A fantastic four days

Arriving in Cuzco was uneventful. i had taken a thirteen hour bus ride through some amazing country to get here. it was a bus and somehow i had bought the presidential Gama. i was fed three meals and had a chair bed thing. to be honest i would have preferred to pay less, have them hold the crap and slept in a regular chair, the bed chair thing didn't work for me. i got out of the bus, stretched a wicked stretch and grabbed a cab and headed for the main square, plaza de armes. when i ducked out of the dilapidated cab, i didn't make it one block before i was being personally escorted to a hostel only one block away. one block turned into over four. She just kept saying one block. but i was tired and hadn´t slept on the bus very well and instead of auguring i just plodded along. the room i got, a private was really reasonable. it was getting late and i decided to get it. i had a great view from my window and the promise of hot water for a shower. We i woke at the wee hour of 7 am to the phone ringing in the reception area, i tried to block it out. i was doing pretty well until the son of the owner started accompanying each ring with his own shout "the phone was ringing" soooo helpful.

cuzco, the center of the Inca empire

i came here for the same reason as most, Machu Picchu, the Inca wonder. Hidden amount clouds and mountains, it sits at 2,430 meters. Why the Incas built her is something of an argument. Some say a estate some say a university. Despite this controversy, everyone can agree with its greatness. A seven wonder of the world, its a testament to the Inca civilization which was brutally exterminated by the Spanish as you all should know. This sight, this hidden city in the mountains is said to be breath taking and so we come, tourists, in the thousands to witness for ourselves the marvel in the clouds. It isn't a question of weather or not to go but how you will reach its gates. The famous Inca trail, a right of passage for backpackers is the main route, you end up climbing through mountains for three days, waking up on the fourth day with a mad scramble for the sun gate, descending on Machu Picchu from above. This is so popular you must book far in advance, i tried three months before Peru and wasn't able to get a pass. i had no real idea about when i would be there so booking to far in advance was impossible. I was bummed to say the least but there really wasn't anything i could do about it. All the other options have you ascending on Machu Picchu from below. There are a number of options, i chose a four day, three night, jungle trek. The first day we dropped high into the Andes at over 4,000 meters and plunged down some of the most beautiful mountains i have ever seen, on bikes for three hours.

The crew gets ready

it was awesome, nuff said 

We raced around cut backs to expose amazing vistas at every turn. we were all a little worried about the brakes on our bikes but mine did the job well enough even if half my bike was wrapped in some sort of electrical tape. after our plunge we arrived at a small town at the base of the Andes where we were to spend the night. We had the option of white water rafting, for an additional price, i didn't go. Instead i held a Kobe coaching session. when everyone returned we went to one of many semi decent meals we would share together over the next few days, they always started with soup and always accompanied with a juice that no one could identify. The second day we hiked into the mountains 16 kilometers in total taking us about 8 hours, with plenty of stops to be honest.

so illegal at home, such a part of life here, coca plants

hiking into the wild 

The hike include amazing views rural coca plantations, monkey houses and the best chocolate i have ever had. My group, always a worry when signing up alone on a group tour, was fantastic, almost all couples except for three of us (15 people total). It was semi awkward at fist but they seem to warm up as the days went on. the third day we zip lined our way over canyons and rivers and back again.

i make this look good

facing down the wire

 It was great, i had never done it, not on this trip and i was able to combat my fear of falling pretty well. After ziplinning we had 7 more kilometers to hike until we reached the base of machu picchu. Standing by the river, rain falling, looking up at the mountains that hid the sacred city, i dreamt of what it must have been like to live here. Looking up, even after all the pictures you see of it, you still wonder what you might find behind the walls that were just visible to the naked eye. We woke that next morning at 4 am and we were out the door by 4:30am. Not the whole group but the ones that wanted to be some of the first up the path were. Kelly an English/ Australian and a kiwi named Jaisus hiked beside me as we climbed the 3,800 steps to machu pichu in the dark of morning and as we climbed the jungle came alive and the dark receded and when we reached the top the sun had yet to rise above the mountains and it was amazing to lay my eyes on this...

After three big days and a year of waiting, there it was in all its glory

 practically a pro at self shooting 

 The going wasn't too bad, from all accounts easier then the Inca trail but it was plenty hard to breath, being out of shape at a high altitude. We entered with all the other tourist that decided to wake up later and take the bus up, rolly bag people... But we were all there for the same reason, to view this wonder with our own eyes to judge its greatness not through a lens or screen but in person. If there is one place i can say lives up and goes beyond hype its machu picchu. It was incredible. i thought i would never again see something so inspiring as Angkor Wat but there it was, this most amazing of archaeological feats. It was build in under a century and abandoned much faster and slowly forgotten. It wasn't until an American explorer rediscovered it that the world learned of its greatness. if there is anything i can recommend doing on my entire trip that i believe would never let you down is Machu Picchu. i climbed to the Sun Gate high above to gaze down at the stone that's left and it was there and then that i decided i would be back here again someday not so long from now and do this all again. its one of only a few places i can say that and mean it. i am off now to Bolivia the LAST country on this tour, gasp. i have been camped out on the high altitude lake of titicaca in the town of copacabanna. i am plotting my Bolivian take over as you read this. More to come. this next part of my journey is brought to me by my father who made a giant sized donation, i don't think he wants me to return... many thanks Dad, i make sure to by that tribal outfit you have been asking about. hasta luago amigos

Huacachina Peru

I landed in Lima where i spent two nights and was able to buy the next three books in the games of throne series at Charlies recommendation, i was pumped. on the second day i decided to head to the desert along the coast, 5 mins from Inca. Dubbed the sand boarding Mecca of Peru, Huacachina is a literal oasis. like nothing i had ever seen. surrounded by sand dunes higher then i thought they could ever get. its right out of some fairy tale book. The difference being there are bars and night clubs surrounding the lake i didn't see any princesses either. But i have been fortunate in that i seem to always show up just outside of peak season and this place was quite and serene and seemingly desolate.

it always looked as if a strong wind would cave the dune in and cover the town at any moment

I had come here with a dude i had met, an American named mike, from L.A. when he asked me where i was from and i told him Vermont and his reply was "is that a state", i almost punched him right there and then but after that he turned out an alright dude. we booked a sand boarding tour and this pic is of the crew and vehicle. it was as if you were riding a roller coaster without a given track. it was really awesome. our driver was a pro and we skidded and leaned and dove and careened up and over massive dunes...

