away from the computer for a few days. this should fill your jones for chip…
What were you doing in 2001? I was busy getting lost in Holland:
I think the day started going bad long before I actually knew that the day was going bad. Steve, Jody, Jessica and I had been in Germany for a week for work. We had been having a good time but we were getting anxious to get back to traveling. All of us had been staying with host families and as fun as that was, it felt awkward relying on them for meals and transportation. I just wanted to be on my own again.
We decided on Thursday night that we would try and catch an earlier train from Gütersloh to Amsterdam. Steve and Jody wanted to get back to the states to their family. Jessica’s sister, Jennifer, was getting into Amsterdam that afternoon and Jessica didn’t want to get in hours after her. I was just anxious to be able to stop being force fed odd pieces of meat for breakfast.
Looking back on it now, if we had taken the later train and not been in such a hurry, my day might have gone a little bit better. We said our goodbyes to my host at the train station and we went to catch the train. I picked up some German comic books and a Buffy magazine for the train ride and thought that things were going pretty smoothly.
The first part of the train ride was pretty nice. The car was not crowded and we had room for all our suitcases. The issue was that since we were taking earlier trains, we had to give up our assigned seats and find room wherever possible. This was fine at first but on the second train, we were packed onto a car with dozens and dozens of other people. Somehow, Steve found out that for a little extra money, we could be moved up to first class and have our own compartment.
We shut ourselves into our little train world and stared out the window and watched the scenery change as we went from Germany to the Netherlands. Our problem was that none of us really knew where we were going. We knew we were going to Amsterdam but we weren’t paying attention. After a couple of hours, we pulled into a train station and we got off. I still don’t know why we got off when we did.
The train station was huge. We decided to get our money changed and settle any outstanding debts we had with each other. We waited in line at the moneychanger and I made plans with Jessica to meet up with her and Jennifer for dinner later. It was at this point in the trip that our official school business was over and we were going out separate ways. Jess was going to a guesthouse with Jennifer. Steve and Jody were staying the night at a nice hotel and leaving for the states in the morning.
My bright idea was to stay in a hotel called the Hotel Winston. I had seen it on the Travel Channel earlier and thought it looked cool. A different artist was commissioned to paint each room in a different style. The Travel Channel had shown two cute girls staying in this nice bright room with a giant Heineken bottle on the wall. How could I not want to stay there?
We had been in Amsterdam the week before and I had checked out the location of the hotel. I had suspected it was near the Red Light District and after a viewing, I discovered that it was pretty much right in the Red Light District. But, I also learned that it was about one minute from the Central Station so I would have no trouble finding it.
With this in mind, I had no problem leaving Jessica, Jody, and Steve and venturing off on my own. I told Jessica that I would meet her and her sister at 8:00 for dinner. It was about 4:00 at this point. I started rolling my suitcase through the train station looking for the exit.
I found it a little disturbing that I could not find the exit at first. I certainly did not remember the train station being so big. But, this was the first time I had been alone in over a week and I felt pretty confident. Eventually, I found my way out to a taxi stand. Since I knew where my hotel was, I walked past the taxi stand, past a huge bus terminal and headed into the city.
I walked around for about twenty minutes and then started following a canal. I didn’t recognize any street names and decided that I would just call a cab. I had ventured into an area that appeared mostly residential. There were very few people around. I went into a café to ask if I could use the phone. They said I could use the one outside. I tried to figure out the phone system but you needed some magic card so I couldn’t do it. I started walking back from the way I came.
I had been dragging my bag around, asking how to get to the Hotel Winston on Warmoesstraat and people just stared at me blankly. After about an hour or so of this, I decided I would find my way back to the station and take a cab to the hotel. I knew that this was dumb since it was only a minute or two away from there but it was already almost 6:00 and I still had to check in and meet my friends at 8:00. I started walking towards wherever I saw people and asked for the Central Station. Finally, one guy pointed me in the right direction. Once I was inside there, I followed the pictures of taxicabs. I just felt like the dumbest person at this point.
At the taxi stand, they asked me where I wanted to go. I told them the Hotel Winston and they did not know this hotel. I told them it was on the Warmoesstraat and the cab driver still looked blank. Finally, one of his buddies asked me if I wanted the Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam. I stared at him like he was an idiot. Where else would I want to go?
So, we get in the cab and start driving. The driver had the cool middle-eastern dance music playing on the stereo and he would talk in a foreign language over the radio every couple of minutes. I thought that this ride should have taken about 5 minutes at the most. After about twenty minutes, I started to get nervous. We were heading out of the city. At this point my imagination is taking off and I am envisioning being taken out to the Dutch countryside and being mugged amidst the tulips and windmills. The meter keeps going up and up and I finally I ask the driver how much longer he expects it will be. He turns and tells me that it should be about a half hour more.
I just sit back and watch the guilders increase on the meter and I watch signs along the side of the road pointing to Amsterdam. I still didn’t really have any comprehension of what was going on. All I wanted to do at this point was to check into my cute little room with the Heineken bottle on the wall and then find Jessica and Jennifer. I was tired of this whole being alone thing.
My cabbie gets us into the city. I then realize that he has no idea of how to navigate in the city. A few fellow cabbies point him in the general direction of the Red Light District. It was getting to be close to 7:15. The best course of action for me at this point was to go on foot. The hotel was close, I felt. I paid my friend the cabbie almost 200 guilders, which is around 80 or 90 dollars. I started walking through the streets of Amsterdam with my rolling suitcase, backpack with laptop, and increasingly sore feet.
I am desperately asking anyone at this point if they know of the Hotel Winston. Finally, a very nice woman in a very strange shop told me it was right around the corner. I had never been happier to see someplace. I do the check-in thing and ask if there is a phone in the room. Of course, there is none but I am welcome to use the payphone. It is already 8:00 and I know that Jenn and Jess would only wait a small amount of time. I was psyched to see the phone took actual money. I got the landlord of their guesthouse whose only response was, “They have gone out. What am I to do?”
I decide I will throw my bags in the room and still try and find my friends. I get to my room and there are no artistic beer bottles on the wall. The cute girls from the Travel Channel would have never stayed in this place. I have gotten what I can only describe as the scary biology room. There are three small beds. No tables or chairs or anything comforting. The walls are dirty white and there are these huge EKG readout designs along the walls in multicolor. The border across the top read like some bizarre futuristic text with phrases like “clone://2001” written in blocky computer text. It was really not what I needed at that point.
I ran downstairs, found a cab, and asked to be taken to the other side of town where they were staying. It was about 8:30 at this point and I was remembering fondly my days in Germany with the odd breakfast meats. It didn’t seem so bad anymore. I found the place where Jess and Jenn were staying and no one was home. We didn’t really have a backup plan of where to meet because we didn’t really think we needed one.
I wasn’t quite sure what my game plan was at this point but then I heard someone yelling my name across the street. I don’t think that I had ever felt so much relief than when Jessica ushered me into this very strange café with black lights and pink and blue boas and introduced me to her sister. Jessica sat me down, ordered me something to drink, and asked me. “So, what did you think of Utrecht?”
The rest of the evening was spent eating Mexican food, notifying Jody and Steve that my solo adventure ended with me alive, and hearing Jessica’s version of the premature train exit. When I finally got back to my hotel, I happily climbed into one of my three beds and didn’t worry too much about the glowing electronics on the wall of the clone room.
Discussion Topic
Leaving Athens : Why bother?
