joint. He was very much chatting her up, touching her arms and hands all the time, whispering in her ear, in short, he was courting her. Alejandro sitting on her left, Art on her right.

It was obvious she was more interested in Art, who had also danced a little bit with here, when she was performing on stage. Probably she could smell the dollars in her pants and figured that, between Alejandro and Art, she would have the best chances of getting more greenbacks from Art.

We pushed Art for making an appointment with the girl after closing time. He did make the appointment, but failed to pick her up. When talking to her, she made remarks, like saying that the juice in her glass (the orange juice) wasn't her juice, that she needed bananas to enjoy herself and that, after her boyfriend had confessed in cheating on her, she had tied him to the bed, made him terribly horny and then left him laying there. What a lady.

Cave

On Tuesday evening, we visited the Bear Cave, close to Beius. Since I've had my share of caves over the years, I didn't find it particularly interesting, although it wasn't all that bad. The cave got its name when its discoverers who, somewhere last century stumbled on the opening of the cave and found a large bunch of Bear's skeletons. One of which can still be seen at the end of the tour. I found the other tourists more interesting. Then again, that wasn't really surprising, since they were a bunch of young Italian girls.

Building plans

July 11, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Habitat site

And so we built a house. Up front, everyone had doubts about whether it was in fact smart to let a bunch of stupid Dutch technical engineers help in building the house. Clearly, your average carpenter or workman would be a much better choice than anyone of us.

It turned out to be less bad as expected. The only problem being that we simply were with too many people. The two or so Romanians on site who were able to do something of a bit of project management just weren't enough. It took a bit of time for the whole team to work reasonably smoothly. By the end of the week, we had succeeded reasonably well. Although by then, almost all the time, half of the our group would be taking a nap somewhere on some remote part of the building area.

We spent the first day mainly building 18 'triangles' of wood, which were going to support the roof. Considering the house was only going to be some 8 meters long, 18 of these things seemed just a tad on the safe side. Just a hint as to how confused management was; we were going so fast that, by the time we had built 18, it became clear that two had to be redone because they needed to be slightly different. The Romanians just couldn't keep up.

The first day was hard. Not because it was physically a challenge, but because the outside temperature was higher than our body temperature. Cooling down was a real problem and already some of us were shedding the coveralls everyone was wearing. Resulting in sunburn for those who did.

More hands

Lunch was always a surprise. On Monday and Friday we had pizza that more resembled circular slices of leather topped of with pure fat. If you held the pizza at an angle, the fat would just run of.

On Tuesday and Thursday we had home-made sandwiches, made by the mom of one of the Romanian workers. The amount of butter generally surpassed the amount of bread in the sandwiches. I have blocked our Wednesday lunch.

Shortly after Monday midnight, going on Tuesday, Marco and Joost, who both had been stuck in Vienna because of Marco's expired passport, arrived. They had managed to get a temporary passport for Marco at the Dutch embassy in Vienna on Monday morning and had come straight to Beius.

However, as if to punish Marco even more, on Wednesday evening, during a game of soccer with a bunch of Romanians, he strained his ankle, making it impossible for him to even walk. On Thursday, when I went to the doctor with him and Emil, our guide, it turned out that he had a small crack in his ankle bone.

On Monday and Tuesday, during lunch, some of us played soccer against some of the Romanians. We always lost humiliatingly and, after finally getting a 6-2 lead in the fourth game but loosing 6-7, we demanded a rematch.

He shoots, he scores

July 10, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Some pool place

Art met the girl in some obscure pool place in Beius. Reportedly, he had been drinking a lot, something he felt inclined to point out on several occasions. Not only was she under 1m50cm, she was also missing several teeth. Still, it must have been interesting since not many girls are able to give a French kiss without opening their jaws.

I wasn't there when it happened, but it wasn't difficult to sense something had happened when he stepped in the bedroom after coming home (we shared a room). We talked extensively on women, relationships and commitment.

Art, only a couple of years younger than myself, and I suppose quite a looker, unfortunately had been a little bit less lucky with women, mainly because of his shyness. Art is a friendly dude but occasionally worries too much. Strangely enough, he always seems to get himself in some sort of hopeless situation whenever he comes close to pulling a girl.

This girl worked at the pub-come-pool place were he met her. Several locals pointed out that if the owner would find them kissing, he would not only beat Art up but she would also lose her job. I suppose Art made a good choice in not extending the relationships.

My talk with Art made me realize how much I already was missing my girlfriend. I had seen her less then a week ago but already I was missing her hugs, the touch of her hands, the way her skin feels, the look in her eyes, the smile on her face, her purring when pleased…

Cold

July 09, 2000 • Blog

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World » Romania » Beius » Accomodation

Considering Romania was suffering from a heatwave, the 17 degrees Celsius outside temperature felt rather cold. Fausto's, a very nice restaurant slash snack bar, serving very good Italian pannini, was a welcome breakfast place however.

After trying to come to terms with the sights Oradea had to show us, a no-longer-used synagogue, a ruin of a fortress-now-an-art-school, a larger than live vulva and 'the black vulture', and after meeting with some English speaking local women, both of whom were widows, who tried to make really good friends with Art and myself, we arranged for being picked up by Emil, our Habitat contact in Romania. That, as it turned out, meant waiting in the rain for three hours.

I had called Emil to make an appointment for being picked up. A blue van was going to pick us up next to the church on Oradea's main square. No bus showed up for several hours. However, since I had already started to grow familiar with the more, say, Mediterranean style of life in Romania, I wasn't really worried. Still, waiting in the rain does make you feel rather irritated and when I called Emil again I learned, not only that he wasn't allowed by his phone operator to call abroad (I was using my own Dutch mobile), but, in stead of a blue van, they were sending a white van. In addition, we ourselves found out there was another church around the corner. There we finally found our van.

The trip to Beius was as bad as it gets. Not that the van was in bad condition, but the road was terrible. Potholes everywhere, no asphalt, dogs, heavy rain. All in all, it was a pain. This trip, although a little bit shaky, also made it the perfect time for a nap. Some two hours later, we arrived at our destination. Beius, Romania.

Coming to work

We didn't stay in a Habitat-built house, but at a regular farmer's who, in his spare time, had built a fairly big private dwelling. Both he and his wife spoke very good French, so we were able to communicate fairly well.

Remarkably, when we filled up the house, first our bunch coming from Budapest, then later the rest coming in from Bucharest, the two owners slept in the basement. Right next to where we had our evening drinks, regularly changing into late-night drinks. I guess they both slept a lot during the day. Mind you, not that we had to pity the couple; they were receiving, for Romanian standards, very good money for us being there.

