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This is my last day in the Netherlands . It turns out that there’s a pretty cool surgical museum a few blocks away from Katie’s apartment so that’s where we went this afternoon. It’s got some things in common with The Old Operating Theater but is far larger and encompasses technology from yesteryear as well as today’s state of the art tools. It was really cheap to get in and the price got you a locked locker to put you things in and a free drink in the cafeteria, as well as one of those audio tour devices that looks like a 2 foot long cell phone with a giant wrist strap on it… I am easily impressed. Just like in the Old Operating Theater there was a mighty collection of bone saws and devices for removing bladder stones. What it must have been like to live back then…

Considering the fact that this place lies on some back alley, it was quite vast inside. In fact, my only problem with it was that we didn’t have enough time to finish looking at the entire place. Before I knew it a museum attendant came up to me and spoke to me for the better part of a minute and a half in Dutch. My face must have made it quite obvious there was a problem with my understanding of the jabber for she eventually stopped to allow me to ask her if she spoke English. That’s the funny thing about the Dutch. They ALL speak English perfectly. It’s simply astounding. In London I couldn’t understand a word anybody said and in Leiden it’s not even their official language.

For dinner Katie and I went to the Pancake House. It’s a marvelous place and am very surprised I haven’t yet seen a place like it back home. You can get pretty much anything put into a single 14″ pancake. I opted for peaches and whipped cream, Katie for cheese and some sort of pepperoni-like meat, but you can literally get anything from bananas to bacon. When you order an orange juice, you actually get a fresh squeezed orange. The food is one of the more memorable things about my trip here. The food seems so much better than what I get at home. The portions are far more reasonable than the 16oz burger, 6 potatoes worth of fries and 64oz coke you generally imagine to be the All-American-Meal. Well, I’m calling it quits with the writing here. I’ve a long day of travel ahead of me tomorrow. I sure am going to miss this place.

Saturday Katie and I headed for Amsterdam to get lit. That is to say we went to the old Heineken brewery in Amsterdam for a tour. It’s no longer used to make beer but is now simply the “Heineken Experience”. Inside you can take a look at the entire beer making process and find out what it’s all about. But really everyone just comes there for the free beer (limit of 3 though) and by the time you’ve worked your way halfway through the place you’re dying for that first beer at the halfway point. Heineken still keeps a team of horses in stables next to the ‘museum’ that they hitch up every weekend to ride around and drum up some much needed beer-drinking enthusiasm for the world’s 4th largest brewery.

After Heineken we strolled about for a bit and had a delectable dinner at some Italian joint on the main drag, down from the train station. Katie and I both had pizza, of course. It was a nice place… good food and prompt service. I was about to run away when I saw candles on the tables (LIT ones no less) and a guy who’s only job it was to open the door for customers. These sorts of signs usually fire off a signal in my brain that flashes “Run away! Run away! This will be far too expensive!” I managed to get myself through the door though and in the end the bill was far less than the lit candles and personable door jockey would suggest.

After dinner it was off to the Red Light District. According to “Being a Tourist in Amsterdam – For Dummies”, the prostitutes don’t like having their photos taken. I wouldn’t imagine it could possibly be that much of a problem there because… let’s just say that when it comes to their line of work, these women must be good at what they do cause their looks alone certainly won’t get the job done. Coffee shops are where you can purchase and smoke pot, which is really the only reason college students would ever go to Amsterdam. Well, there’s the completely legal and well regulated prostitution of course… but if I were in the market for such services I’d choose a closer country and one with a better exchange rate with the dollar.

Considering the fact that we were surrounded by drug use and prostitution late on a Saturday night in a far-away land, I actually felt safer than walking on the streets of New York City. It was really weird… I couldn’t help but think that this is how the United States should be; well not specifically a center for drug use and prostitution, but just more relaxed and understanding. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to make same sex marriages LEGAL (In 2001). The police tolerate people owning and smoking small amounts of weed. As long as you’re not hurting others you’re free to do pretty much whatever you please. In the U.S. we seem far too concerned with such trivial concerns as whether people are smoking a joint on the weekends, paying for sexual favors or preferring those of their own gender. I mean, in the grand scheme of things – does any of that REALLY matter?

