XC 1X2

I enjoyed an opportunity to sleep in before venturing out. Today had a few to do items. Buy books, buy pants, buy shoes. When traveling over such time and distance, sometimes you have to do mundane things in not so mundane places. For me, that means buying clothes in Paris. First, a bookshop. I found a spot that looked suitably insane and picked up Zorba the Greek and Heart of Darkness. My review of Heinlin’s Job follows… The first 250 pages could have been 50 but maybe that is the point. The ending is fantastic, silly, and provides a sill view of religion. Good fun. The author also lets his love for halter tops bleed into the pages. While, I cannot fault him for the preference, after the umpteenth time it did little to advance the plot. Next stop, Les Halles, Le premiere mall du Paris. The city is full of designer clothes and cute boutiques. Unfortunately I needed clothes that were comfortable, durable, and easy to care for. Luggage space is precious and I am unfortunately unable to h...

My alarm went off and I showered. That was a mistake, I should have done it before going to bed but I was too excited to be unconscious. Even as I was not fully awake, I realized that I’d be spending my day dealing with a wet towel and wet shower shoes on the train. Fun.  My layover was 50 minutes in Frankfurt. The irony that been around Hamburgers and Frankfurters all in one day was not lost on me. Hilarious. More than anything I’m just glad to be out of the clutches of Deutshce Bahn for the rest of this trip. I can report that SNCF knows how to build a railcar that’s decently comfortable. Even more incredible than the comfort in general was the comfort at speed. The engineer brought us up to 200 miles an hour and the car was steadier than most American trains at half that. The French countryside was zipping along so quickly that I couldn’t even see the poles holding up the overhead wire. Doing two bucks on rails I pulled into Gare d’lest and what should have been an easy Metro ri...

 My alarm went off too early today. Why did I do that to myself? Maybe I should just go to sleep. I remembered the mission and pressed on with waking up. Hamburg has a historic fish market. During the summer it starts early enough to catch wayward barflies in search of an early morning snack. In the winter they delay the start. A lazy 7 to 9:30 in the morning. I was up at 7 to ensure I got to see it in full swing but before the damn foreigners (such as myself) woke up to ruin it all.  The S Bahn ride over felt nice and homey. Two beggars asked me for money. Not like home they were both so polite about it. You decline and they move on to the next person, more efficient for them to ask more people quickly than press one for a nickel. The funniest one to watch was actually in search of pfand. Germans get a quarter to a half euro for returning bottles here, this makes bottle return serious business. There are small metal trash cans at each seat on the S Bahn and he was going from ...

An early wake up for an early travel day. Riding the metro in the morning here means you get a front row view of the tunnel. The transit authority has even added a sticker that looks like a control panel, fun! I know this photo is kinda crappy but getting the front row seat in a subway is just so weird I ate breakfast in a hotel near the main train station and contemplated my next move. What was a one seat ride on the way in was scheduled as a three seat ride today. It is Saturday and they are doing track work in between Kolding and Flensburg. That also means the second seat is on a bus. The Togbus was eerie, a double decker coach bus packed to the gills with the most silent Germans I’ve ever seen. Coming from the US, any bus experience without someone blasting Fetty Wap on a JBL or at least talking raucously is an odd one. Then begins my last train. I check the schedule and see the train to Hamburg is on track two. I go to track two and something feels off, this train is run by Deutch...

 I woke up at noon today. I’m not sure if this is exhaustion, jet lag, or just a hangover but I’m annoyed by the fact. My sleep schedule is getting pretty inconsistent and all this moving around isn’t helping. I am looking forward to being in London for three nights instead of the two that I’ve been able to have so far. I message my friend Austin for some recommendations for lunch and his wife Milo delivers. I shower and make my way to Kanal Kaféen for some traditional Danish food. This place is full of Danes having lunch on Friday and as the token American I am seated right by the toilets. Shitty as it may be, there is no over tourism problem here. People aren’t speaking English on the street like they were in Amsterdam. These towers are everywhere Smørrebeød is the name of the game here, an open faces sandwich based on rye bread slathered with butter and topped with fish, capers, onions, and dill. The pieces are brought to the table for you to pile as you see fit. I ordered the p...

 8 am train with unpredictable levels of energy means waking up at 6:30. I felt like Hell. Packed up and made my way to Amsterdam Centraal. There was a bakery in the station where I grabbed a cup of tea and some pecan pastry with a name I could not come close to pronouncing. This was my opportunity to enjoy a stroopwafel. I popped the lid off of my cup and rested the sugary disc on top. By the time the tea was done steeping, the dough had rehydrated and the filling in the middle had become warm and gooey. It was almost enough to make me glad I was awake. Today is about 12 hours of travel across three trains. Not the sort of thing we see in the US and not at all what I’ve been accustomed to. I guess you could have to do a move like that if you were going from a suburb of Virginia to a suburb of Boston but still, it’s an oddball. In the states, a 12 hour train ride means your butt it parked in a cushy long distance seat. You can expect a leg rest, an outlet, and a lounge. Of the thre...

 A short night’s sleep, jet lag, and dehydration. I didn’t feel the need to actually fall asleep until about 8 am, coincidentally roughly when I was hoping to start waking up for the Rijksmuseum. I’m a fan of Dutch masters and there’s no better place to see them than right here. I chose to not fall asleep standing at the museum and took a nap, or something that resembled one. Breakfast was in order. I went to a cafe in the northern part of the city, near a canal where else? Baguette, butter, jam, tea and a hard boiled egg. To my delight the egg came in one of those silly little egg cups that you just don’t see in the US. They gave me a cracking tool so I cooks quietly open up my breakfast. It sort of looks like a slide hammer with an egg shaped face. Very silly and unnecessary. I want one. Breakfast restored my strength but I was out of time for Rijks. A museum was in order so I went to the houseboat museum. Back in the day the city had a substantial population of people living on ...