We were all happily surprised when hearing that, besides a youngest son of 17, the couple had two older daughters. Sadly enough, we never got to meet them. Very convenient, since already on Monday evening, Art scored one of the locals.

Not my problem

July 08, 2000 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Budapest » Nyugati train station

And then it was Saturday. Seven friends of mine were coming into Budapest today, after which we would travel on to Oradea, where we would be picked up and driven to Beius for building 'our' house.

Of course it had to happen. Some hours before the group was to arrive, I got a call from Joost, saying that one of the other guys, Marco, was traveling on an expired passport. He wasn't allowed to enter Hungary. Ironically, he was also the only guy who actually had gotten a visa for Romania upfront. Paying a lot of money for it at the Romanian embassy in The Hague. Yes, it was pretty stupid of him to travel on an expired passport. It was, however, equally stupid that the Romanian embassy didn't mention that they issued a visa on a passport that wasn't allowed to travel in to Romania in the first place. Marco his passport was already expired when entering!

The whole procedure for getting Marco to Romania was going to be a hard one. I called the Dutch embassy in Hungary (on a Saturday) and after being forwarded a number of times, I was told Marco could just as well return to Holland. According to the person I spoke to, at most, he would be able to get a temporary passport that could take him back to the Netherlands, where he then would need to get a new passport. This turned out not to be the case. On Monday Marco was issued a valid passport at the Dutch embassy in Vienna, after which he and Joost were able to finally travel to Beius.

Meanwhile, the other five were about to arrive at the Western Train Station in Budapest. I had taken up position there to watch them arrive. And indeed, right on time, 5 youngsters, all wearing blue coveralls and carrying a large round poker table were coming out of the train station. Them, having played poker all night on the trains from Rotterdam to Budapest, were in need for some good food to compensate for the alcohol they had consumed the previous night. We had a couple of palacsinta's (pancakes), some beers and picked up our train tickets onwards. Ready to go.

Border patrol

The Romanian phrasebook I got to make myself heard in Romanian isn't very good. I expected a little bit more from this Berlitz guide, but it doesn't deliver.

The book was printed in 1998. In 1994, the Romanian spelling rules changed significantly. During the communist regime, a lot of the spelling was changed, to make Romanian, which is a Romance language, like Italian or French, look more like a Slavic language. In 1994, these changes were changed back, but 4 years after these changes, the Berlitz guide still didn't reflect these changes. Knowing this, its not surprising that the background information in the guide is also totally outdated.

The train ride to Oradea was uneventful. The border control being the only interesting part. We were checked some 5 times, were we also had to hand over our passports. When one of the later patrols asked for our passports, which we already had handed over, we started to worry. One of the border patrols recognized our Habitat-arranged visa papers and even knew some of the contacts we had been talking with. We had an easy passing and arrived in Oradea at around 11pm.

Can you fit this?

We arrived in Oradea about an hour later as planned. The train station is located quite a bit out of town and we had to be at the hotel before 11:30 to not be locked out so we had no choice but to take a cab. Remember we were carrying this poker table. A bit of haggling got us two cabs at $1 per person, including the table. Not bad at all and we arrived in time.

More of a problem was that paying anything in Romania in anything but Romanian Lei is forbidden and we only had dollars. And we had to pay the hotel before we were allowed to leave for a night on the town. After an extensive discussion, we were allowed to pay in dollars. "But please, don't tell anyone else."

The rooms were huge, HUGE. Really. Like, three beds in a 4 by 15 meter room, with a bathroom the size of a small living room. A pity, though that everything in the city closed at 1am, even on a Saturday. Data, Lance and I waited in the courtyard, 'inside' the hotel, were there was a terrace, Hogo, Kees and Art felt it necessary to take a shower first. Only really big smiles and friendliness helped to convince our waitress to keep on serving until some time after 1am.

After a cash machine almost ate my bank card, we did find a late night bar were beer was served. True, the neon lights inside the bar weren't particularly making the place very cozy, but at least we could complain about that while drinking! And we did have something to talk about:

After we were finally kicked out of the courtyard, in search of another place to get a drink, we walked into some sort of hall, next to an all night Internet cafe (were they sold no coffee), and literally got beaten out of the place. This thin but VERY angry bodyguard started shouting at us, hitting some of us in the face, before pushing us out. I received one blow and very much considered hitting the guy back. I don't really like getting punched, but I looked at his face, at his shouting mouth, into his eyes and figured that if I would hit him back, I could probably expect a knife between my ribs. I accepted being pushed out of the place. Later, we learned that, in fact, national television had just been airing the national lottery from there. Indeed, a very large truck, stuffed with electronics, very thick wires coming out all over the place, was standing outside.

Then, 4am, it seemed like the right time for a nap. Stumbling back to the hotel, we were happy to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a nice day, Romania was suffering from a heat wave. Coming from icy Holland, we were looking forward to the heat.

More comparing

July 07, 2000 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Budapest » Varosliget

It was a good decision to leave Holland a couple of days early and visit Budapest. I was doing absolutely nothing noteworthy. Leisurely moving from one sight to the next.

Luckily, after a year living here, having friends visit every other month, there is nothing that I haven't seen in Budapest anymore. So, I could do whatever I wanted without really missing any site. I've seen it all, at least once, either when I was here for the first time in 1995, on holiday in 1996 or when studying here in 1997.

One of the stories that almost every tourist visiting Budapest can tell you is the one about the architect of the city's chain bridge, spanning the Danube. The bridge has a number of lions on both sides of the bridge. When building finished, the architect noticed that he had left out the lion's tongues. As a result, considering himself a total failure, he jumped to his death, jumping of the bridge he had designed himself.

The tourist 'distribution' in Budapest is very remarkable. Interesting places that are located a mere minute's walk away from each other are completely infested or totally bare of tourists without there being a clear pattern. One of these examples is the castle in the Varosliget. The castle, at least equally interesting as Hosok tere, which is located almost next door, is completely void of tourists, where Hosok tere is completely filled with tourists.

The castle, located in the city park, or Varosliget, was built as an example of Hungary's 7 major building styles. What's equally nice is the park that surrounds the castle. Very relaxing, the park is almost always completely empty, the occasional tourist seemingly lost

Besides the castle, the park also holds the best baths in Budapest after the Gellert and a very nice small lake. When chilling at the lake, falling asleep in the sun between short reading sessions, a couple of kids were catching fish with a plastic bag.