...to find places just like this in which to plunge down head first on a wooden plank laminated and waxed. it was pretty fantastic, as good or better then any sledding hill i have ever been on, and i didn't have to hike up the mountain after, i was picked up boyee

some people opted for actual snowboards, if only they had had skis...

Sunset, that's a jeep below flooring it through the dunes. It was an awesome stop in between Lima and Cuzco. But now i am getting ready for one of the "need to do before you die", things in life, Machu Picchu. I plan on posting up in Cuzco with some friends i met in Ecuador for a few days and chose which way i will get to the inca city carefully over beer and lomo a la planca (translated: meat on the plate) a staple in all these Andean countries it seems. miss and love you.

the poor mans galapagos

I had spent four days on the beach in Montenita. The weather was crap, overcast everyday. There was little rain however which i was thankful for and i spent the days on the beach reading and the like. I had been traveling solo for a week and it was time to start thinking about returning to Quito for my flight to Lima. I decided to make one more stop on my way up the coast and i am really happy that i did. I came to a stop of a dusty, dingy, dirty, Town called Puerto Lopez. The only attraction, the sole reason why anyone stops here is to visit Ila de Plata, the silver island. Its also dubbed the poor mans Galapagos. I, being a poor man, listened intently as a tour guide told me of the adventures that awaited me an hour by boat into the Pacific. To say that i wasn't looking forward to that one hour boat ride would be an understatement. i had gotten sick on an 8th grade whale watch and felt sick the whole day and never saw one whale. I took solace in the fact that i had in my possession motion sickness pills with caffeine. After listening intently, i decided to walk more than half a block from the bus station before making any more decisions. i had been accosted as soon i stepped of the bus. He was nice enough but with rain threatening i cared more for a dry place to put my bags as i did a five dollar discount he so eagerly offered if i would just sign up right now. it was raining by the time i found the Sol Inn Hostel. it suited me fine and i set out again to find another agency in which to get a price range. I ended up booking with a company right on the beach.

the day was chalk full of really neat stuff. The boat was as rocky and fast as any i had been on and i was thanking the gods i had taken the pills early enough in the morning to allow me to enjoy the roller coaster that was the sea. When the island came within sight the motors slowed and we ran into, hopefully harmlessly, over a hundred dolphins. this picture does it no justice, it was the most our guide had seen all year. it was really neat to see them for the first time. Dolphins! 

We made landfall and i could tell why the it was called the silver island. it looked silver enough. Later it was told to me that in fact it was only silver because of all the bird poop. wow.

The best and funnest birds i have ever seen are the blue footed boobies. you can only tell the male from the female by the difference in the eyes. Birds!

red breasted something er other. i forgot.

These guys below were all sitting on eggs or new born's or protecting there offspring. pretty cool.

the walk around the island took about three hours and after seeing so many birds in one place, i don't need to look up for quite sometime. we boarded the boat had a sack lunch on the deck, including fresh pineapple, yeah boy! we went snorkeling off the coast for 20 minutes. When i first heard that we would only have 20 minutes to snorkel i was disappointed. but after being in the freezing cold Pacific for about 15 minutes i was ready to come back to the boat but i forced myself to stay in. the biodiversity of the reefs were really fantastic. After we dried off we were off, heading back to the coast but not before we saw some of these bad boys. It was in the peak of the humpback whale mating and migration season and we followed one for a good part of 30 minutes. I got some great pics and some good video. i finally saw a whale. whales! 

It was one great day for under 40 bucks. Thats a lot of money even if it was a whole day packed full of interesting things to do and so i retreated to Quito where i knew i could live well below my budget for about a week. when i got off the bus in Quito i walked into my hostel and ran into Darrel. A great bloke from Ireland that i had coincidentally meet in Banos. He and i had rented a dunebuggie, driven it for 15 minutes and returned to the rental agency after it couldn't make it up the first hill. Well the owner hadn't been to quick to appease our pleas for either our money back or a new buggie. The words flowing from the owners mouth seemed to be getting louder and angrier whilst also gaining speed. I felt a sting on my face and heard a slapping nose followed after. it took me a second to realize that i had just be struck in the face with an open handed slap. i still didn't learn however and persisted to know why i was just hit when we were the ones getting screwed. He darted off for a second and came back with a wrench which he swung over his head and then kicked me in the shins. Darrel had been the voice of reason and might just have saved me from getting my head bashed in when he urged our retreat. Needless to say i was happy to see the chap again and for the last four days we be chillin. But tonight, tonight i fly to Peru, Lima and descend down another rabbit hole, at least the langugue will be the same and i will be just as bad at it. Ecuador was pretty great, greater than i had thought or hoped. I spent exactly one month here and i plan on doing the same in Peru. Ecuador was a first for many things, whales, guinea pig and assaults, its been fun. 

to the beach

 

Banos, named for the healing hot springs that bubble from its grounds

 

I landed in Banos during a holiday weekend. the streets were packed with Ecuadorians. it was hard going finding a place to hang my head for a few days but i stumbled on a great spot. $8.50 dorm room in its own little house, no bunk beds and a sweet outdoor garden was just a glass door away. Hugo walked in as i was tossing my stuff on my bed and for the next week he and i and a whole host of others walked the wild life of Ecuador. Hugo and i hit the streets of this remote mountain town swollen with party goers. We decided to try the local variety of guinea pig, which is a delicacy and for 10 bucks, very high for a meal, i had a half. It wasn´t full of meat and the head with the teeth in tact seemed to be smiling at me throughout my meal but it was an experience that anyone that visits this country or the surrounding ones has to try. it didn't taste a lot like chicken, nor pork, it tasted like chork. some combination of both.

Dig in, one of many traditional dishes i have sampled

fried bananas, rice, beans and a hunk of steak, all for 2.50, not the rodent meal

Hannah, Snear and I at Vibes in Quito

I met up with two English girls from my time in Quito, one, Hannah, above, and the four of us spent the next five days together. We went whitewater rafting in a wonderful landscape with rivers bulging from the heavy rains the night before and the rains that continued trough our trip. In total we spent about one and a half hours on the river through class 3 plus and 4 rapids. we all dumped out of our boat on a few occasions and one American who was doing more filming then the rest of us hoped, forgot to paddle and ended up in the wash dislocating his knee. It was a hairy few minutes while we all tried to get back in the boat swallowing more river water than i had desired, when one of the girls used my head as a floatation device, i forgave her after she bought a few rounds at the bar. after only trusting only our 20 minute training course and plastic helmets that had clearly dueled with rocks before, we survived. Albeit one of use would be walking with a limp for the next few weeks. That night we ran into our guide from the river as we bar hopped around retelling stories from the day at sea, river, whatever. We closed the bars down and were thankful that we didn't have to get up till one in the afternoon for horseback riding.

