The Aerie
Been waiting to use that pun all week.
So I finally escaped from Rotterdam and now I am home. The tale in between is a good one, in which most everything worked out fine. I took a kazillion photos which are available here... Sunday in Rotterdam, Friday in Amsterdam and Saturday in Amsterdam.
I began on Thursday night by packing. The plan was to abandon the paid hotel room in Rotterdam, but not to check out. In case I couldn't find anything in Amsterdam, I wanted to have a place to sleep even if it meant returning by train.
In the morning I woke up early completely by accident, so I slipped out of the hotel by a back exit and made my way to class an hour early. The plan was to grab some breakfast in the hour before class, but what I discovered was that it is impossible to get breakfast in the Rotterdam suburbs! The Burger King and the surrounding cafes didn't open until nine. So by the time class began, I was starving.
Fortunately we had gotten about an hour ahead in the coursework, so class ended at 1:00 p.m. I wrapped up my paperwork, forgot to return the classroom key (I mailed it back Monday), and headed off to Amsterdam.
I caught the train to Rotterdam, changed at Rotterdam Central for the Amsterdam train, and then went right back to my suburban station: instead of grabbing the express, I'd grabbed the train that looped around through central part of the Netherlands. But I didn't mind, I wasn't in a hurry, and this would give me the chance to see some of central Netherlands.
What I noticed as we crossed the landscape was, first, how rural it was - with a sharp division between urban areas and fields of cattle. Secondly, the Netherlanders have a very intimate relationship with water, with each set of fields cut by frequent canals.
I had noticed this in the city as well. My first day in the hotel I tried strolling over to the nearby mall. I approached the nearest corner, only to discover that there was a moat around the mall. I ended up circumnavigating more than half of the mall, walking along a busy road with no sidewalk and a brittle ground cover. When I got to the far end of the mall I had to scamper quickly across the parking ramp entrance, which was a spiral ramp positioned directly above a big pool of scummy water at the end of the channel.
The water in the countryside was equally ubiquitous, with channels running everywhere. It was also very strange to glance out the window across a field and see, first, a van speeding along a road and following just behind it an enormous barge... And no, I tried to grab a photo but it didn't come out...
Eventually we rolled into Amsterdam, and I caught some shots of the city from the train. I disembarked, and with my roller-luggage clicking along the cobbles attempted to find a hotel. My method was inefficient - I walked from hotel to hotel asking after rooms and prices. Unfortunately I discovered that there was a marathon in town over the weekend, and most rooms were booked. Those that were available began at about $200, and I started to anticipate a return trip to Rotterdam, but I headed out of the center of Amsterdam in hope of finding an available room in an outlying hotel.
Along the way I passed a wedding emerging onto the street. Aside from the fact that it was in Amsterdam it looked much like an American wedding, with lots of happy, well dressed people blowing bubbles for the couple. Then a pair of vehicles came down the street and everyone had to squeeze onto the sidewalk.
My wanderings had no success and eventually I found myself back in the ganja-scented heart of Amsterdam, headed to a hotel-placement booth that a helpful clerk had described, when I was astonished to find a single room available for one night for one person, for only $120. By this time, it looked like a bargain, particularly since it was just around the corner from the train station. Happily I dragged my luggage up the vertical set of shelves provided as a staircase to my room.
The room itself was a classic overpriced European tourist hotel room. The sagging bed bore a leopard-print blanket that depicted an actual leopard. A small table and chair were positioned beside a window which had obviously been forced open multiple times - a big gouge was carved in the lintel where the latching pin was supposed to hold it closed. The window opened onto a cramped light-well between several buildings, at least one of which was a discotheque.
There was one power outlet in the room, atop another shelf-like flight of "steps" to the bathroom. The angle of the stairs was so severe that the only way to use them was facing the steps, like a ladder. But I HAD a bathroom, as well as a shower, and a decent toilet. There was no towel, so I ended up skipping the shower the next day, but really it was a pretty good room, if weird. My concerns regarding safety prompted me to hide my laptop underneath the stairs whenever I left it in the room. It was small enough to escape a casual glance, I hoped the thieves, entering through the window, would simply grab my backpack and depart.