Food for thought

From the first time I set foot in Budapest in the summer of '95 until when I left in August '97, Raday utca (Raday street) had been sealed off for traffic. Not that they were working on it, improving it. It was just sealed off.

Imagine my surprise when the screens blocking off most of the street had actually disappeared. In fact the whole street had been renovated and now looked really good and totally clean, resembling an upscale promenade.

The reason for me being there was finding out if the Persian restaurant that I used to frequent was still alive and kicking. Back then, the setting wasn't all that good. It looked like any regular snack-bar. But it did serve wonderful food.

Now, after the upgrade of the street, Shiraz, the restaurant, had upgraded itself as well. Not only was there a quite luxurious restaurant, operated by the same Persian guy, around the corner. The snackbar had grown into something of a luxurious take away with a permanent terrace on Raday utca. The food, was still equally wonderful. The prices, however, had skyrocketed. Still, however, below Western standards.

I had a hard time recognizing the owner of the restaurant. Only after some time, when I had had the chance of looking him straight in the eye did I notice it was the same man as three years ago. Apparantly, renovation of the street and the upgrading of his restaurant had done him good. More guests, more employees and more turnover had meant more profit. Before, this man looked worn out. Now he looked self-assured and happy.

JC rules

Depending on the weather, I had planned to spend the day either at the Balaton or in the Varosliget. However, when I woke up, weather was bad. Clouds everywhere and not a very high temperature at all. During the day this slowly changed. The clouds disappeared, the sun came out and slowly but surely it started to get hot. When, in the evening, the sky was getting a little bit more cloudy again, the night promised to be tropical.

I wanted to get myself a ticket to an open air showing of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', by Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Marghitsziget (Margaret's island) in the middle of the Danube river. Right after eating at Shiraz, I had taken a tram to the southern end of the island and walked northwards, where the theater is. Arriving, I found that the tickets were a lot more expensive than what I expected, the cheapest starting out at some 1200HUF (about $5). Comparing this to the 500HUF ($2) I had just paid to see MI:2, this was alot. In 1997 I frequently went to the National Opera or a classical concert for sometimes as little as 150HUF. Imagine my surprise when I saw prices for this showing of Jesus Christ Superstar go up as high as 5000HUF!

I thought it over a bit and decided to go for a cheaper ticket. Lucky me, some of the most expensive tickets weren't sold out, so I was able to move into front row position for a back row price. Not that it did me as much good. The show was very good, but halfway it started raining so badly, that the second half of the show got canceled. What was a surprise, though, was that in all the four versions of this play that I had now seen in Budapest, each time, Judas was being played by the same actor. Does this guy ever get a life?

On my way back from Jesus Christ Superstar, I stopped at Maxim's. A small scale restaurant littered with Soviet memorabilia and wall paintings. This place, too, hadn't changed at all, the menu still being the same, the wall paintings ('Taste the East') still identical, even the prices hadn't changed much. The restaurant sells pizzas with names like 'CCC Pizza', 'Siberian Morning' and 'Dear Papa Marx'. Funnily and happily, Maxim's, littered with Hungarian youngsters, still seems like a place not frequented by tourists.

A relived past

July 06, 2000 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Budapest » Over the Danube

Budapest was a shock by not being a shock at all. Over the past three years, the city hasn't changed at all. Sure, Dunkin' Donuts have retreated from Hungary and Moskva Ter is under construction, but that pretty much summs it up. The same people on the streets, the same stalls on the pavement, the same shops on the sidewalk and the same signs on appartment buildings. The city hasn't evolved much in its look and feel over the past couple of years.

The places I frequented when I lived here; Nagyi Palacsinta, Muzeum cukrazda, the Black Cat, hadn't changed at all either, and that I found even more surprising. Even the small dodgy shop next to the metro entrance at Moskva Ter, selling cakes, pastry and coffee from a small window was totally unchanged and still being run by the same guy.

Another remarkable experience came when I learned that the only girl that ever dumped me, married last August to her boyfriend cum fiancee of three years. An American Jew she met at the time of me being in Budapest. In fact, she dumped me shorlty after meeting him. It was a bit late, but it made the dumping much more agreeable.

Some time ago an English colleague of mine asked if there was ever a girl with whom I could see myself spending the rest of my life with, I mentioned the name of the girl that got married last year. This was, of course, way before I met the *love* of my life, my current girlfriend, of course. This made me understand, just a little bit, the feelings of the girls I've dumped over the years…

When walking through Budapest, I bumped into the same tourgroup twice. The guy doing the tour came to my attention because of his shoes. Just the day before I left on holiday, my car was broken into. With close to $1500 in damages, the one very remarkable thing about the break in being, that between the passengers door and the car, the thief had inserted, wait for it, two shoes… Yes, two shoes. Sneakers.

The tour guide was wearing the exact same shoes as the ones I found stuck in my car. The result was that I listened a bit to what he had to say to the group he was leading through the city. Apparently, Buda comes from the Slavic word for water, 'voda', since Buda has numerous springs. Pest comes from the Gaelic word for 'mud'. For the reader who thinks he is missing something, Budapest only exists for about a hundred years. Before that, it used to be three independent towns; Buda, Obuda and Pest.

I was going to meet an old friend of mine for dinner and I considered going to Lake Balaton the next day, but that would depend on the weather. Meanwhile, I noticed that the desire to return to Budapest, which had grown and grown over the past three years was now totally gone. Don't get me wrong, I still liked the city alot, but it slowly had become clear that Budapest was now a part of my past. It was very nice. The operative word being 'was'.

Waiter on drugs

Eszter, the girl I was going to meet in the evening for dinner, had given me her GSM number, so that I could contact her as soon as I would arrive in Budapest. Of course, I had written it down incorrectly, but fortunately, she had also given me her office address. Visiting her at work, I learned that she had received a very sudden and unexpected work-load, meaning she might not be able to meet me for dinner that evening, as we had planned.

As always, she did manage, saying she could finish up her work after dinner. The only thing left to do for her after dinner was to build 22 charts in Visio…

We ate at Vista. Good soup, mediocre main dish. And a waiter on drugs. By the time we arrived at her place, it was about 10:30. And she still had to do quite a bit of work.

Her boyfriend had planned to join us for dinner but wasn't able to make it. Norbert was at home when we arrived, resulting in us starting on some home made wine and chatting the evening away. I offered a couple of times to leave, but Norbert and Eszter wouldn't hear of it. The wine wasn't exactly convincing me to go either. When I finally did leave, it was already 12 at night and I was going to have to take the night bus home. Saying good-bye outside of their apartment, as if to punish Eszter for not doing her charts in time, a bird shat on her shoulder.