Pinto and I

i had only been once back home and it seemed like it could be a nice day, visiting waterfalls and taking our steads into the endless mountains that surrounded this tiny town. My horse "Pinto" was the worst horse of all four, the girls seemed to have been given the best behaved while Hugo looked like a giant at 6´3´´ on his little horse, it was clearly a pony. Pinto had a habit of biting any of the other horse if they got close and at one point reared up and bucked one that came to close to hit butt, i didn't blame you on that one Pinto. Ecuador is mountains. the mighty Andes. Volcano's here are like cows in Vermont, plentiful and never far away, but they smell better. We road into the mountains and watched as bubbling springs rose from the ground as pure as mountain water can be. We drank and told jokes about various stomach bugs we were going to get once we noticed our guide wasn´t thirsty.

 Hannah getting dysentery

All in all Banos was fantastic but it was time to leave and a few days ago i started my way to the beach, Stopping for the night in Riobamba, nothing much to tell there. I am now in Montinita, sitting by the sea, my room is great side from being in the middle of a town in a tourist boom and starting at 8 everyday building noises of every sort can be heard through my walls and though my ear plugs. Other then that life is grand, I'm on my own again and soon i will be heading north, maybe tomorrow, if I'm not to lazy. I heard there are some humpback wales migrating off the coast and it might be nice to say hello.

be well!

jake 

Gettin Really High

i arrived in Ecuador last Wednesday. Burlington Vermont is 200ft from sea level, Quito, where i finally landed is a shade higher at 9350 ft above sea level. i am the highest i have ever been...

It had been a hellish day full of transit, i woke in Madrid, early, or so i thought, i had a 12:15pm flight. i left the hostel three hours before my flight but i didn't know what awaited me. Iberia airlines needs to get there act together let me tell you. the line to drop my bag off took over an hour with the lady telling me as i put my pack on the scales "your just going to make it", i wanted to respond with "no thanks to you" but the timing didn't seem prudent. So i jumped aboard the plane, and there i stayed while mechanics tried to fix some lights on one of the emergency doors. we waited an hour, then we taxied out, only to head right back in because they didn't actually fix it. so after two and a half hours on the tarmac we were ready to make the 11 hour flight. the flight was uneventful except for the fact that an hour before we were to touch down we were told that we were heading to a different city, Guayaquil. i held in every mean word i wanted to yell, every curse word i had ever muttered throughout my life and some i had just made up, floated through my mind tempting my lips to spit them out. i didn´t. Before we landed we were assured that there would be another plane waiting to take us to Quito. What they didn't say was that the plane wouldn't be coming for another three hours, i could feel my blood boil and as i waited in line to get my new boarding pass, a young man working for Iberia decided that the ten people behind me could go to the freshly opened kiosk. i clenched my fist and the guy looked at me, i must have had fire in my eyes because he rushed behind his desk and gave me a ticket for a free burger. I took it without a word, got my boarding pass and even though i wasn´t hungry, it being 3 am my time, i ate the whole burger out of spite. i sure showed him didn´t I?! By the time i entered the hostel it was 7:45 am, my time, i had been in transit for almost 24 hours and due to the 13 year old next to me with fidgety feet i had slept nearly none of it, i was beat and beaten. the only good thing about it all was i had almost no jet lag because it was time to sleep when i arrived, 11:30 pm Ecuadorian time. So i woke as i normally did, and it felt like just another day. My hostel was called Vibes and i had chosen it like all the others, by chance. At 6 dollars a day including breakfast (toast, coffee and bananas) it was a great steal. Santiago, the owner, was, is, the man. i had booked 7 nights there, i knew i would need sometime to get used to being so high, altitude sickness is real here and for the first few days i was out of breath walking to the mini mart and back. 8 days in one spot is a long time when you have no idea what it will be like but i rolled the dice and they came up sixes, is that even a saying? anyway it was great, pool table, Foosball, wide screen with all kinds of movies, bar open 24 hours and two for one cocktails all day, everyday, i indulged. My top bunk was the biggest single bed i have had on my trip. Built for a giant, just a hair under a double bed. it rocked like the ocean when i moved but it was home, so i made the most of it. The first night was an eye opener. i hadn't felt so unsafe since i left the Philippines. it was wild out there. the wild west, the frontier where anything goes and law is but a word. i wish i could say the 200 cops and security officers everywhere with various sizes of guns made me feel better but they seemed to have an odd way of policing, aka, doing nothing. clumping together in groups of tens telling jokes and texting on there cell phones. i guess they hadn't noticed the prostitutes and Nigerian drug gang not a block from them. in fact they didn't see them all 7 nights i was there. i spent my days in the English book store shooting the breeze with an Englishman who owned the place. I read, walked the streets during the day and hung out at the vibes club house at night where all the other backpackers seem to gravitate too. I met a girl, Sarah, the first night at the book store and for the next three days we dinned and walked the city together. She was waiting on the arrival of her ex boyfriend and she was nervous, they had only broken up due to distance and she had a lot of talking to do before they saw each other. She was excited, i could see, i hope she is doing well. I was happy to listen, i was too busy watching my back to talk anyway. Vibes was a good place to meet people, there are nine Israelis that wont soon forget the name Jacob and two English girls i might be meeting up with in Banos in a few days time. I attended a local soccer match and got my first taste of south American soccer hooliganism, one of the kids we were with had his camera stolen at the game. hooligans! i ate one meal a day a local joint, with no sign, or anything else you would expect in a restaurants, like menus. but the food, oh the food, a huge plate of rice and beans and fried bananas was covered in a large steak for... guess how much, $2.75, i love the third world. i watched as gringos flocked to the gringo restaurants, and ate gringo meals, i eyed the menus but at about five times the price with half the food, and some Ecuadorian guys version of what an "American burger" should be, all i could do was chuckle and say "suckers!" I escaped Quito with all my possessions and all my limbs and I am now in Tena. Which is a Mecca for whitewater rafting. Getting here on the bus i had visions of floating down a river bravely facing class five rapids, saving a young damsel in distress and being the hero of the boat. However the truth was that no company was taking people on anything more exciting than a class three, and for 70 bucks, i passed. Instead i hired a local guide for five bucks for a 2 and half hour hair raising, goosebumps stimulating, nail biting, tubing adventure. Yeah that's right, tubing. what of it? i got in the water and my 19 year old guide, i use the term guide in the roughest of senses, hands me a piece of paper written on it, in English was "the first set of rapids is dangerous" he spoke no English. I watch him get in the water and i could tell i had done a lot more tubing in my day then this young buck. Smiling we set off down a tributary of the amazon river, the biggest in fact. OK, it wasn´t the exhilarating hero promoting day that i had thought it was going to be but the first set of rapids, however not dangerous unless you had a hard time standing up in waist deep water were still great. The whole day was fantastic however, Edwardo and i, two dudes on tubes, floating the amazon. The scenery couldn't have been better. the Jungle looming large on the banks and the mountains foreboding in the background covered with ire clouds made for a day worth more than five bucks. And so we floated and tried to speak to each other, i in English, he in Spanish. Like a little kid, he paddles over with a wide grin and asked, "what is `fuck you` mean"? hahaha, i couldn´t believe it, the kid couldn't say Jake and was now asking about English curse phrases. it took awhile with hand gestures but i think he got the grasp. We floated by lots of birds, at one bend there must have been over one hundred huge black, condors or something or rather. not sure, and if Edwardo knew he wasn't telling. they were amazing, so many in one place and more were dropping in all the time as if there was a condor meeting and anyone who was anyone in the condor world had to be there. i saw a huge python float by me and i managed to grab its tail for just a second but as i got a glimpse of my first crocodile in person i let go to stare. i made up those last parts, there was nothing in the water and i was hard pressed to see even one fish! but the water was a perfect temperature and the small rapids made up for an otherwise disappointing day, having not gone on the whitewater trip i had come the 5 hour bus trip for didn't bother me at all. Tonight i stay in a hole, but the good news is, the hole, being underground, is nice and cool while those with windows on the upper floors fry. and i saved 5 bucks, take that Ecuadorian gentry.

