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...

Luzern with Bird

i arrived in Luzern by train from Budapest where i had spent 4 days hanging out seeing the sights and staying at one of the best hostels i have been. When i got here i was welcomed with open arms by a friend i have known since the 4th grade. Erin Bird now Erin Johansson is living the high life in the alps. Luzern is a really great old city south of Zurich. Erin has found the love of her life here and her apartment, her friends and out look are fantastic. She seems to really fit in here, be at home here, comfortable. she hasn't lost all her Americanness, she made some dank burgers let me tell ya.

 Its great to see her doing so well really, she married a great dude named Christopher, it was nice to get to know the guy who is her better half. they seem really happy together. she works, teaching little kids during the day, works in her art studio and for a play company (i saw her play and she killed it) off hours. I am really happy for her. She living in a city surround by history in the shadows of some of the largest mountains in the would. I have been here a week, they let me crash their couch and i have to say its been the best couch sleep i have gotten in a long time. I have seen most of Lurzern wandering looking for a place to sit and whittle. Erin threw a BBQ and we partied till 10:00! that's when you need to keep the noise down in Switzerland, kind of sissyish, so we headed for the bar. I have had some really great Swiss cheese and chocolate. along with a few hot dogs wrapped in croissants. bomb.

 We saw all kinds of stuff while here including the zoo. Deer and goats roam the zoo, its pretty neat.

The worlds largest bite. Erin, was, starving.

This whole part of my trip is brought to me by Aunt Lesa and Mem for donating there hard earn cash to help see me through the second half of my trip. Thanks to Aunt Cathy for working the western union (again) and of course Erin, Christopher and Shashank for all the hospitality. Love you guys. miss everyone else. I am now in the Netherlands, more on this wild ride later.

Living on Paros

My life on the farm was fantastic. I had my own room overlooking the valley with the ocean not far from that and island appeared, massive and blue on a clear day. i worked 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. i cut myself a lot and get cut by others, i gained a few new blisters and a better sense of the type of life i might want to live. Hidden in a valley i learned some really amazing things from Irini, Jim and Hillary. Together we worked on Jim and Irini's dream. To create... well, check it out for yourself www.tothegarden.org. They can tell you better than I. The garden is alive with all manner of life. The sound of bees seems an ever present feature. At night you hear hundreds of bells shaking as goats in the fields move around for a midnight snack. Ant armies so large they make paths though the wheat in compass wheel fashion. Birds with names i couldn't guess at sing and squawk around at a constant rate. There are two dogs, Fred and Charlie and five cats. The cats and i had a rocky start. Lou, just sits on the windowsill looking into the kitchen all day. He never comes in the house, just sits there. He was alright, i could avoid his contact by avoiding the window. Pepe, i never got past the time early in the month when he tried to bite my head, twice from behind, while i sat on the couch. "he has a thing for hair" i was told. So i watched Pepe with a hearty distrust. Pinks was blind as a bat. He came down with something or other and he cant see a thing. He gets out there, i saw him on top of the car once. He has taken to spraying a lot to mark more things by smell, that's a fun dinner time show. He runs into a lot of stuff but hes rock in it. Shorty, the one eyes queen of the kitchen and I, are currently not speaking. she was saved by Hilary years before found eyeless under a tree and had quickly taken over the house. We seemed to have a good arraignment until she betrayed me. I would sort of look the other way when she jumped on the table and she gave me my seat back when i needed it and i gave her a decent combing every so often. But she lashed out and cut me pretty good on the face as i was escorting her off my lap one morning. they aren't deep enough to get a really cool badass face scar unfortunately. but you can certainly still see where her little razor blade claws almost pierced my nose. So Shorty got the cold shoulder too. Now Olive, she was a good cat, one out of five. Olive had been banished to the compost pile, the big three wouldn't let her be in the house.

She was the queen of compost and ruled the lower half of the Garden. She was the cutest and the friendliest of them all. there was 13 ducks whom had decided not to lay eggs, their days were numbered. At the farm i got dirty creating an earthen floor, installing ollas in two test gardens. Compost management and shoveling from one pile to another. I learned some about water catchment and organic gardening and . i whittled most nights after work and just bought a carving knife for 10 bucks in Switzerland, I'm going to whittle my way across Europe. I went camping once, without a tent next to the sea, went swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Aegean and drank the very cheapest wine. It was a great month. I wish them all well and hope i see them again sooner then later. Thanks for everything you three.

