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The Netherlands

First off the Dutch are tall! The tallest nation in the world in fact. This makes viewing a concert we stumbled apon in the center square quite interesting. Picture trying to watch a sunset in the middle of a redwood forrest. But my first impression of holland was a good one. It seems like you step out of the station and onto planet crazy. We walk down an ally thats more of a bohemian smoke filled highway. There is a cafe every few doors with a menu more akin to a drug lords back pantry, with clothing shops and food joints filling the gaps. I think the oddest part of all is just how normal this is. There will be a group of little old ladies doing thier daily walk and right next to them is some buiness men smoking a well deserved joint after a long day at work. Families pass buy shops advertising any drug you can think of, from magic mushrooms to herbal ecstacy. Holland overall was amazing though. They pride themselves on thier beer and cheese, thier engineering feats and thier forward thinking attitudes.

We spent the most time here out of anywhere previously partly because of my heritage, and also one of Melissa’s sisters’s friends named Jasper happens to live there, and kindly let us stay in his home. We went on a fantastic bike ride on the classic one speed pedal break dutch bikes. The one speed is all you need when you consider the steepest incline in Holland is quite possibly, a wheel chair ramp. As a rule bikes always have the right of way, over cars and over people. Even if I was on a bike went down a one way street through 5 red lights and randomly swerved into and oncomming car and got hit..cars fault not mine! We raced around the city weaving in and out of cars and people and battling other bikes for a piece of the bike lanes. It was somthing we will never forget. After that we hopped on a little water bike, which is essentially a little boat with pedals to propel it. We cruised around the canals for an hour or so, taking in Amsterdam from a different perspective. We noticed some smaller boats, and some not so small, that we either half or totally submerged in the water, the only thing keeping them from the bottom of the canal was thier mooring lines. We asked Jasper about it, and he told us that they are basically just abandoned by thier owners because they dont want to pay to have them fixed, or just dont want to look after them any more. Once every couple of months a large barge comes through the canals picking up the poor neglected things and hauls them away. I couldent believe it was just as common place as taking out the trash..ahh the Dutch.

We also visited the Nazi “deportation camp” named Westerbork. It wasn’t so much of a concentration camp, as a place where all the Jews in

Holland went through before being sent to the main death camps such as Auswitz. It was a humbling experience being there. For one thing Anne Frank spend her final days in holland here after being discovered by the SS. We stood in the remains of the very building she was kept. Just to imagine the horrer these people faced gives a strange surrealness to the whole place. It was made even more moving by the fact that this is where my Grandfather would have spent his last days in Hollad after capture. I wonder if he stood on the same ground I had that day. There is a memorial, on the platform where the Jews would be rounded up before being sent on trains. It is a collection of small bricks, each with a specific length to specify age and each with a star of David. One for every Jew to have gone through or died in Westerbork. There are over 115, 000 of them.

On a lighter note we had a grand tour of the red light district and on our last day we Jasper took us to a GIANT national soccer game! The red light district was…interesting. It’s mainly one long street with a canal separating either side. in the buildings are people sized windows with, you guessed it, prostitutes! They stand thier showing off thier wares with no more than a bikini or some sort of lengerie on. But it’s not all fun ad games people. You walk past one window with a nice looking lady and the next with a…minor weight problem? Major would be a better word. You have to keep reminding yourself these people can look back at you when you cringe in fear and scream “my virgin eyes”!!@%#$! The soccer game was absolutley crazy. Holland vs. Belaruse. 40 000 dutch fans, not one without some orange on (thier national colour) and most with insane decked out costumes. As the game was going on fans were literally screaming, hitting any part of the stadium at a bad call, and falling over seats at goals. Holland won the game 3-0. I didn’t think we would make it out alive. We left the day after the game, headed to Spain…..Really wish I could remember what happend in those Dutch cafes though…