The restaurant where we ate, Vista, is quite remarkable. When I arrived in Budapest near the end of 1996, I soon learned that THE budget travel shop in Budapest was a small office called 'Vista'. Not only was staff very friendly, still something of a curiosity back then, they also were able to arrange budget trips to almost anywhere in the world, including one way trips to the major European airports. The first time I visited Vista, the office was nothing more than a 50m2, one-room, operation. Four people working at breakneck speed to serve the multitude of customers.

Just before I left in August 1997, they had already expanded, occupying an office about five times their original size, with even better service and a travel bookshop. And now, they had also added a restaurant. Built in the same style as the travel office, dark wooden furniture in a friendly atmosphere, the place is quite enjoyable. The music, ambient and slow drum and base, is played at a relaxing sound level. A pity the quality of the food wasn't up to the same high standards.

After saying good-bye to Eszter and Norbert, I took the night bus back to Moskva Ter. From there I walked to the hostel. Some 20 to 25 people were sleeping on benches in a small park that I passed on my way to the hostel.

It’s raining, man

July 05, 2000 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Woongroep Buitensporig

The core part of the trip was going to be a week in Beius, Romania to build a house there. You read that right. My fraternity and Habitat for Humanity had teamed up to work at one of the Habitat sites in Romania.

In Beius, already some 20 houses had been built over the past couple of years and some 40 more were still scheduled to be built. We were going to use our magical powers to create one of those 40 houses there.

Mind you, not that it was easy to motivate my, ehm, friends, for going to Beius. Of the 38 people of my fraternity, only 20 commited to going. And last minute, three even bowed out, leaving only 17. Great.

For now, however, I was on my way to Budapest. We only were going to start our creative process the next monday but I wanted to visit a good friend of mine whom I met when studying in Budapest a couple of years before. About half the team was going to fly to Bucarest and take a train from there to Beius. Myself and the rest of the group were traveling overland, but I left first.

I was going to hitchhike, and since it’s no fun to spend a night on the autobahn, I left early. It had been some time since I last hitchhiked and although it can be pretty tiresome and downright annoying, it still has something of a romantic ring to it. So I wasn’t too bothered.

Hitchhiking in Holland is almost impossible if not a terribly slow process. So for the first leg of my journey I took the train to Arnhem. Then, starting the adventure at the border with Germany.

Waking up with a headache for lack of sleep, I hastened to get to the train station in time. I only barely managed and if it weren’t for me having to change trains in Utrecht, I would have gotten an aditional 90 minutes of sleep. Now, however, I was destined to watch it raining cats and dogs. Only hoping that Budapest would bring nicer weather.

Baby steps

Arnhem isn’t a very exciting town. And at 7:30am with a continuous drizzle it’s downright appalling.

I arrived under rainy skies, but since it was still too early, no shops were open to get myself an umbrella. I was going to fight nature. Luckily, I was wearing a cap so most of the rain went by reasonably unnoticed. I wasn’t wearing the cap as a fashion statement though. The day before, I had shaved my head completely bald. And drivers have a general dislike for taking bald hitchhikers with them. The cap was a necessity.

The walk to the nearest ramp onto the highway wasn’t bad. I was able to take a bus halfway and walk the rest. The actual spot, however, was terrible. One very big roundabout, with almost no place for cars to stop, with cars going in all directions and drivers looking at you as if you’re mad for taking up space on their precious highway.

My only chance was to be picked up by a German car, but not many Germans left Arnhem at 8:00am for Germany. Still, the third German car that passed, stopped. I had my first ride. Into Germany.

The guy was very friendly and had hitchhiked extensively when he was younger, mostly in New Zealand, but also in Germany and France and he was now living in Muenchen. Good news, I thought, expecting a ride to Muenchen. Wrong. The guy was flying from Duesseldorf to Muenchen, after spending a week in the Netherlands for his job. We had such an animated discussion, that I didn’t notice passing the gas station where I needed to get off. As a result, I had to get off at a very basic parking next to the autobahn. Not a good thing at all.

Afraid of already being stuck so early in the day I asked every driver that stopped there to take me with him to the next parking, since the next gas station was too far away for comfort. That is, some 60km, but in the ‘Ruhrgebied’, that’s like the other side of the world.

I was lucky. A guy in a pickup was so kind as to drive me to the next parking.

Jammed

My next two rides were from two friendly, but not talkative men. The first, driving a pickup truck, the second, an old van. However, the objective wasn’t, to meet new people, but to get out of the Ruhrgebied quickly. This, to my surprise, went fairly smoothly.

I arrived at another gas station soon. Hordes of Dutch, traveling south to Austria, Switzerland and Italy were stopping to chill, so finding a ride here wouldn’t be much of a problem. After only a couple of minutes I got a ride from two Dutch men.

I was luckier than I thought. Not only did they share one of their raw herrings, a typically Dutch treat, we also talked a bit before setting off. And there I learned they weren’t going in the right direction at all! I said good-bye, took my backpack out of the car, forgot my hitchhiker’s guide to Europe and went out in search for a car going in the right direction.

A Dutch couple, working at the University of Twente, were willing to take me with them and were going in the right direction. I did have to convince them, though. Mostly because they didn’t have any room in their car. Not that it was small. In fact, it was a huge Volvo. But it was packed to the brim, camping gear all around, heaps of books, bicycles on the back of the car. So there wasn’t any room anymore for anyone to sit absolutely anywhere. Willing to put my legs around my neck, if necessary, they made some room for me and I was settled for a couple of hours, reasonably comfortably. Although I did get a bad leg cramp later on for sitting in such a tight spot.

It being the first week of summer holidays in Germany, the roads were packed. The Dutch couple, claiming to be traffic-jam spotters, were very adept in avoiding the traffic jams along the way. They were going to Switzerland and they didn’t really mind if they would enter the country either East or West. Me, however, I did mind a lot in which direction we were going as long as I ended up in Austria. The result being that although we ‘did’ quite a distance in a short time, I wasn’t really moving towards my destination.

Still, the weather was clearing, the temperature was getting warmer. By now, it wasn’t that bad anymore if my trip would take me a bit longer as planned. When I got out of the car, we were close to Heidelberg.

Wrong way

It’s rare to get a ride from someone who isn’t (or hasn’t been) a traveler himself. But close to Heidelberg it actually did happen to me. A stereotypical German, working for Mercedes, driving a, you’ve guessed it, gave me a ride. A pity with people that don’t travel much is that, generally, they don’t have a good sense of direction and distance.