This was the last day in London This morning we packed and headed off to see the Globe theater. This too had student admission rates! This was actually a guided tour. Unfortunately, there were children’s plays going on inside it so we couldn’t take any photos. It has been constructed to be exactly how it would have been in Shakespeare’s time, thatched roof and all. According to the guide, it was actually the first thatched roof allowed in London since the Great Fire of London in 1666. Up until that fire, houses were apparently constructed using similar materials and craftsmanship to what Ford used in their deadly Pinto.

Near the Globe theater is the “Golden Hinde”, a newly built replica of Sir Francis Drake’s 16th century galleon. Both the original and this replica have circumnavigated the globe. Except for the deck, there isn’t anyplace you can fully stand up. There just isn’t much room. When this replica ship sailed, there was a crew of about 20. On the original, there would have been over twice that. Personally, I think either is a horrendously large number of crew for a ship that’s a 120 feet long yet doesn’t have anyplace you can fully stand up! Even this replica is over thirty years old at this point and hasn’t sailed in the last 10. All the sails and rigging are still on it though, which gives the appearance that it could be out on the seas in a very short amount of time. It makes a good museum though – it’s self guided and you can do pretty much whatever you like.

Lastly, we went to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. The admission price was 25 pounds! But I managed to get a photo of me strangling President Bush, so it almost seemed worth it Besides today’s celebrities, there are also famous people throughout the ages as well as historical figures. Check out the photos! Also, there’s a haunted house type attraction far better (though also far shorter) than any of the hobbled-together ones you see around NEPA. There’s a quick ride giving you a brief, robotically animated history of London and a planetarium where they broadcast a short cartoon of “What it means to be a celebrity”. As visitors are gathering in the line for the broadcast, a pair of fellows play jokes on those entering the room, pretending to be wax figurines and then scaring the crap out of you. I know… because it sure worked on me.

That was it for London. Katie and I headed for Gatwick, the K-Mart of airports. When I arrived 3 days ago, I had to scout out my checked luggage on multiple conveyors because none of the signs displayed what flight’s baggage went where. Today, we discovered that gate information is only displayed about 30 minutes before the flight. Everyone huddles in the main terminal staring at both of their TV information screens, which consistently print “Please Wait” next to all the flights. Then when you discover that a gate has been listed, you must hastily rush off to some distant corner of the airport that lies somewhere between Sporting Goods and Outdoors. They could at least put out a revolving blue light or something…

Bright and early this morning we headed to the “London Eye”, the world’s tallest Ferris wheel. It was a spectacular morning for it… there was hardly anyone there! (The weather was pretty good too though). Basically, you climb into a giant glass egg and snap photos of the London area over the next half hour as you go 440 feet in the air in one revolution. It doesn’t stop at all unless there’s an emergency – you actually have to get on and off while it’s in motion!

After that it was on to the Maritime Museum. This one exhibited the very trait I find most important when selecting a museum – FREE ADMISSION! I got to see some cool stuff… learn about ocean exploration, waves, sailing. A lot of the stuff is just scale models though. About half the museum is devoted entirely to old instrumentation. That didn’t interest me much… but the docking simulator sure did! In it you pick a vessel, anything from a tugboat to an aircraft carrier, and try to navigate through a narrow channel and dock it. I watched as some old skipper tried docking some huge battleship and beached and thought “Hell, I can do better than that!” I chose the smallest boat; some tug under 100′ and hit the go button. Of the 4 screens representing my windshield, only the right two actually worked so I navigated as best I could using that. I kept straying off course and eventually gave up after the old man standing in line behind me jokingly said “I wouldn’t quit your day job!” Haha… funny that!

Afterwards a long trek up a hill landed us on the prime meridian, which is also fortunately quite free. Here you can stand on 0 degrees longitude. I’m not sure really why that’s so cool, but there was a line for taking photos so I’m reasonably sure that in some way it must be. The Old Operating Theater was next on the list. It’s a really tiny place where surgeons in training could watch a trained surgeon bludgeon off limbs and remove bladder stones without the use of any sterile practices or anesthetic for that matter. They’ve a mighty collection of bone saws. It seems as if that is what a majority of surgeons in that day did; perfect newer and faster ways of hacking off limbs or handy instruments to remove bullets. The good old days!