Spain

Spain was fabulously dry after all the rain up north. Arriving in Valencia we spent a few days just lounding on the giant sand beaches, even though they somtimes resembled a giant ash tray with all those cigarrette butts in the sand. After a couple of days of beach going we started to pick out regulars. Dark bronzed people playing Russian roulette with melanoma. Many of which consisted of older ladies, who you really wished they would just put a top on. But you got used to this casual nudity. It wasn’t un-common to see an entire family literally “hanging out” at the beach. Mothers, Grandmothers, Daughters, it didnt seem to phase anyone that they all lacked the vital top piece of the bikini. Frankly I thought I would have been more bug eyed by this feature of Spanish beaches, but after the initial “whoa” it was no biggie. The weather was fantastic almost the entire time with temperatures around 30 celcius. After a couple of days we met up with our American friend Scott who we have travelled with a fair amount now. He is a great guy and you can always expect adventures when he is around. We then travelled together to Seville which was a fantastic old town with so much istory. It has the second largest Cathedral in Europe, which is a monstor of a building that looks more like a ton of smaller buildings slapped together. Seville has been conquored by so many different civilizations that it has a real mix of history and architecture. From there we had the idea of travelling to Morocco together, but after arriving in the port town where the ferry leaves we backed out. Scott could only go for a day or two, and the cost of the ferry didn’t seem worth it. So instead we went with him to Portugal! A place that was never on our origional itinerary, much like most of this trip. One funny thing to note is the siesta time in Spain. It’s still a well guarded tradition that happens even in the large cities but is the most aparent in the small towns. I remember one connection we had to make for a train that left us in a small town called Bobadilla, located in the south olive grove region. We happend to get there right at about 3pm, just as siesta time starts (about 3pm-6 or 7pm). The place was an absolute ghost town, complete with the odd stray dog walking past all skin and bones, and dust plumes. The only thing missing was the rolling tumble weeds crossing our path. Everything shuts down, and it is impossible to even find somwhere to get a bottle of water. Even the shutters get closed to ward of the afternoon heat. I propose we make this a tradition in Canada, as I am seeing with all these different cultures that we simply work to damned hard.

Portugal

We took a bus from Seville to a small town on the very southernmost part of Portugal called Lagos. This place was simply stunning and one of the best times we have had on our trip. It is a small fort town of only about 20 000 people. With a giant old wall still surrounding the main part of it. Most of Lagos was destroyed by an earth quake hundreds of years ago. But much on the old fort still remains, or has been rebuilt. The beaches here were the best we have been to so far. With course sand and crystal blue water. There are rock formations perfect for cliff jumping, and coral and fish everywhere. Each beach is small, and secluded from the next by the cliffs and rocks. But there are tunnels between them where if you are brave enough to climb a rope or two and get a little wet, you can access them all with ease. The hostel we stayed at was a blast, everyone wasl ike a family there, and we all hung out and partied together. The night life in this little town was better than that of the big hitters like Amsterdam and Paris in my opinion. These tiny little bars where everyone would just let lose. Mostly other back packers like ourselves just havingn a great time. The bar staff would even be drinking more than we were..It’s not like home. Night ends there at about 5 or 6 in the morning, and the days are spent on the beaches. The food was cheap and good, as was the beer. In particular this one little hole in the wall which the owners of the hostel called “the chicken man” . He makes the best piri-piri chicken I have ever had, and it’s dirt cheap. We were led there by one of the hostel workers in a large group. To sum up this place I think a little story says it best. The people at the hostel told us that there was one person who came to stay for 3 nights, and ended up telling them “just one more night” for 28 days. Another came for a week and stayed 3 months. We could see why after we even stayed an extra 2 days at this place.

Morocco (for real this time)

We said our goobyes to Scott with promises to meet for Oktoberfest and headded back to Spain to head to Morocco. We finally made up our minds that we has to say we had spent time in Africa, and in a wildley different culture. We arrived in Tangier and headded straight to the train station to go to Marrakech. The taxi ride was our first taste of what was to come and we were ripped off by paying 5 times more than we should have for the ride. But we were green and didn’t know. We met a super nice girl on the train who was escorting her little brother. One thing to note is that Morocco is a 99% muslim country and she was not an exception. It was very interesting talking to her, and learning a little of where she was from. It turns out with the new government women have much more oportunity here, and she was attending medical school. She helped us out even more by showing us which train to transfer to. The tranfer train was so full we were standing for about 2 hours of the ride. With people constantly trying to clamber in and getting shoo’d away by a lady sitting on her luggage. There was a little culture shock here, as the main language was Arabic which I have ever heard in person before. French is the second language which was a saving grace given the tiny amount we both know.

