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Published: February 29th 2012
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Kölner Dom
I'm usually a chatty person, this place made me shut right up. Gorgeous. Well I’m sitting at my office, counting down the last fifteen minutes until I can technically leave, so this seems like as good a time as any. Anyways, hello there! I know it’s been a little over two weeks since I last posted, and a reasonable amount has happened since then, so I guess I’ll work my way back through the whole bit. Sadly, or happily depending on one’s point of view (mine) I am actually becoming too busy to keep up with the pace of things. Frankly that’s very nice in its own bizarre way.
Let’s see, last time I posted about my (mis)adventures, it was from the series of wanderings our tour sent us on throughout all of Belgium, or at least the half with interesting things in it (read: not the French part). The weekend after was Karneval, and therefore free for us to do as we pleased. Karneval incidentally, is one of two times a year when Germans feel they have free reign to go absolutely chucklefucking nuts (the other being Oktoberfest) so I realized there was no other place I really wanted to be. It also didn’t hurt that after a month of feeling like
Meme party!
Best costumes of the bunch. Including the walking penis guys. an incredibly simple child when I spoke another language, I now had a chance to go back to a place where the spoken dialect followed rules and such. So Cologne became the target, and a group of about five joined me for the trip. How was it? Let’s sum up with another rule:
Read the fine print Karneval looked like grand fun on paper. Six days, stretching from Weifaubsnacht to Fat Tuesday, and the city was supposed to explode with costumery and madness. Seems nice right? Well as it turned out, the only day I thought to book was Friday, as hostels were full for Saturday. In short, the hangover day for the city (Thursday kicks the fest off). Was it still fun? Oh undeniably, the place was packed with more clown wigs and deranged costumes than a frat party at Halloween, and just walking around was enjoyable enough. Another plus was that the Dom was open on the first day, and if there’s one thing worth seeing in Germany (just one), and you’re not a drinker, fan of Berlin in general etc. then Cologne’s massive, achingly gorgeous gothic Cathedral is the place to be. Five hundred
Eurojust
While the building may look like something out of Robocop, the man on the left is Eurojust's press secretary, all around funny and interesting years in the making, and seemingly worth the wait. Sadly though, that was the ONLY thing that was open. It being Karneval and all, most of the museum staff was out getting drunk like the rest of the city. In short, I arrived too late, and left too early for the return of party spirit on Saturday. As before, it wasn’t terrible by any means, but it was certainly not all it could’ve been.
Afterwards, my friend Jake made the trip once again from Austria to say hello, and we happily got another few days together talking and catching up. He and I have a system, one I greatly enjoy, where we basically visit a new place and relentlessly mock it for a few days. In short, grand fun.
All too soon after that though, it was time for a new trip, in this case to Den Haag in the Netherlands. Let’s break this into a few segments:
Wave to the war criminal! I’ve mentioned a few times how well organized my program is. Well aside from the normal requisite tour of the Hague and a bit of Dutch history (spoilers, it’s gorgeous
Tribunal
A poor Foto to be sure, but worthy of a place, to quote the great Takei, here lives a "douchebag". and stuff’s cool), our omniscient Dr. Sheridan had lined up a few speakers. All were interesting, everything from police coordination (EUROJUST), who gets double points for giving us chocolate and mints, to chemical weapons (prohibition, not…never mind). But the winner by far was the Tribunal for Yugoslavia. By chance our visit coincided with the ongoing trial of Radovan Karadzic. For those who remember the series of wars marking the end of Yugoslavia, the name might ring a bell. Radovan was the biggest fish in the war criminals sea following Milosevic, and had a direct hand in the Srebrenica massacre. In short, as close to evil as mankind gets these days. Also, author of poetry, and during his years as a fugitive, practitioner of alternative medicine. Wait, what? Yup. The guy’s had an interesting life is what I’m trying to say here. Seeing him in court, calmly questioning a witness on each point with the precision of a lawyer, is one of the most surreal moments of my life thus far. Though maybe not as bad as this one:
(WARNING: mushy sentimental bit)
No place like home The Hague was absolutely pretty of
Home
I swear it's bigger on the inside. course. No denying that, but there was a very big reason I was excited to visit it. Outside of the den Haag, maybe twenty minutes or so by bus from the central train station is a small, sleepy town called Wassenaar. In that town is a street called Clemaatislaan, and on that street is a house where my memories start. In short, the place where my childhood became a real defined place for me, and I actually got the chance to go back. This is, I think, something I will forever love about the circular logic of my time abroad. I had to leave the country, travel three thousand miles and then twenty minutes more on a bus to come back to where the ball of my life really got rolling. I was there for a while. Probably long enough to creep out the neighbors. What did I conclude?
Good lord, I’ve lived in small, suburban settings my whole life. Still, worth it.
Moving on though, now we get to the (more) fun part of this little outing, Amsterdam.
Beats the crime district Amsterdam meant meeting up with yet another old friend, in
this case Jesse, who currently lives in Prague. Along with Jake the three of us were living in a rather dandy hostel just inside the canal ring. We’d had to book the place last minute, and quickly discovered that the “Christian” in the title wasn’t just semantics. All of the volunteers were very friendly, and free food was supplied, along with one mild sermon. All told, it wasn’t necessarily bad, and it certainly beat my old location in the only part of Amsterdam worthy of a traveler’s warning.
The actual two days were remarkably relaxed. No insanity was had, no one tried to commandeer a tour boat in a fit of drunken rage (my friends rammed one though), and with surprising frequency we would meet others from my program wandering around. In short, everything Amsterdam claims it isn’t. We also so literally no museums, an unfortunate byproduct of a fourteen euro entry fee. Ah, one more rule before I go:
Alcohol flea market diving is hilarious The only story I can throw safely onto the internets (showing just how low my standards are), involved finding a flea market, noting that one of the items was literally
What is this...I don't even
So this is apparently a thing. just a box full of old booze, and rooting through it. The consequence? Drunk on very nice cherry brandy, vinagered wine, something unmentionable, and peppermint schnapps (in that order), before noon. Shine on you magnificent city.
Til next time folks!
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