all is well, tomorrow i head to Banos where i will bath in hot springs as my arms are soar from paddling to go faster on the river today. take care all, miss you guys and i hope you all are enjoying your summer. 

the kindness of strangers

i spent the day waiting for my train to Belgium, i was slightly disappointed that i would not have more time there, but when i got Mechelen Belgium i made sure i would have enough time to sample a few local brews and there famous french fries. i would take Al´s french fries with cheese sauce any day however, there weren't mind blowing in the least. I was not able to eat any waffles but the beer was top notch. Not Budweiser but it was still good, none the less. i was nervous about my ride and i thought a few triples might do the trick, at least that's what i told myself to justify having a few relatively expensive beers. Geoffry met me three hours later at the bus stop in a Renault convertible. sick. So i hopped in and we spend down the road to his house, i showered and had some "bicky" flavored chips. i am not sure if Lays has done this in the states but they seem to have had compositions for new flavors all over the world and this was a winner. don't ask me what it tastes like but they were good. We spent a few hours waiting out the traffic before we got on the road. the trip would take 15 hours or so driving through the night. We took off at 9pm and picked up two other people who were also in need of a ride. Charlot and Braum in the back me and Geoffry in the front, it was a great crew in fact. They were all truly cool people. i did my best to stay up through the night but i dozed off a few times waking to find that i wasn't chained to a tree somewhere. Geoffry really helped me, he excepted no money for all his work and all the gas and having to put up with an American for so long. I cant thank you enough and even though he didn't know it at the time he left me at the right train station and one minute before the next train to Barcelona, it couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks a million, for not being a serial killer and taking me with you to Spain, it really saved me. I hope to repay the favor someday. Geoffry was a bowling enthusiast but has never seen the big lebowski haha, i told him he had to see it asap. I arrived in Barcelona and rang my friend Madelane, well friend, friend would be a strong word. We had met for less than a day the first week of my trip. its amazing that i had met her 9 months ago and here i was being welcomed into her home. She had a fantastic apartment with a great dude who was a graffiti artist and graphic designer and he loved reggae. he decided to quiz me with Anthony b, he would have to try harder than that for i had seen him live in concert more than twice and my at that point in time girl friend was almost raped on his tour bus, so yeah i know Anthony b. he tried harder and when i could name the tracks he selected, artist and song title he knew i was the real deal, a white guy who loved reggae. Now spending time with people you don't know in a place you don't know can be tiring. But i had a double bed pull out couch. let me repeat, a DOUBLE bed. After the last months of spending most of my sleeping time in singles attached to someone elses single this was like sleeping on gold. i slept diagonal just to soak up as much as i could of that bed before i was back to bunk beds. Madelena was out of work so had plenty of time to do stuff, we ate tapas and had beers in the sun, went to the beach and her friends where there, the three guys played volleyball as the girls tanned. it was a fantastic day with equally good weather. We left and had enough time to shower before heading to a dinner party, a dinner party that didn't start till 10:30 haha, Europeans. So i, not knowing anyone, ended up at this dinner party and had a fantastic time, She had a great group of Friends who had a lot of fun together you could tell. They spoke Portuguese, English, Spanish and Catalan. and only one of which i could understand so i was able to participate in about one forth of the conversation but it was enough for me. i told them i knew pig Latin but the joke was lost on them, i suppose the three stooges never made it to Spain. the next day we walked the city and had a dinner at her house for a few friends and that was great too. Great food and great beer, she bought Budweiser just for me. I did take one thing away from this time in Spain and that is that everyone seems to think that Americans walk around all day with a burger in there hand. haha. its true, the burger is a juicy, wonderful and amazing part of the American diet but not something i eat more than other things, certainly not every day or week i would say. but they seemed to think its at least one meal out of everyday that we gorge on burgers. i got a kick out of it for sure. part of my trip has been spent defending America, agreeing with some of our short comings and righting a lot of misconceptions. but i don't mind, its fun if you don't take it too personally. You just need to remember that they get there ideas about America life from Music and TV produced in the states so all i have to blame is ourselves really. Anyway i couldn't thank Madelana more, she really went out of her way for me truly, it was a fantastic three days in a fantastic city, one i know i will be visiting again someday. I took the train to Madrid it was a 9 hour train ride but the scenery was really wonderful. it actually looked a lot like new Mexico and parts of Arizona, the landscape anyway. i am now in Madrid which means i have one more day before i fly to south America. wow. I will be on the right side of the pond as home and with three months left its going to go by quickly. My money situations is good, i went slightly over my European budget but i am back to two meals a day and that will fix itself soon enough. i have a lot of pictures to show but they will have to wait. cant upload them at the moment. this past week had been marked again by the kindness of strangers, they are fantastic 90 percent of the time and these guys who drove me, housed me and fed me were really top notch people. i will try to emulate there generosity.