 Fred, the thinker, if we were digging a whole and he would stand as close to the flying shovels as he could get and stare at the whole being dug. 14yrs old

the sunset from the porch, i miss it, every night

 Hiking with Hillary and olive, two really down girls

Jim. i wish i had a picture of everyone together but i don't. It was a hard place to say goodbye too, but i am on the road again. I am currently in Switzerland heading for the Netherlands tomorrow. only a week and half behind in my blog. Much love, Jake

"that boat company doesn't exist"

I just finished up a month of WWOOFing on the island of Paros deep within the Aegean sea. I had hard time getting there however, i had just finished four solid days of drinking and laughing with Chuck and Heather and was feeling a little tired, beat up and worn out. i had forgone a shower that morning and it was a mistake. i got to the port where i was to board my ferry to Paros at 8:15 am. i was on time but my boat was not. i was at the port by 7:15am, my scheduled departure was at 8:15am, as i sauntered up to my boat i handed my ticket to the deckhand and he told me in a ruder than i needed at the moment fashion that i had the wrong ship, in fact he said "that boat company doesn't exist". i turned to look at the taxi driver, he had told me he knew exactly the boat i needed to get to and was now speeding away from the scene as if he had just robbed a bank. darn it all, i was not in the mood for this sort of run around. i left the boat and walked the not-so-close distance to the reception center where all the boats and piers are listed along with their times of arrival and departures. hmmm, my boat was nowhere on the list, the first boat out of the port was at 9:45. i hung my head wondering just what had gone wrong. my ticket was entirely in Greek and studying it was doing me little good. After the nice ladies at the reception desk helped me decipher it they spoke to each other in Greek for quite sometime as i watched the clock get closer and closer to my departure time. They seem to agree that my boat didn't exist, that the only one that was going to Paros that day was the one i had been refused entry to. what i couldn't explain was that i had tried to board it and had been kicked off. it was not my boat. i was bummed, the ticket had cost quite a few euros and well the idea of buying a new one was really not helping my mood. i was told to go to the ticket counter when it opened at 9:00, that they might be able to help, well clearly i was supposed to be in the water far from here by 9:00 and with 15 minutes left i ran to the cab stand and had them drive me around the docks looking for the phantom boat. as i watched the clock tick 8:15 and my cab driver shrug and shake his head i was dropped off at the same reception desk more tired, more dirty and more frustrated. i decided to walk to ticket booth, what other options did i have? if fact i had been told that there was no other option by no less than three people. maybe, just maybe they could do something for me. í waited for the ticket office to open and when the ticket lady approached the booth i handed her my ticket, looking very dirty, sweaty and tired. she gave me a "hold on" signal, it could have been a "take it easy buddy, i just got here, this job sucks enough without being pounced on as soon as i step out of my car" signal, but i couldn't tell. She came out of the booth holding my new ticket and explained that my boat had been cancelled and that they had emailed me. My brain wanted to yell "the hell you did, do you have any idea how many people looked at me like i was crazy this morning! i have been wandering around this port for almost two hours, see this pack? look light to you? your company is crap lady!" i decided to go with the heart, i smiled wide breathed a big sigh of relief and said "you may not like this but i am going to give you a hug" i gave her a hearty "you just made my day" hug. the others in line laughed as she froze in disbelief as i caught he off guard. she might have froze due to my smell or general appearance but I'll never know. i boarded the boat to Paros and handed my ticket to the guy who had kicked me out earlier, i tried really hard not to say something under my breath but truly not hard enough. i found my seat popped two motion sickness pills for the three hour trip, my 7th grade throw up experience on a school wale watch trip still fresh in my mind, i had no need to repeat that little embarrassing moment. i was so tired already i am sure the pills didn't help but my island was the third stop of five and when i woke we were on our way to the forth. i watched as my stop grew further from the boat. I told someone on board and she said  loudly apparently not noticing that i had leaned in to tell her discreetly "you missed your stop because you were sleeping?!" we now had the attention of no less than 30 Japanese tourists, staring at us blankly. "yeah, look it lady, its been a long four days, there is this wine and i have these friends..." i was cut off, i feel like she might have heard that story before, and i was told that i would have to wait for the boat to turn around and stop going the other direction, another 3 hours. i sighed but what could i do? it was all my fault. Paros was worth the wait and frustration however and what began with a crap journey ended with a really great month on a island paradise in the middle of the Aegean...