I was trying to get back on the main road through Passau to Vienna. Because of traffic jams earlier on I was forced to take a more southern route and this guy was going in the right direction, directly east. At least, that was what he thought. He did go east, for a while, but then he took a turn southwards, some 150km earlier than what he had pointed out on the map. I felt fucked but tried to remain calm. What could I do?

Getting off at the first gas station, since the Mercedes-man was leaving the autobahn soon after, I was picked up after another 30 minutes or so. This time by, seemingly, an older hippy, driving an old van, towing a very old car, who constantly talked about some Danish Lama, Ole Nydahl. I mean, really, this guy couldn’t stop talking about Buddhism. Not that I really minded. He was very friendly and really went out of his way to drop me off on the right side of Stuttgart, towards Austria. The fact that the van did an average 60km/h didn’t really bother me.

It was hard to get a ride from Stuttgart. Not that people weren’t willing to take me with them. They were going in the wrong direction. Almost everyone went south. As were the couple that gave me the next ride. Still, they were going a bit to the east first, passing the next gas station. Before we actually took off, I had been waiting for close to an hour. This wasn’t promising, I still had a very long way to go.

Lucky Baba

The wait paid off. I halted a really big bad ass car, with only one person (although huge) in it. The car had Bulgarian license plates. I got lucky, more by being pushy then by the friendliness of the driver. He let me hitch a ride with him and it turned out that he was actually going to Bulgaria. I got along as far as Budapest.

The guy’s plan was to stop for the night some kilometers short of Budapest. Although it was getting pretty late, I was happy I could convince him to drive on, and sleep in Budapest. We arrived at the hostel I had made reservations by cell phone, just a couple of minutes before 2am. I paid for his nights stay, which seemed fair, considering the man drove me almost 850km, but he only staid a couple of hours. At 6am, he was up again, leaving for the final leg of his trip.

Although it was quite hard to talk to the man, his English knowledge was very basic, I learned that he was working for a shipping company on the border between Bulgaria and Romania and that he had been in Germany to visit several ports. An interesting story that he told was, of a girl in his village, some 25 years old, who had been taken in by police for questioning, who would only be let out on charge of a really high bail. After the girl called him, using the police phone, he went in and freed the girl, using, undoubtedly, his ancient Bulgarian techniques of persuasion…

Mi Casa es su Casa

July 04, 2000 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Woongroep Buitensporig

In the summer of 2000, the first summer of the new millennium, I spent three weeks traveling some parts of southeastern Europe. Not only that, with 16 friends, we built a house in Beius, Romania. In just five days, we were able to built the house from the ground up! Okay, so windows, plumbing, electricity and a lot of other stuff still had to be installed, but who’s counting.

The other two weeks I visited Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Skopje, Tirana and a couple of other places, to finish it off with a couple of wonderful days in Rome, with my girlfriend Vinca. Budapest especially being strange, returning there for the first time in 3 years, having lived there for a year in 1997.

As what always happens on these trips, I met a lot of interesting people, saw a lot of fantastic places, and only had time to relax after I got home again.

Although it was summer, it was a busy time at work. Our customers are companies maintaining capital intensive production processes. Companies like Shell, Elf, Corus and others. Although typically, these companies all but shut down during summer, my agenda was packed. Going away for more than three weeks definitely wouldn’t help.

Only a couple of weeks after returning from Southeastern Europe, I had scheduled a week-long trip to the UK, for trying to sell our main software product to potential customers. All arrangements for that, I had to make before going away. Not just that, I had to make sure the IT infrastructure at the office would not breakdown in any way during my absence, that backup plans were in place and that everyone knew what to do in case of an (IT-)emergency.

On top of that, with some friends from my fraternity, I was busy compiling a book, on 15 years of our existence. This too needed to be finished before setting of.

I was to take the 6am train from Rotterdam to Arnhem on Wednesday. By the time I got to bed, it was 1:15am. Already Wednesday. I was looking at less then 4 hours of sleep.

Back home in Brussels

June 04, 2000 • Blog

World » Belgium » Brussels » Boulevard de Diksmuide

It was a pity that Harm-Jan learned only on Saturday that he had to be back at work on Monday at 12 in the afternoon. We decided to leave Warsaw at 6pm so that we might even be able to catch some sleep in some hostel along the way.
Robert told us that, at most, we would be able to drive an average of some 80km/hour to the German border. I didn't believe him and all went well until we were stopped by Police. I was driving 104km where I was allowed 60. Some haggling and explaining that we REALLY didn't need a receipt left us with gaining a cheap ticket but loosing all our Polish money. For the rest of the trip, some 5 hours up to the border, we stuck to the speed limit and drove an average 70km/hour.

Border

Crossing the border wasn't fun. Already some 25km before the actual border, trucks were waiting in line to cross. To avoid them, we had to drive towards oncoming traffic in the opposite lane…
Closer to the border, the 2-lane road became a 4-lane road with a divider in the middle. There was room enough to drive on our side of the road, although the waiting trucks where blocking off one of the lanes completely.
Only seconds after we started on the 4-lane road, cars were driving towards us, on our side of the road. This being really spooky, we opted to stop and first try and understand what was going on.

Turned out, we had to drive back to the beginning of the 4-lane road, and drive on the other side of the divider towards the border. This meant, again, driving towards oncoming traffic on their side of the road, without it being clear at all whether cars coming in our direction would have any notion of them having to share their side of the road with us! However, we felt we had no choice, turned around, and headed for the border again.
What the reason was for our side of the road being blocked is still a mystery to me. What was remarkable was, that when we drove up to the border on the opposite side of the road, many trucks were fully blocking the road on the right side of the road. Cars waiting for the trucks to move, in order to pass to get to the border by driving back again. However, the trucks blocking the roads seemed to do so in so much unison, that it seemed fully orchestered. I couldn't dare thinking of what would have happened if police hadn't stopped us earlier in the day and we would have arrived earlier at the border. God knows, we would have STILL stood there, waiting to drive back in order to get to the border…

And getting home? I handed over the driver's seat to Data after crossing the border and slept in the back of the car for the rest of the trip.

My Monday was pretty relaxed.

Malbork and Warsaw

June 03, 2000 • Blog

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World » Poland » Warsaw » Cafe Blikle

The next day we were off to Malbork, sight of one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mediaeval castle in Europe. Indeed, its HUGE. The only drawback being that if you want to get inside, you have no choice but to partake in a three hour tour of the area. I mean, a tour is nice, an obligatory tour is less nice. But an obligatory three hour tour is an assault! We skipped the tour, walked around the very impressive castle and moved on.