When a day becomes a week

You tend to get to know a place decently well in one week. Certainly a walking city such as Amsterdam where everything is at your feet. In the recent days i have had some big ups and downs. I came here with one night booked as i had only planned on being here, one, night. It was a Wednesday and the city was cold and dreary. i felt in good spirits until i waited for 45 minutes to be told i couldn't leave Amsterdam not without flying. I then went out into the city in search of a place to stay for the next few days. It was going to be Thursday night and the price to stay at my Hostel went from 19.95 to 42.95 so i needed a cheaper option i found a broker, no rooms were available but he told me to try between 9-11am tomorrow for cancellations. I was there at 8:45 and scored a great price for the whole weekend, three nights. My new hostel was just fine, i had a top bunk next to the window just like i like. we had private shower and bathroom facilities, even though there was a large hole in the bathroom wall that opens onto a terrace now partly covered by a mirror it was great. 18 of us spent the night in what was once a fantastic living room with a huge marble fireplace and intricate ceiling moldings that had long since been neglected. but the good thing was i was set with a good place with free breakfast. That night i slept well and woke up early as not to miss a free meal, made myself some PB&J sandwiches to go and bounced. i felt a lot better about everything, i visited Rembrandt's house. You know its wild, this dude, whos works are now priceless, had to foreclose on his house because he couldn't pay the bills. he must be rolling over in his grave. I spent the day walking around and ran into a flea market where i bought a pretty nice used Swiss army knife for 5 euro. I then ran into a Hells Angles support shop with a dude sitting out front of the joint. I walk into the shop looked around. When i came out i asked if i could sit with him a minute, i figure he has to have some good stories right? He says sure, this lady shows up wearing a support T shirt and offers to buy us all coffee. So after talking for a bit with our nice warm coffees i find out this is the president of the Hells Angles Amsterdam chapter, a member of the mighty red and white, the big red machine. Unu was a great guy and i couldn't help but smile at the places one can find ones self in. Sitting, having coffee with the president of the Hells Angles Amsterdam Chapter, head of 50 full patch members, on a sidewalk in the Netherlands outside a flea market. He took me on a tour of his place complete with all the magazines he had been in, all kinds of biker mags and PLAYBOY, his favorite, and mine, but he wouldn't let me keep it. I came across a "hangaround" patch, wearing it signifies that you have taken the first step in becoming an Angel. He wouldn't let me keep that either. it was crazy though, a one percenter. After about an hour i  had to go, my bags were about to be spat out of the lockers at Amsterdam central station. i said my goodbyes and i made it back in time, grabbed my bags and headed for my hostel. When i got there, they had moved my bed. they moved it two floors down, one of which happened to be underground. The room they tried to put me in was a box with no windows and a strong to very strong odor of urine. So there i was, the choice i had to decide, stay in the worst room i would have ever stayed in (i was in India!) or head into the city Friday night around 4 with nowhere to go i also would lose my reservation for Saturday night as well. i took one more breath and i knew i had to go. I walked for what felt like a year and found a place. Its a Coffeeshop Hostel, I'm not kidding. After settling in i made my way to the Internet cafe and started researching hitchhiking in Europe. If there were no trains or buses, i had to get there somewhere. Now flying for 200 euros was on the table of options that were growing smaller by the moment. The issue was, would either the Netherlands authorities or the Spanish authorities notice my expired Visa. if they did notice what would they do about it? The missing answers to these questions and being unsure of the exact fine involved with such an infraction, made me decide not to proceed in that direction. As a read on about hitchhiking i find a website for ride shares. So on this website i find a number of people headed to Spain from the Netherlands but to increase my chances i decided to respond to those leaving from Belgium also. Well, i emailed about 10 people and i only got one response from a Belgium guy and he is willing to take me to the Spanish coast for free. He said he found my blog and wanted to help, how neat huh? Yeah, the kindness of strangers really, awesome. with that settled the next issue at hand was that i needed to find a place to hang my head till my ride  6 days away. i had only anticapated staying in Amsrterdam for 1 night and here i fould it would be 7.  i decided to take refuge from the city and headed to a lake near by where there is a really neat Hostel. Almost all of the living quarters are little caravans and its about a stones throw from a really great lake by which i have spent two days swimming to cool off only to get to hot again and eager for another dip, you know the routine. So i head into the city again to get my train to Belgium to meet my ride to spain who might be a serial killer posing as a kind member of society with nothing but killing tools in his trunk. Its a risk but at the moment i have no other options, viable options. Stealing a car was considered. Here i go.

Stuck in the Netherlands

I'm back in the Netherlands, working at the B and B. There have been some interesting developments since i was last here both of the other employees quit. so i am literally running the place by myself. I do the dishes and the laundry the cleaning and the front desk, i am the night watchmen as well as backyard BBQ coordinator. When i was in Southeast Asia every guest house had someone who lived there sleeping in the living room or entrance way, i always thought how crappy a gig that was. I now find myself sleeping in the living room of the B and B.  i am not sure how much longer that i will be doing this job. If there was pay, something, 20 euro a day, i would stay another two weeks. but there isn't. it has been good on the wallet and i am saving money everyday i stay here but i get out very little. I take a half hour walk, outside the doors everyday and for that i need the owner to be here and that's not predicable at all. i don't work all day but i am here all day. i wake up at six thirty everyday and clean up then i sleep for a few hours in the upstairs closet i have turned into my room. The owner hates stairs and i am quite certain my third floor lair will go unnoticed. the only thing between me and full closet room security is the Russian handy man Yuri who seems to be too nosey for his own good. he wanted the keys to the upstairs closet to get a spare bed out the other day and i had to talk him out of it. i have to keep an eye on him all the time. after my nap, i come down around noon and start my day which will end when i kick everyone out of the lounge at midnight. if people are having a good time i tend to stay open a while longer.  I have made some friends here which helps everything immensely. all in all the people who come here are good people and i have liked almost all of them. The people that seem to make the most trouble, be the loudest and make the most mess are the Dutch men. They come in huge groups on the weekend and destroy the place. i think i will fly the coop Saturday morning. i will slip out before the owner gets here to make her famous pancakes. there is a girl starting the same day and so i wont be leaving them empty handed. I don't think i can take another weekend. the past 11 days have been a wild experience but its time to get rolling. To Spain i go, not sure how yet, I'm working on it. i will be headed in the direction of Barcelona where i have a friend from the first week on my trip in the Philippines. I had warned her about a bridge, watched her fall of said bridge and then helped her out of the river she ended up in. I will land there on a weekend, rock Barcelona for a few days and then head to the coast between Barcelona and Madrid waiting out my trip to South America with my feet in the water hopefully. I would love to get to Ibeza but i doubt i will get that far. 