We didn’t realize at first, but it was almost a special time in Morocco as well, Ramadan was starting in a few days and you could feel a certain vibe in the air. We met a girl from new zealand named Catherine on the train, and ended up spending a lot of time with her over the next few days. We explored the giant medina that Marrakech is famous for. Basically a giant square called the D’jima al’ F’na, surrounded by a twisting maze of market. It was so much fun to just get lost in here taking in all the sights sounds, and especially smells. Smells of spices, fresh figs, dyes and smoke. Getting away from the touristy areas was the most fun. You get a glimps of every day life if you do. People are haggling over the price of bread or spices. Others casually picking a chicken out from a cage and lopping its head off. The way of life was so different here, beggers come in old and young, old men that probibly look older than they are and cats everywhere!! The cat is a favoured animal of Allah we were told, and therefore had the run of the country. We had one interesting experience with them the first day we arrived. Deseperate for anywhere to stay for the night we found room in a sketchy hotel type place. We dropped off our stuff in the room which looked like somthing out of a movie (in a bad way) and went out. Apon our return there was a cat meowing at our door. It has a stub of a tale, which looked like it had the other part chewed off. We thought it was odd how it was meowing at our door, but hey this is Morocco right? So we went in and locked the cat out…but it wouldent stop meowing. We thought mabye it wanted food when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a little white flash from under the bed. It was a little kitten, and the cat outside was aprarently, Mom. So we left the door open and backed away from the room, Mom meowed a few times, and then the kitten responded and came prancing out the door. It was amazing to see this reunion and you could tell how excited they were to be together. God (or Allah) knows why it was in our room or how it had gotten there, I figure it hadent been used for a long while judging by the dust and ciggarette butts under the bed… Ahh the romance!

We decided we had to do a Sahara trip while we were this close. I have always wanted to ride into the Saharah on a camel and this was our chance to be Laurence of Arabia! Catherine decided to come along with us, and we opted for the 3 day tour through a reputible company. The scenery of the country was simply alien. It was so dry and barren in places, with amazing rock formations and red rock deserts, that I somtimes felt like we had landed on Mars. Then to really throw you off, just as you would get used to the emptyness, an ultra vibrant patch of green would appear. Literal oasis’ in the desert, teaming with date palms and other heat loving vegitation, fed by some ancient spring or river. The trip consisted on mainly driving with planned stops along the way to visit Ancient Casbas etc. The one downer of the trip was that like all of Morocco there was aways a secret agenda to squeak more money out of tourists. In each place we stopped, it was rareley around anything else, and the driver had an arrangment with the owner of the store. All the prices we raised at least double what they were normally, and the driver would then get a cut for bringing us there. Wherever we could, we would walk to a different place usually less than 20 feet away when it was available, and pay less than half the price of the arranged spot. When we finally got to the golden sand of the Sahara it took our breath away. Even though we were surrounded by desert, it was mostly rocky and rough. But then as we drew near, giant sand dunes seemed to spring up from nowhere. We boarded our camels (which is an experience in itself, as you get on when they are lying down, and then they lift you up to a fairly good hieght), and set off innto the desert with our Berber guides. One thing I found really neat was that when the guides got to the good soft sand after a few minutes, they kicked off thier sandals and went the rest of the way bare foot. I can’t really explain in words how special that 2 hours was, just one of those moment where you couldent believe you were actually there, and it had to be some kind of dream. It was all just too overwhelming. We arrived at camp after about 2 hours on camels. My groin was numb, and I doubted ever being able to have kids. It was the incline that got you, your pants would sinch up as you slid forward, and there was no releaving it unless you wanted to risk falling off the camel and down a 50 foot dune. Ahh well, it was all part of the experience. We ate chicken and cous cous at the camp of Berber tents, and watched the young camp cats catching and eating the large insects that were attracted to the lamp light. We also took on the task of climbing a near by dune that was bigger than I thought possile. Literally at least 15 stories high. It was so much harder to climb than I had thought as well. For every 2 steps you took you took at least one back, and the incline at parts was nearlly verticle. It took a good 15-20 mins and 3 litres of tears to finally summit, but after much exasperation and panting we sat on the crust summit and were rewarded with an amazing star lit view of the dunes, stretching as far as the eye could see around us. We slept under the stars that night, and have never known such complete silence or seen such vibrant stars. It seemed to me you could almost glimps through the galaxy to the universe beyond. The sunrise in the morning was if anything more spectacular. It wasn’t really the sunrise itself that was distinct, in fact I have seen nicer. It was so impressive because of the effect in colour it had on the dunes. It was almost like we were surrounded by a sea of polished gold, and the dunes it’s waves. (Shakespeare eat your heart out)