Oops!

Driving to Warsaw, we almost had an accident. Some might say nothing of a surprise, considering my driving style. I say it wasn't my fault. But then, nothing happened anyway.
At some point, we came across a road block where one side of the road was under repair and the other side was used, in turns, by traffic going in both directions. After waiting some 10 minutes for our turn to cross, we were allowed to move. I drove behind two very slow buggers and when the end of the roadwork was in sight I started accelerating. The cars in front me did the same, but at some point the car directly in front me slowed down its acceleration, suddenly braking as well. Not a good thing, me stepping on the brakes, sliding away and almost crashing into the car in front of us. Of course it was his fault!

Warsaw

Although the roads were much less then perfect, we still made it to Warsaw quite in time. I had put us in quite a difficult position, since we were to meet two friends of mine in Warsaw on the same evening. One, as I had learned earlier in the day, even was expecting us for dinner (which turned out to be VERY good, we grilled the night away, although it was a little bit heavy on the meat side).
We came in relatively early, spent some time at Warsaw's most famous cafe, cafe Blikle, with the first friend, Kuba, and then raced of to the second, Robert, to fill our rumbling tummies.
Kuba I had met on a train from Warsaw to Berlin, when traveling through from Vilnius to Rotterdam in January. Robert, an older friend of mine, I hadn't seen in a year. His wife even longer. Seeing them again really made my day and their hospitality was almost too much to handle. It was big fun. Funny to also meet Robert's parents, who were in for the weekend, traveling with a mini van, going by the name of 'bug' (Zuk in Polish).
When, at twelve or so, everyone went to bed, I convinced Robert in enjoying a night cap with me. 'Allright', he said, 'but only if we do it my way…' No choice but having to agree, we drank a night cap. A big waterglass full of Vodka-orange. 5/6th Vodka, the rest air and a drop of orange. And we drank two of those glasses! When we finally stumbled off to bed, I could hardly walk.

CDs

One thing I had been looking forward to, the whole trip, was visiting the Russian market. Situated around an old, but still in use, stadium, you used to be able to buy anything there. Guns, drugs and even stuff like Tanks and worse.
Over the last couple of years, the market become much more 'regular', but its still a good place to buy cheap CDs. Remembering what good time I had buying cheap CDs when I was in Russia, I bought another twelve, before going on a sightseeing tour with Robert and the rest of the gang.

Concrete phallus

June 02, 2000 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Poland » Gdansk » Westerplatte

The next day we spent touring the city. Visiting the city's tourist highlights (and meeting up with the same Germans again and again) we saw all of Gdansk that's worthwhile visiting. Among other things, a monument to three dockworkers killed in the 70s (three anchors on three huge crosses) and a monument to the fallen of the second world war at a site called 'Westerplatte'. The latter being nothing but an inscribed concrete fallus. Very weird indeed.

I had no choice but to buy a model of the fallus. In fact, I bought three. When, driving to Warsaw, one of the three falluses broke, falling on Marianne's head, it turned out they're made from clay, their insides still being wet.

More of that Jazz

We managed to get back from Westerplatte in time to have dinner at a milk bar. If you've seen 'A Clockwork orange' you probably have a totally wrong idea about milkbars. Still, however, they serve milk. In addition to the numerous regular (and very good and very cheap) full meals on offer.
We completely filled our bellies for an apple and an egg (which means for next to nothing if you're wandering) and afterwards spent time just sitting on one of the benches in Gdansk its main street, watching the Germans pass by.
When the time was right and the sun was closer to setting, we moved to one of the two jazz clubs in Gdansk. We came just in time to enjoy some of the live music and sat at the only free table left in the club, next to one of the pool billiards, drinking 'Iguana's' by the bucketload.
After we moved tables, one of the girls playing pool came up to us, asking where we came from. Or more precisely, she came up to Marianne, asking her where she came from. After Marianne started stumbling a bit in her conversation with the Polish girl, I joined the conversation but the Polish girl became visibly annoyed when I did so.
Some time later, after Data and I had observed the group of friends the Polish girl was with, it became clear she was a lesbian and that she was double dating with another girl and two boys, both gay. When Data came back from a sanitary stop, one of the boys made a pass at him: "Hey gorgeous, what are you doing tonight?"

Moving to Gdansk

June 01, 2000 • Blog

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World » Poland » Gdansk » Downtown

Just to get us on our way, we drove out of Berlin on the wrong side, almost going back towards Hannover again. Then, driving towards the border, we had nothing but traffic jams. What were all those people doing here, going towards Poland? We even came across a small van, selling ice-cream, stuck on the autobahn like us. Some maneuvering left us next to the van. OK, so we spent several hours driving at walking speed; we DID have ice-cream to comfort us!
Crossing the border was painless. The following trip to Gdansk on Polish ground less so. Most of the roads were secondary roads. Normally its possible to drive some 120km on secondary roads. Not in Poland. Unless you like getting an all over body massage. For 5 hours on end.

Gdansk

I hadn't taken the time to make reservations with a hotel in Gdansk. We tried to call one of the better options mentioned in the Lonely Planet but we were unable to communicate with them in all four languages we tried. We decided to give them a surprise visit.
In Gdansk, Marianne stayed at the Ka (that's my car, a Ford Ka), while Data (the guy in most of the pictures) and myself went over to the hotel to secure a room.
At first, getting a room for three was no problem. But after the lady-clerk asked who the third person was going to be, we had to fight to secure the room. We mentioned the third person was to be a girl. Although we tried to convince her she was Dutch (which Marianne is), she kept on insisting she had to be Polish. And the only thing that she was interested in was whether the girl screamed a lot.
When we understood what she was thinking about we tried to make clear that I was something of an add-on to the couple Data-Marianne. That sort of worked. We got a room, although the lady had to think hard what room to actually give us… "Aha, I will give you the special room!"
The special room being a room with a corridor. Such, that I could spend the night in the corridor, while Marianne could scream as much as she wanted to, being entertained by Herr Data.
The room was cheapy. We paid a little bit less then $20 for the room in Berlin. Per person. Here, the total was some $20. And we could scream as much as we liked and come home whenever we liked. Bonus!
Coming back after picking up Marianne and our luggage, we insisted on showing the lady Marianne's passport, to prove she was Dutch. Not only wasn't she interested at all, when she finally did look at the document, the only thing that you could read in her eyes when looking at the thing was "very good forgery indeed". Needless to say, during the night, we screamed as much as we could. And needless to say, for some of us it came totally naturally…

Fooood

Gdansk would be a very nice place if it weren't for all the (old!) Germans in the city. They literally are everywhere! Of course, the city used to be German in a distant past and Hitler started the Great Patriotic War here, but that's no reason for these ancient Germans to be all over town. About every second person in the city center is from Europe's America.
In the evening, we had a very nice dinner in a very nice Polish place. Marianne, a vegetarian, had the fish. Nothing special as such, weren't it for the fact it was almost still alive. No filet, she had to scrape the meat from the bones. Nothing special maybe for you and me, for Marianne it meant trying to get over one of her worst fears. She only half succeeded, leaving half of the Fish on her plate, not being very happy with having eaten the other half.