Also today, we went to the Clink prison. There’s some learning to be done here, but essentially they’ve just tried to recreate what the prison might have looked and been like long, long ago. While the atmosphere was ultimately realistic, the content was quite lacking. But, you can take photos of yourself in front of bizarre torture devices and dirty-looking wax characters, so I guess it was all worth it.

Oxford street seems to be a major shopping area so it was here we went to try and find a replacement duffel bag. It was crowded as can be in the early evening around dinner time, but I did find a shop selling bags and shelled out $15 pounds for the second cheapest canvas one they had. I tried to tell the shopkeeper I was just looking but he took that to mean he should pester me constantly about my bag preferences. He rather looked and sounded like Borat. “Try this bag. How you like it? It is verry niiice!” In all seriousness though, he was quite helpful and I was happy to have a way of getting what possessions I still had back to Leiden.

Katie and I have been in London for three days and I’ve yet to have any fish and chips. Tonight, though, we stumbled upon a nice lookin’ pub and went in. We sat at a table in the back and waited. And after that we waited some more. While waiters were bustling about with drinks and food, not one stopped at our table. I began to feel like I was in the British version of Two Guys Who Should Go Back To Italy. I went ’round to the bar where there was a sign stating “Please order all drinks and food at the bar.” So Katie and I had Heinekens (as I have been in Europe for 6 days and still haven’t had any of that) and I had an excellent meal of fish and chips with the tartar sauce on the side I must confess that it was even better than the Banshee (The best Irish pub on all of Penn Avenue in Scranton).

Sufficiently buzzed and quite content with our meals, we headed on the Underground for King’s Cross station, where Harry Potter and his friends crossed into the land of make believe via “Platform 9 & 3/4″, which the train station was kind enough to recreate (with a luggage cart protruding halfway from the wall). This station was rather eerie tonight and I was careful not to mention “He who must not be named”.

Well I’ve gotten rather behind on these blog entries about my trip to Leiden… but here goes: Katie and I got up bright and early at 6:30 to get ready, have breakfast and head out. At 8am we went down for the hostel’s complimentary stale cornflakes with warm milk, burnt toast and orange water, but it became rather apparent that it was in fact only 7am… we had forgotten to change the alarm back an hour when we landed… so we strolled around for a bit while my stomach rumbled and I grieved for my lost cell phone.

After breakfast we headed for the Underground. Ahh… the Underground. It is well maintained (and rather expensive if you’re buying access cards in US dollars) but it becomes insanely packed in the mornings and evenings. Constantly you are reminded by some unseen female voice to “Mind the gap” between the trains and the platform, to “Please stand clear of the closing doors”, and that “There is no smoking ANYWHERE on the Underground”. The voice has a hypnotic effect and the combination of that memorable voice and the number of people wearing those blue-tooth wireless headsets for their cell phones makes the “Rise of the Cybermen” episode of Dr. Who seem so very possible.

Anyway, today we headed for Buckingham palace and the Tower of London. We encountered some various statues and memorials along the way and a pair of motorycle cops locking up their police bikes with a chain and padlock so they don’t get stolen (must be a big problem here or something). We got some good photos but were abruptly directed to get behind the crowd-control fencing for some kind of event. Somebody was walking around handing out Ghanan flags and eventually a marching band, some tour busses, a couple of vans and and a gang of well dressed swordsmen with trumpets on horseback galloped through. And that was that!

I rather like The Tower bridge tour as it was very sparcely populated and very informative. Like any museum they try to sell you crap from beginning till end, but I was content with learning about it’s design and pondering why some hoodlum had cut out all the French flags from the display boards. At the end of the walkway at the top they try to sell some touristy photo they took of you entering the museum, but I was much more intrigued about seeing the old steam engine room. Quite an ingenious design for the time, even if I do say so myself. Two steam engines lifted monstrous pendulum-style weights inside the towers to store energy for bridge lifting, which is made that much easier because the roadway is counterbalanced with huge weights hidden inside the tower. It’s all electrically powered now though… Kinda takes all the fun out of it. In the photo album you can see a video of the bridge lift we saw that afternoon as well.

Then we went to the Tower of London, one of the few places I remember from my childhood visit to Britain, besides watching Waterworld in my hotel room. It was much as I remembered it. In many of the photos there you’ll notice I’m smiling quite a lot. Don’t worry – it’s just because I was so damn pleased they offer a student discount on admission!