Update: i wrote this and a lot has changed in my life since then. I left the B and B. walked out the door and never looked back, it was too much for too little and i decided to head to Amsterdam for a night and to get a train to Barcelona. however there are no trains or bus's going to Spain, not just Barcelona, spain, the closest i can get actually is Paris. so it would seem that im stranded at the moment. in Amsterdam. im not crying about it but i currently have no idea how i will get to my final European destination. i might stand out by the highway with my thumb up. wish me luck.

Munich with Mom

At first I was supposed to fly to Scotland to stay with my mom for a week. My visa ran out and put a stop to that, if i left Europe now there is a good chance i wouldn't be allowed back in and i need to fly from Madrid to south America in less than a month. So the plans flipped flopped and Mom met me in Munich. We had a fantastic four days.  My mom asked me to find us a hotel and gave me a budget. I found lots and selected one. the hotel selection process is different for every person. each of us has a different set of needs when it comes to hotels. Bar, pool, large bedrooms, room service, downtown location etc. i got us a place flanked by a strip club and kebab shop and across the street from two casinos, in the Muslim section of Munich. I found out later that my Mom, interestingly enough, doesn't care for those amenities in a location. Maybe this place would have been suited better for a trip from Dad. OK, so fine i made a mistake. it was like 93 in the city and we had all of our stuff and no where to go but these are the foundations of great stories, doing it for the stories. i lamented a bit, had we stayed, slept here, we would have some really wild stories that some day I would tell my grand kids about and tell them never to tell their grandma. We did find a place and it ended up being great.  We rented a car and drove up into the alps, visited old castles, drank huge Bavarian beer, and noshed on German grub. We rode Gondolas and visited flea markets, we swam in ice blue rivers and watched the glockenspiel go round. it was a slice of Bavaria complete with lederhosen and dirndl.

 Mom and I went into some old dungeon randomly in a church basement costing one euro and it was the official royal crypt. It was really neat and creepy but if i were them i would have wanted to be hidden away in some underground lake guarded by booby traps and buried with all my gold and only a secrete treasure map would lead to my resting place and plunder. This is more practical. 

After seeing signs for a gondola early one day we chased the scent but the trail went dead. Later however we drove right by one. We took a gondola ride to some amazing views of the German Alps. We took a chance and it was well worth it. good call mom!

Carol liked to have a few before we went out for the day. breakfast beer at the famous Hofbrauhaus house.

 

we saw the devils footstep in one church, i figured the devil for a claw guy. these are like size 9 running shoes. but hey, I'm no detective. 

We aren't sure what we saw but we took a picture of it deep in the woods of the alps.

What a nice thing to see Mom again, it helped me gain a little energy and i feel lighter on my feet, it could have been seeing her or the new shoes she bought me. thanks for everything Mom. I left Mom heading for her train it was sad to see her go but in only four and a half months to go i will see her and you all soon enough. 

The scene

Working here is a trip. There are some people i will never forget from just my few days already. there are the two south Africans that are training for the 8 hundred meter dash and hope to be in the Olympics. there is the the lady that has warm chocolate milk in a bowl and dunks her dry bread in it every morning for breakfast. A guy from Uganda who is trying to start a NPO 3rd world investment company. The 40 something American who is biking all over Europe on a tandem bike with his 84 year old mother in tow. The woman who was supposed to be living here for a month with two large rabbits but just got kicked out for refusing to not smoke in her room. its laid back here and people see to be in a friendly mood, something in the air perhaps merely just the type of people who are drawn to a small old city in the Netherlands. My boss, the owner is, sad to say, is a hunchback bearded woman. I don't say this to poke fun, its just the truth. Students, tourist, locals, its a wild mix. Denitza, the girl that got me the job is a twenty something Hungarian student who has been working and living here for 5 months, she is a pro , she could run this place blind. She is an underground gay rights activist slash anarchist, neat stuff, but she just left this morning. this Leaves me and another girl here to run this place into the ground. There is a lot to do, we can hold 70 people. i have plenty of down time but i am constantly on call. i wake up before 7, make breakfast, fried eggs and pancakes with meats of some sort. then clean up and take a break. on and off all day till we shut down at 12 or 1 am. I have to say i really enjoy it so far. Yesterday was a little hectic when the faucet on the sink in the second floor bathroom exploded. we didn't notice until it started dripping from the ceiling. i tried to shove my fingers in the hole to plug it but it was hot water, i ended using a trash can to redirect the flow of the water back into the sink instead of the floor. we crawled around in the rat basement for the shut off valve and finally found it and everything went smoothly till we realised we also had no water to fill the toilets and the guest were beginning to ask questions... plumber came, saved by a wrench.  i have the option to come back here after my stay with my mom in Munich. I should be in Munich for a few days then, i think i will come back. I might stay for a week or two maybe more. There are just too many amazing people in and out, opportunities will come my way in this place i can feel it. The deal is still pretty good, room and board, but i will make sure to make time for myself while here in Utrecht. it will be a great place to hang for a few more weeks. i need to take care of balancing my diet though, there is just far too much random preservative filled meat laying around for free its hard to justify paying for greens. when i come back i think i will purchase a really crappy bike maybe start a gang. grow my beard out again and cut my hair in a mullet. start selling bootleg DVDs and spend my nights riding the mean streets buying Chinese antiques. i will get a tattoo of a mythical creature, half eagle, half ford pickup.  I couldn't be happier. The worlds is my oyster.

The B and B

So i dug the Netherlands. so i said to myself, why shouldn't i go back? what else do i have to do? so I'm back, staying here, in Utrecht, for a little over a week. then i head back to Germany for some time with Carol. I have overstayed my visa, whoops. so now I'm sort of on the run. But i started work yesterday,  working for the B and B hostel which seems to consist of making random food, hanging out and cleaning. i swept up a bit at one point yesterday and i bought some beers at the store. today i played ping pong and made breakfast for about 40 people. I am working for my room and board but that's all i really need. in a week i will save over 200 euro. There are stores of food here.  like nothing i have ever seen. Bomb shelter, hoarder levels of food. 