Berlin – Gdansk – Malbork – Warsaw

May 31, 2000 • Blog

World » Germany » Somewhere on the Autobahn towards Berlin

Driving 3000km just to buy some bootleg CDs would be just too much of a good thing. Therefore, we had no choice but to do some sight seeing as well.
Together with two friends of mine, over the course of a long weekend, I visited Berlin, Gdansk, Malbork and Warsaw. Good weather, Ice cream on the Autobahn, A hotel clerk with nothing but sex on her mind and those well deserved bootleg CDs made for an exciting and relaxing trip.
Scratch that. Having to drive more than 3000km still made it exciting, but forget about the relaxing bit.

Berlin

We left Rotterdam on Wednesday afternoon at 18:00hours. I had made reservations with a hostel in Berlin. A very nice one, located next to quite a lake on the southern outskirts of Berlin. The only drawback being that we had to be in before 11pm.
Rotterdam – Berlin is little over 700km so in theory its possible to drive the distance in 5 hours. Notice the word ‘theory’. Leaving at six, on Wednesday wasn’t a good prospect at all. I already had been able to extend our allowed time of arrival to 11:30, but at 11pm I had to give the hostel a call that we wouldn’t be able to make it before 11:30. At that point, we were in Hannover. Still a grand total of 300km from Berlin.
We kept track of time and distance traveled. If we would have done 140km an hour, using the first 30 minutes to ‘get on the road’ we would have arrived just in time. At 7:30pm we were already 40km behind schedule. An hour later 67km. Another hour later, we were some 140km behind schedule. Needless to say, traffic was terrible. Let me repeat that: Traffic was T E R R I B L E. Got that?
Upto crossing the border with Germany, it wasn’t all that bad. Sure, traffic was reasonably slow, but we were continuously driving. After the border, up to Hannover, it was the worst. At some point, we came across a colony of snails. They were actually overtaking us!
Luckily, when I called the hostel, I could still convince them in taking us in for the night, saying that, at the latest, we would be arriving at 1am. Although that meant we would have to drive more than 150km an hour for the final two hours of our trip to Berlin.

Its funny; when calculating you can travel a distance at a certain speed in a certain time, you almost always have to drive some 30% faster to actually get there in the time you calculated. We drove 180km for two hours to make it before 1am. Needless to say, we didn’t make it. But we came close and they let us in.
The hostel, very modern, clean and expensive was perfect (except for the price). Very good beds, reasonable breakfast and a perfect location. Almost a pity our goal was to get to Gdansk and Warsaw. Gdansk, still another 700km away. Across mainly Polish roads.

Live concert of Doe Maar

May 11, 2000 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Ahoy

What a concert! When Doe Maar split up in 1984 I wasn’t really aware of the importance and quality of the band. Only several years later, when I started to become a real fan of the band did I realise that I HAD missed out, not being part of the screaming crowds of girls shouting for Ernst Jansz or Henny Vrienten. Not that I wanted to shout for the same reasons as they did, mind you.

So when Doe Maar announced their reunion, CD and concerts, it started itching and eventually, I bought tickets for the show. And what a show it was.

They had a play list they followed. Quite good, a combination of old and new, but the band really started to take of at the end of the play list and during the comebacks on stage. They really, really, REALLY had the crowd on their hands. It was madness! It was terrific!

In the palm of my hand

April 28, 2000 • Blog

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World » United Kingdom » York » Downtown

A thousand kilometer, five day journey through the UK.

Work and play

In April 2000, I had to visit a number of potential clients in the UK, for my job. The clients were located in Wales, close to York and close to Nottingham. The five day trip gave me the opportunity to visit the cities of Llanberis, Manchester, York, Chester and Liverpool. Especially York and Chester are very nice cities to visit, but also are continuously loaded with tourists.

In my hands

I was strolling through the town of York, in the evening, a lovely town by the way, when quite suddenly I was approached by a woman of maybe 35 or 40 years old. Just a bit over 5 feet tall, she was blond with medium long hair, tiny and obviously had been quite attractive in her earlier years. When she talked she talked at a relaxed pace almost without stopping, generating a continuous flow of information.

She wanted me to buy good luck charms from her. "I'm not gonna hurt you; you don't have to buy them; it doesn't hurt looking."

What startled me from the start was, that I was totally relaxed with her. Clearly, she was doing some glorified begging scheme and in England, that could only mean for me loosing much more money than you could ever consider loosing to a beggar. But somehow, I didn't really seem to mind, both interested and curious as to what was going to happen, I waited. And indeed, it wouldn't hurt to look.

'Open your left hand sir, I won't charge you for looking. I'm not a thief, you don't have to worry.' In the palm of my hand, she put three, as she called them, good luck charms. All made out of glass. The first, two clear glass chips stuck together, was for luck. If it would ever break, my luck would stop.

The green round one I would always have to carry with me. The third, a heart-shaped stone, also totally clear and colorless, just like the first one, I should give to the one I would want to love forever.

Then, she started reading my palm. Holding my hand, looking at it, with the stones still in my palm. I looked at her face, her mouth, her eyes.

'Your life line is very long, but your health line is broken.' Now I could have told her that! Then she went on, telling me about myself: 'You worry too much sir; you've got very strong willpower; you've got family and friends who care a lot about you and you care a lot about them; you will never be a millionaire but you will always have enough; you are a very strong man; you just had a very difficult time but the worst is now behind you.'

She had started to intrigue me more and more, and especially her last remark struck home. Me and my girlfriend had been together for four years, and only shortly before me going to the UK, in the period when I had moved from Brussels to Rotterdam, we had broken up, resulting in difficult times for both my (now ex-)girlfriend and myself. I had had a very difficult time and it was good to know that the worst was now behind me.