My belongings sort of secured I hit the streets again, first to get dinner and then to take photographs. I got a nice dinner of escargo, pizza and wine at a joint next to the hotel, and then began wandering. I wandered far and wide, following a generally westerly path as I snapped sunset photographs of Amsterdam.
Eventually I found myself far from my hotel and made my increasingly-chilly way back along the waterfront, happy that I had worn my warm leather jacket, but wishing I had brought my hat. Turning a corner, I beheld an unusual sight - on an empty dirt field beside the bay, a spooky circus tent had been erected far back from the road. I looked around but did not spot Rod Serling leaning against a pier. What do you do when you're alone in a strange foreign city at night, and you spot a creepy circus tent pitched in a dark field beside the bay?
Why you go in of course!
My timing was apparently perfect, because when I entered the tent there was no one taking tickets, or waiting by the entrance. So I slipped inside unnoticed. I had apparently stumbled upon Circus Zanzara, "the smallest circus in the Netherlands." About four-dozen people, half children, were gathered around the central ring. Events were overseen by a Ringmistress, dressed like a frumpy housewife in a dingy housedress and wig. Since I couldn't understand what she was saying I missed a lot of the jokes, but she was clearly playing up a kind of trailer-trash image...
I got to see an acrobat perform suspended from hanging curtains, and a clown herd a flock of ducks around the tent. In between the ringmistress made a point of dragging a father from the audience, getting him to help her tie off the acrobat's curtains, and then having him take a bow as if he had accomplished an acrobatic feat. I was very happy to be hiding way back in the shadows, since I couldn't understand a word being said.
After the performance ended I snapped a few shots of ships in the harbor, and finally wandered footsore back to my hotel room, where I was relieved to find my room undisturbed. Putting aside my concern over the sagging bed and its doubtless dubious history, I collapsed and passed out.
The next morning I woke early and packed, the better to spend a few remaining hours taking Amsterdam sunrise photographs. I wandered around the eastern side of the city this time, stumbling across several farmer's markets and getting lots of photographs of autumn leaves over canals. Eventually however my time was up, and I returned tofetch my luggage and check out of my room.
My plans to reach the airport were fortunately extremely generous - I planned to be at the train station at 11, airport at noon, for the fliight at 2:00. I got in line to check in for Iceland air, and what do you think of course, I got in the line with The Problem. The couple in front of me was flying with two babies, and apparently you can buy a ticket where a baby sits on the mother's lap, but not one where the baby sits on the father's lap. Resolving this took nearly an hour, including the agent leaving her desk for a long time. After checking in, I then stood in line for the security checkpoint for over another hour.
More exhausted than after my photographic excursions, I found my gate and eventually boarded the plane. Here I had a delightful pair of surprises. On my flight to Iceland I had switched at the last moment to a window seat, and found myself in seat 4A, directly behind First Class, in a First Class sized seat. Whee! This was fortunate, because my neighbor was one of those alpha males who has to assert his dominance by sprawling all over his territory. The big seat allowed him to drape himself across the armrest without actually gettnig into my space. Also he ate like a starving dog, great sweeping scoops of food into a gaping, gulping maw, and I was afraid if I got too close I'd lose a finger.
The second surprise was on the flight from Iceland to Minneapolis, where my window seat had an empty neighbor, meaning I and the fellow in the aisle seat could stretch out. I counted myself very lucky on both flights.
In between I managed to get a couple shots of Iceland as well as Greenland. The body of the trip was fun, particularly since my laptop batteries lasted through more than three hours of collected clips from The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Yeah, I couldn't believe I had that much either, I'd simply scraped them off of Crooks and Liars for a couple weeks in advance of the trip.
Finally we were descending to land in Minneapolis, and as we approached from the north I got some excellent shots of downtown in the sunset. Unfortunately my camera batteries ran out over Lake Calhoun, meaning I missed a few really good shots, including the sunset from the airport itself.
I made record time, being the first person off the plane - an advantage of not having anything in the overhead bins. I breezed through customs, only to be one of the last to retrieve his luggage. My spouse picked me up and soon I was, once again, back home. I'd been traveling for three out of the past six weeks, and frankly I think I'm done for a while...
Posted by Albatross at October 24, 2007 8:01 AM | TrackBack