 Anything you could ever need, as long as everything you will ever need is juice and marmalade. Look how big this is. its probably six pallets stacked two high.

there is so much canned fruit we don't know what to do with it all. this random basket of fruit  holds the door open.

We have a pallet of peanut butter.

 Crates of never go bad milk, its sort of gross. There is a double long chest freezer devoted solely to cheese?!?! all the same kind. A fridge and two huge chest freezers full of meats in three stages, frozen, thawing and already cooked. These are on a constant cycle, cooked, eaten, thrown out. The meat is odd but plentiful. They all have weird names and breaded in some weird mixture with colors varying between atomic orange to muddled gray. We have eggs here also, in numbers the army would find sufficient. Today i helped prepare breakfast and i made 60 pancakes in three styles, plain, apple and cheeseeeee.  This place is pretty great though. The people are the tops and I'm in Holland, right? i mean its pretty ill if you ask me. I do sleep in a room with 21 beds, so like last night when it was completely full, it was a little ruff going there for a bit, but these new ear plugs i got really work wonders.  its in the heart of Utrecht's old city which is really cool on its own, this place has a little garden and its own courtyard, oasis. We rock a few flags out front, two of which were stolen last night but that's irrelevant, the real question is what ones to put up in there place? a big Dead flag? turn this place into a Grateful Dead outpost? i now have a mission. 

 Our back courtyard

the pancakes. we are supposed to be famous for them but they just let me make them and i don't know what im doing or what makes a good pancake from a bad pancake, im a waffle guy. I tried to make french toast today but apparently i hit a little bit of a nerve with the owner. in ten years they have never not had pancakes and they weren't going to start now! point taken.

I am settling into my job, my favorite part is playing DJ. i played ONE reggae song this morning, i start to select another blazing hot track and some dude yells, play Jack Johnson! first, he never thanked me for rocking this place a second ago and brightening every ones day with some sweet jams straight from the beach and secondly, don't be calling out to the DJ with what you want to hear. i mean, I'M working it here, there is an art to this and Jack Johnson ain't really a part of it at the moment, you know? politely write your request on a piece of paper and it will be considered and summarily voted down. i pretended not to hear him anyway. The next track was on fire and even though it was 8 am i think the people eating after a long night out liked it turned up a bit. No one complained, i certainly couldn't have heard them if they had. i think they got the hint and realized who they were dealing with when i still didn't play Jack Johnson after the third request. its reggae or the Dead allllllllll day. They hired the right guy for this job.

Germany, part 1 of 2, maybe

Getting to Berlin...I had a connection in Utrecht, Netherlands, and I had about 6 hours to kill before my overnight train to Berlin. i stashed my bags in a locker at the train station that cost 7 euro! wow, yikes, gasp, so i promptly went to the closest casino and won eight Euro betting on Roulette. Albert Einstein once said, "you can only win at roulette if you steel the money when the dealer isn't looking" proving i was smarter than Einstein and feeling like my work was done for the day, I went to see the town. Had a great day, great city, made it to the train, got on but in the wrong car. I noticed, left it, went to numbered car,176, mine was 174, thinking I will walk two cars forward or backward (inside) you know? I get through one car and I meet this guy, works on the train apparently, real official looking wiseguy. This screw tells me to get off and find the right number, 174. Of course Stalin decides not to tell me in which direction, "look on the door" he says. Thanks. such a dick, I step off the train the door closes and the train starts moving, hahaha what just happened?! i just stood and watched. i walked back to the reservations desk and they go right ahead and give me my money back and book me on a train tomorrow, 15 euro cheaper. So I get 15 euro out of the deal, sweet, but there isn't a train that night, not so sweet. I would have to stay in the city. So there i was heading back into the rain, without a place to stay at 8 pm, not the best thing, not the worst, i really tried to stay positive. i kept thinking about how i was going to find that guy that worked on the train again and have a¨talk¨ with him. i kept walking and before i got to the bend i thought "there is going to be a hostel right around the corner", it took a lot of corners but I ended up at a great hostel costing 24 euros with as much beer and or wine as i can drink?! What?! Free food all day and a bank of free computers with WiFi everywhere?! I'm thinking jackpot right? There were 16 beds in my room, I'm thinking I was lucky, half the beds are empty, BUT, then this guy comes in and he was clearly having a ruff day. He kept alternating between a workout (lifting up the single dorm bed in the middle of the room) and martial arts training ( he breaks out in a little burst of karate attack randomly chopping at the air and grunting) he was sweating profusely and wheezing really badly from the three flights of stairs you have to walk up to get to our room and he wouldn't stop rubbing a raw potato over his forehead, as he walked a non stop lap around the room. Truth. that night i slept with my eyes open. All in all i had a great extra night in Holland at a really cool place right down the street from a great local coffee shop.

I made it to Berlin the next day and checked in to the biggest hostel i have ever stayed in. Room after room and impersonal service, over charging and general crappyness. But i stuck it out and in the end really enjoyed Berlin. The gods gave me great weather and i walked all over the place for two days and rented a bike for my last full day and reached all the places my feet convinced me were to far to walk to the days before. I finally saw Germany, the country that tried to kill my Grandfather! i wasn't sure what my reaction would be to being in former Nazi country. I mean i had some German friends, Erich and Wes, Dan. but where they the norm? All the movies i have seen to the contrary, i found Germans largely without uniforms, very pleasant and helpful. I saw some really famous stuff,

 

The Berliner Dom and the Fernsehturm in the back ground

 The Reichstag

Brandenburger gate

 the best of the wurst, eat your heart out Erich

 i decided not to enter the German history museum the first time i was there, it was Sunday and the lines of school groups were huge and it paid off, the next day was far less busy and...free?! yeah boy. Lucked out again. After a few soccer games and a lot of sight seeing some great German beer and spreading the word of Kobe, i was ready to leave Berlin. Four solid days, i was off again. Back on the train to the Netherlands. i wanted to return to that hostel and wait out the remaining days i had till i met Carol again. i booked for six more nights and after my second i was hanging in the lounge and sprung a job. Seems i was in the right place at the right time, showering that morning might have given me the edge i needed. so i will be working here for the next few days, in Utrecht, maybe longer. Then due to a little thing called "immigration control", practically the Hitler youth, i might be leaving Europe earlier than first planned. do stay tuned, it might get bumpy and illegal.