I had been struggling with what, at this cusp in time for me, would be the best for me. Either begin again (or go on with, depending on what way you look at it) with Julia, my ex-girlfriend and accept the near-perfectness of the relationship (as being not perfect). But what would I then need out of the relationship? What was I willing to give up? What would I accept? But, by breaking up, hadn't I thrown away the best thing that ever happened to me, and shouldn't I try to retain that at almost any cost?

'You just had a difficult time but the worst is now behind you' echoed through my head again. Slowly I had started to accept that maybe, indeed, moving on, closing the relationship that I had had with Julia, would be the best thing for me. I just wasn't completely sure. ' …the worst is now behind you.' I started to believe that, indeed, it was time to go on with my life.

The woman continued:' Who's the letter 'J' in your hand?' Wow. And:' Did you just move or are you about to move?' Wow again. I said I had just moved, but she went on:' If, very soon, you get an opportunity for moving, you should take it.' Not only did she totally convince me with those two sentences, I'm also very much considering moving to the States. Was she referring to that? 'You are a very strong man; you have strong will power, but you worry too much.'

'Very soon, a man will come along. He is a friend of yours or he will say he is a friend of yours. He will come in-between you and the one you love. He will say things like 'Take my word for it, you shouldn't', or 'Take my word, as a friend, you should…' Don't take his advice, he is only after his own goals, he is not a friend of yours. Ignore him.'

That more or less ended the session. She drew a cross in my hand quite a number of times, where I also had to make a wish at the same time. Then, she told me, I had to put two bank notes in the palm of my hand and make another wish. 'Don't worry sir, I'm not a thief. I won't steal your money. I've got change.'

Since I had just moved from Belgium to the Netherlands, I still had quite a collection of Belgian money in my wallet. The smallest amount of English pounds I had in bank notes was 20pounds. A little bit much for a palm reading, I thought. I put two 100BEF notes (about $5) in the palm of my hand. 'Close your hand and make a wish.' I did. Then the haggling started. She wanted 15pounds, I was willing to go up to 10.

'5pounds for the charms, 10 for the palm reading. You won't be missing it, sir.' Now that was correct. I would never be a millionaire but I would always have enough. I wouldn't miss the extra 5pounds and I did believe she was worth the money. I gave her the 15pounds.

After she left, I again went through the things she said. The worst is now behind me. I am a very strong man and have strong will power. I will never be a millionaire, but will always have enough.

Can you buy peace of mind? I think I did. Just who was going to be the friend she mentioned…

The luck of the Dutch

April 23, 2000 • Blog

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World » Ireland » Dublin » Downtown

5 Dutch idiots had decided to go to Dublin. Picking up really cheap tickets from Ryanair, they spent a long weekend in the city where more than half of the population is below 30. Stupid? You decide.

Since this was one of the few trips that we were going to do by plane, I hoped to be able to get a large group going. Since now, we wouldn’t be really dependent on Joost his car, we could go with a group as large as possible.

However, we still were only 5. Four to be exact, where Stevie, the fifth one, only joined us two days later.

A minor drawback related to the cheap tickets was, that we had to leave from Charlerois airport. Some 50km south of Brussels. Considering we all live in the Rotterdam area (in the Netherlands) that wasn’t like next door.

But the tickets being cheap really was a good thing. Since Dublin is too expensive to be true, we needed every dime we could spare. Sleeping in the Avalon house, in a 12 bedded room, we still had to pay some 15 Irish Pounds (about $20) a night.

Dublin is a nice place though. Although I wouldn’t recommend going there around Easter, as we did. On good Friday, no pub is allowed to pour any alcoholic beverages and the police intensively do checks. Quite remarkable, for a country that’s in the top five countries as to alcohol consumption per capita.

Strangely enough, on Easter Sunday, you are allowed to drink. And so we did. Together with two girls from the hostel, Viv and Cath, we visited the Jameson distillery in Dublin (although its now nothing but a museum). The good thing being the whiskey tasting at the end of the tour.

Afterwards, we went to a little town called ‘Dun Laoghaire’, where we visited the Martello Tower, the starting point of James Joyce’s Ulysses,

In the evening we visited a ‘typical’ (read: touristy) Irish pub. When the rest of the boys went on, clubbin’, the girls and myself had a really interesting evening.

Did I learn anything that day? Well, sometimes, it’s better to choose…

Greens

Dublin is a very green city. With a good amount of city parks its a very nice and friendly city to lounge in. Without a doubt, the city’s nicest park is St. Stephen’s Green. It being close to the hostel, I did some running there on Saturday morning. Not a wonderful thing, since the hangover of the night before was still troubling me.

We also spent a day out in the country. Twice a day, you can get a bus from besides St. Stephen’s Green that drives you directly to Glendalough (the valley of two lakes), one of the few places that, according to Lonely Planet, you have to see when you’re around Dublin.

Its basically two lakes in a valley (yes, really) with some leftovers from an old religious settlement. We visited on Good Friday and, by chance, experienced the first Good Friday mass there in 500 years. Not that it (the mass) was very spectacular, though. Although quite some of the people attending sung to the glory of god. That, and the pouring rain made it a very remarkable experience.

Backwards

Our trip back to Brussels was quite a remarkable one as well. First, the bus service from the hostel to the airport was late. Then it turned out that instead of the planned 45mins, it took close to 90. Us arriving only minutes before the closing of the check-inn desk. However, because an earlier flight had been canceled, there were only four tickets left for our flight, all the people from the earlier flight taking ours. We were with five. The next plane was to leave a mere six hours later.

The girl at the check-inn offered free tickets to all that took the later flight. Leaving us no choice, basically, we all took the later flight. To top it all of, she also offered a snack voucher. Snack being the operative word. 3.50 Irish Pounds can just buy you a Snickers at Dublin airport.

Since I had had a very, well, interesting night, thanks to Cath and Viv, I wasn’t really in the mood for anything but sleeping. As you might understand, an airport isn’t the best place to take a nap. Earlier, I had bought a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, but that too wasn’t really something to begin with on a tired head. Going outside, finding a bench in the sun, I tried to sleep away the wait. A pity that our plan to take an early flight out of Dublin and arrive home at a respectable time had failed miserably.

Baltics and beyond

February 01, 2000 • Blog

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World » Finland » Helsinki » Helsinki cathedral

In January, together with my girlfriend Julia I traveled from Arnhem in the Netherlands, to Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Helsinki, Riga, Vilnius and back to Arnhem again via Warsaw.

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