Our trip back to civilization was much of the same as the way out of it except for one thing. As we drove through the Atlas mountains it had gotten dark. The driver pulled us over on the side of the road and got out without saying a word to anyone. I had a suspition at first that mabye we had broken down, but then thought that mabye he was saying hello to a relative or picking up a parcel which had happend before, because again this is Morocco after all. After a few minutes we started getting a little annoyed, we had planned to catch a night train that evening, and time was tight as it was. He stood there smoking from what we could see in the pitch black, a small Berber hut on the side of the road was 30 feet or so behind him. Then a big semi drove past and pulled over in front of us, a man raced by and jumped into it and it pulled away..We came to the realization that it was our driver who had just left us in the middle of the Atlas mountains in Africa in the middle of the night. This was fairly interesting as the driver had not said a word to anyone before leaving. A number of things go through your head when somthing like this happens “is there a bomb on here?” “are we going to be sold into white slavery?” “stampede of wild antilopes headding our way?” and then the rational part of your brain kicks in and you think two things “must be broken down” and “well I had to take a leak anyways.” After about an hour of waiting around with the odd car or truck passing by and not stopping the driver returned, along with 2 cans on diesel…we had run out of gas even though we had stopped at a gas station no more than 2 hours before, and by now missed our train. In the end it was ok, and actually kind of fun. We got to see much of Ramadan the next day, basically people arent allowed to eat or drink anything until 6 pm every day for a month. Smokers arent even allowed to smoke. Then at 6 after the standard prayers blast out of the towering minarettes, an air raid siren blasts louder and people go nuts, smoking and eating and drinking (water, tea, coffee and juice as alcohol is against thier religion) until they cant smoke, eat and drink any more. And this repeats itself for an entire month. I think that last day really put the essence of Morocco in our minds, a hectic and colourful place saturated with stories and traditions that once you leave you have a feeling of relief, and yet a sense of sadness for only getting a small glimps at that totally different world.

Spain again!

We arrived back in Spain with the intention of making our way up to Munich Germany as fast as possible to meet some friends there for Oktoberfest. This didn’t quite go as planned when Melissa got her bag stolen while waiting for the shuttle bus to the airport. We are still dealing with all the particulars of that incident. It’s been really tricky dealing with other countries embassys to obtain new travel visas. After all those shinanigans we we too poor to fly again, so ended up taking the 25 hour train trip to Munich.

Germany and Oktoberfest

We arrived in Munich to the sound of singing. Tons of drunk Germans in thier finest Oktoberfest outfits arm in arm singing without care headding to thier respective trains for the ride home. We immediatly thought that this was a party we had to see. We got a hold of Hector, my friend and ex co-worker, and the coolest Mexican this side of the Pacific! He was in Munich visiting a friend of his and we stayed at the same hotel that he was in. Munich’s prices for hotels and hostels skyrocket during the fest, usually at least 4 or 5 times the regular price. But I love spending money and have an unlimited budget so it was all good….. We arrived at the beer fest the next day and it was packed. Most of the massive halls had shut thier doors because there were already too many people inside. We went to a side line up at one and just waited it out, it was really warm that day, and the line (crowd) was packed together so tightly that you couldent even move yours arms. The door men would keep shoving people back and people would be shoving forward. It got so hot and crammed that at one point a small girl next to us threw up, luckly getting mostly the ground and not us. The vomiting had already started and we werent even through the door yet! This was a good party! So we get in after an hour or so. Grab a piece of bench and order our beers, which are more like jugs. The stiens are so big in fact that you cant hold them by the handel, you have to slip your hand through the hole. We were joined by 4 middle age German guys decked out in thier liederhosen etc, and a little bit later by two younger guys. We got along great and it turned out that one of the older guys has been to Vancouver Island, and the two young guys had been also! It got even stranger with the fact that one of the young guys had actually lived in Port Coquitlam for a year. I have said this so much on this trip, but man it is a small world somtimes. There is nothing like the spectical of over 4000 horrendously intoxicated germans packed onto a massive beer hall. If you dont dance, they make you, if you don’t sing, they make you, if you don’t eat..yup they make you…and if you don’t drink….you get the picture. Dancing and singing takes place on the benches, and no table stays dry for long. I can’t believe the punishment the glass stiens take in one day, constantly being clacked together by best friends and strangers alike.

After recovering from the festivities, we hopped on a train to a small town called Fussen where the famous castel Nueshwanstien is located. This is a castel everyone would know, the Disney castle was modeled after it. Though the two dont look really alike, you can see the similarities. It was in an amazing location perched on top of a steep hill with superb views of lakes, farm lands and a near by water fall. If I could build a castle anywhere this would be just as good a place as any. It was build by “crazy” King Ludwig who had an obsession for mid evil times, romance, castles and..swans. The swan thing is apparent when you see the decore inside. But nothing can describe the place other than a palace. He died in mysterious circumstances, drowned in a lake near Munich. After Germany we decided to take a detour. We were to meet Hector in Milan who invited us to stay at his house but we couldent for a week because he had other company. So in the mean time we thought we would go and see what Prague and the Czech republic had to offer. It was one of the places we had been recommended to go to by many people we met.