Holland, part 1

i had met William in Thailand, he and i had just missed a bus to the border of Laos. When we finally reached Chang Kong we had the foundation laid for the next two and a half weeks. We stayed in a great guesthouse where we met Arian. They were both Dutch and had a lot to talk about when they realized they lived 20 minutes from each other, and so we became three. By the time we had crossed the border we were five, a Spainard and a Greek had joined the band and we headed off together to concur what lay ahead in the jungles of Laos. Travelers make promises to see other travelers again all the time. I think they believe it. Time, space, life, gets in the way sometimes. But space and time have brought me here meeting up with William and Arian again, five months later. Laos was one of the most amazing countries i have ever been to. These guys had lived it too. I found my way to meet William in his home town 15 minutes by train outside of Amsterdam. i had a little trouble with my cell phone, figures doesn't it? and wound up holding up in a cheese shop where i could get Internet. I also picked up some really great cheese, two birds, one stone. Williams house is a nice two floor two bedroom in the heart of Zaandam. he has a nice patio and he makes pretty good coffee from his space age contraption. The day after i arrived Holland was playing in the Euro cup and we donned the orange and got out there like everyone else, Holland lost the game we did our best to keep our buzz. We road from the bar, William in front leading the way and me hunched over with a scowl, trying my best to look as bad as anyone can when riding a periwinkle blue, girls bike. It was a good night. Arian picked me up the next day and took me into Amsterdam central. I was given a tour of the city, by someone who lived it. Arian like i may have already said was a awesome guy, 60 something but i met him in Thailand with only a backpack the size you might take to school in the 8th grade. Hey was also a lady killer and we counted at least 5 Thai and Laos ladies that had fallen in love with him. One sings in a nightly duet with a Thai Elvis impersonator. Arjen is also a jazz piano player and a Laos whisky connoisseur, father of two. i had been to Amsterdam once before but my memory was of a horrible 12 hours elevated only by the fact that the girl i was with ate too much space cake and i was able to dump her at the hostel and go out and have some fun. I was hoping that this time would make up for the nightmare of 08. Its really a great spot Amsterdam. Tolerance is at its strongest here, seemingly to breath life into the streets. I spent the next day in a little village seeing what old school Holland was all about. Wooden shoe factory,

 look at those bad Larry wooden shoes

some windmills and cheese factory. I shouldn't really say windmills like that, they're cool, i just felt sick if i looked at them spinning and spinning and spinning. Ok so some would say, don't look at them then. But they're like a magnet, i think they're a hypnotic mind controlling device. or just boringly normal old windmills that make you sick. Either way i cant look at them. The area in which i traveled also, according to my underpaid guide, processed 70 percent of the worlds cocoa powder. the whole town smells like swissmiss, all the time, and i was really starting to crave something with chocolate. I settled on a chocolate croissant. bam. I went to dinner at Arjans house with William and we ate homemade red curry soup and homemade spring rolls. It was a touch of the east. We made plans to chart the uncharted and sail the biggest lake in the Netherlands, Yjsselmeer lake. Sailing on the boat was pretty cool. we took her out for two days staying one night in Enkhuyzen, moored in the harbor. I got a chance to see another side of Dutch life, the wooden shoe life, life with deep roots that run into the sea.

Many of you know that New York was New Amsterdam once. The Dutch have been at sea and perfected its craft. I was allowed to get behind the wheel which shows you just how well these two know me muhahaha. I was at home with the waves, on a steady flow of motion sickness pills, i sailed the S%#@ out of that boat. ok, to the casual observer my line between A-B could have been called "erratic" or "seemly much longer and unprofessional" but there is a art to optimizing wind speed and stuff you might not get if i tried to explain it. You don't read this thing for a bunch of science words anyway. We dinned in the galley, we ate Hollands best meats and orange juice to ward of  the scurvy. We dropped anchor and laid siege to a fried fish shack, taking kibling and smoked eel as plunder but also kindly paying for it. We told sea stories and drank whisky in our coffee. We tipped back whole raw salted Herring, one of us won't ever do it again, its a pirates life for me.

All hands on deck, captains orders

 Fried Cod, right up there with the best fried fish i have ever had, giving Susan's a run for the money.

 There is the esteemed, Louvre associated, museum of tiny ships in little bottles. it was part of an action packed day.

i had a really comfortable sleep in the front hold, that was nice. Arjan hopes to sail to England in a month or so and i wish him good luck and told him i would draw him a map if he needs it. Don't take any prisoners, i know you won't, capt.  We ended up going to two islands and We made landfall and after two days on the boat, mostly lounging, occasionally steering the boat in a way that would make Gilligan proud, i was beat. We had steaks and french fries, a few beers the last night, it was a great way to spend two days here in the Netherlands, sailin.

 Thanks so much Arjan, really, thanks for taking the time and opening up your home and boat. William, thanks for letting me crash your spare bed, the food, the beer and the stroopwaffles, it was great man. Thanks also for getting the extra day off it was great to go sailing. You really helped me out. I will be seeing you both sometime I'm sure. After i packed up I spent one more day in Amsterdam then headed north west where i am going to be meeting up with a friend for a few more days in Holland.

 Left to right, Tim, random guy, Moline, Sieta, William, Hanne and David. New years in Laos. I have seen four of this crew again after our Laos adventures ended, its awesome.

Sieta was one of the many southeast asia wanderers that you seem to meet over and over again. i met her first in Laos and about a month later i ran into her on my way through Cambodia. She and i stayed in touch and she picked me up from the train station  and gave me a place to stay for two days. We rode bikes to the football game, actually i sat on the back wheel as she peddled, pretending not to be dragged down my weight. We picked up some of her friends Hester and another girl who i will always remember as orangedew, decked out in orange we cheered for the home team. We rocked another Holland football game and no matter how many trips to the bar we made they just would not win for us. We felt like we were doing our part, they could of at least done theirs. Sieta let me stay at her place and i had it all to myself, she was staying at her parents place, watching it while they went to Canada for month, Canada?  I had an apartment all to myself and in a all female student housing project. That was cool but awkward too. The next day as Sieta had to work i toured the city on her bike and Hester as my guide. She even paid for lunch, zing. She was cool. I was in Groningen, a truly great medium sized college city. Some really cool buildings in Groningen. After that i was able to do my laundry at Hesters place, she brought me to the train station and helped me translate my itinerary to the kind Dutch lady behind the desk. Its amazing the kindness of strangers. After meeting so many really great ones, i am going to really take that lesson home. Sieta, William, Hester and Arian went way out of there way for me. Big thanks and hugs guys. it makes traveling like this doable. i was suppose to leave the Netherlands on the 15th but...