Czech Republic

The communist government fell here only in 1989, and the residue and evidence of it is still incredibly apparent. With big ominous looking buildings, low cielings in the train station to make you feel small, and the seedy burly type people you imagine when you think of eastern Europe. Anyone from here will be quick to remind you it is actually central Europe now. We arrived in Prague late in the evening and eventually found our way to our hostel using one of the old Soviet era trams. Our first impressions were somwhat scewed because it was night, and we wondered if we should have just gone to the Black Forrest like we had planned. But the next day came, we saw some of the city and we realized just how postacard worthy it was. With all the amazing styles of architecture, from Boroque to Gothic to Romanesque you could take a picture almost anywhere, photoshop out the litter, and sell it. We had one of the best and cheapest meals as well. Trying our best to imitate a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving that was happening back home we headded for a nice resteraunt. We got turkey potatoes and even dumpling things kind of like stuffing, this giiiant 4 course meal for two and a fantastic bottle of wine was ours for about 25 Canadian dollars. After doing a lot of work for back home, going on a great tour of the city with an amazingly accentric proffesor that was living in our hostel, visiting one of the most creepy/crazy/alien clubs and many other things, we headded for Poland.

Poland

Another detour! We had origionally written Poland off, though I had wanted to visit Auschwitz it was quite a lot farther than we expected at first. But we were quite close by the time we were in Prague and so I couldent pass up on the chance. We took a night train to the city of Krakow and arrived at about 5 in the morning, eventually finding our hostel and going to sleep for a few hours after not getting any on the train. The people are so friendly and hard working here and the city was gorgeous. We took a bus to Auschwitz on our own, as we havent done much of the guided tour thing on this trip, with the exception of a few specific buildings and places that offer a guided tour at the location. Those ones arent bad, but the whole package tour experience is not really experience at all, complete with organized rides and lunches you dont have to think about anything other than following your guide. There are actually 3 seperate Auschwitzes, Auschwitz 1 the origional, Auschwitz 2 the super efficiant modern killing factory, and a work camp. Most of our time was spent at #1 because it is the most intact, but we also saw #2. The experiences was touching and sobering beyond words. You mind litterally cannot comprehend such blatent, efficiant and cold extermination. I was tempted to use the word thoughtless and then caught myself, because the Nazis actions were anything but thoughtless. They were well calculated, efficiant, money making actions. Just how much money the Nazis made off the Jews is unknown, but it is thought to be in the billions. Everything from thier cloths, thier hair, even thier gold teeth was taken and sold. The hair was one of the more disturbing sights. When the Russians came across the camp, what they found was somthing out of a nightmare. over 4 tonnes of human hair, some already packaged and weighed to be sold to a factory which made “hair cloth” for anything from bags to cloths. It wasn’t the hair itself that was the disturbing part, it was the thought that each lock, each braid, had belonged to a young girl, a mother, a sister, shortly before being shaved bald, gassed and burned in one of the 6 crematoriums with ruthless efficiancy. Auschwitz 2 was so good at what it did, it could kill over 16 000 people in a day, thats over 11 a minute. It did this for about 5 years. It wasn’t just the gas that killed, in fact the majority were simply worked and starved to death. People who arrived off the train were torn apart from thier families, the healthy and able looking (about 30%) were sent to work, all others were sent to the gas chambers. This meant that the young and old, the women and childeren, were the first to be killed. It goes against every moral principle we have to kill women and childeren, and it was all with a casual wave of a hand by one doctor on a train platform. The workers if nothing else had a harder time, most thought it was better to die fast and to not endure the suffering of the living. In one account of a survivor, the guard captain in charge of the work party would tell them “Don’t think you have it easy, the only way you will ever leave this camp is through one of those chimneys” pointing to the crematorium. Other articles found by the Russians in the museum included tens of thousands of pairs of shoes, glasses, teeth, piles of empty poison canisters for gassing, and mountains of cloths.

Whew! I dont know about you guys but my fingers are bleeding! No? Noone else has that problem? hmm, well in that case I shall stop for now heal my wounds at the closest witch doctor and continue with Italy and India after these short messages!