It was dark by the time we headed back. We ate pizza in our room while others in the room watched us from afar like hyenas circling around two lions feasting on a fresh gazelle. I bitched about the filthiness of the shower room, and felt quite content knowing my wallet was empty, my stomach was full, and that I’d complained and made as many sarcastic remarks throughout the day as I possibly could.

Today we were making good time on our travels until we encountered the tremendous waiting lines in front of the EasyJet check-in. It turned out that my duffel bag was a bit too large for carry-on so I had to make a split second decision and put it on the conveyer to be “checked”. My camera, cell phone, voltage converter and MP3 player were packed in that bag and… you can see where this is going… when Katie and I got to Dover Castle Hostel (near London Bridge) this morning my cell phone and MP3 player were missing (and my 6 piece voltage converter had become a 9 piece once). This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me… I watched airport personnel at Schiphol (Amsterdam) load the luggage before we got on the plane. The guy taking bags off the cart would lift them off, raise them above his head and pile-drive them onto the conveyor. Those that resisted this move were put in a reverse sharp-shooter until they submitted. After discovering my missing electronics, I hastily closed up my duffel bag and managed to rip both zippers clear off. ‘Twas a great start to the day…

The rest of the day went far better. The British museum turned out to be quite vast and very interesting. It was easy to get to and, rather interestingly, was the fact that there was no security checkpoint whatsoever to get in. You can simply walk right in off the street, no questions asked. It’s a huge place encompassing many continents and eras… but honestly, how many clay pots and tarnished coins can one look at in a single day? We also managed to visit Big Ben before darkness fell… and just hours before Green Peace scaled a boat-mounted crane next to Parliament to launch a giant banner stating “Tony <3 WMD” in a protest against UK parliament allowing Tony Blair’s Trident nuclear weapons program to continue on for the next 50 years (well, at least according to greenpeace.org).

Tonight when I took my shower I encountered a number of problems. First and foremost, the showers are quite disgusting. The mildew and grasses springing up from the grout lines in the tile were certainly the most advanced single-celled organisms I have ever encountered. They were less a fungus and more like a crowd of spectators fighting for the soap laden droplets off water falling onto the walls and floor. Because of the advanced nature of this life form and the fact that there was no shelf to keep the soap on, I devised a rather ingenious method of wedging the travel-sized soap between my big toe and sandal. This worked reasonably well until I stepped on that foot a little too hard and the tiny soap shot out from under my toe and into the shower stall next to me underneath the divider, ricocheting off the walls and thwacking a fellow shower user in the ankle. I was mortified. Should I ask “Excuse me, can you please kick that back over?”, pretend nothing happened??? I thought it over while shooing the advanced shower-inhabiting organisms off my arm with my only weapon… tiny shampoo. They were well aware of my current predicament and I wondered if the shampoo would hold out long enough to keep this shower scene from looking like something from X-Files Season 2… where loggers in some remote wilderness are slowly being killed by small parasites that swarm over them and wrap them up in something resembling a spider web. Fortunately, the other guy left to nurse his ankle wound and I was able to retrieve the soap. Last, but not least, the shower system only dispenses 20 seconds of tepid water at a time. After the water goes off, you have to press a button on the wall to get it going again… like a trained rat pushing a button for a food pellet. It’s not really an issue until you’ve got soap in your eyes and are pushing the grasses and mildew off the walls looking for the button.

Hoping the worst was behind me for the day, I went to the restroom. I walked in, but the lights were off. I felt around the wall and couldn’t find the switch anywhere. Then I saw two outside. I flipped one and nothing happened… I waited, walked inside again thinking perhaps it might take a little while for these old fashioned fluorescent lights to come on. Nope, still nothing. I walked back out and flipped the other switch and in a few moments the lights came on. “Success!” I thought to myself. It was at this time that I heard the door to the other bathroom being unlocked and a rather disgruntled looking man nursing a limp stumbled out of the darkened room to hit the light switch and give me a dirty look. “I apologize, man” was the best I could muster.

I gave up. I went back to my bunk bed, smacked my head off the upper bunk and slept as well as I could with the noise of downtown London traffic seeping in through the boarded up window.

Yesterday was a perfect day for walking around Leiden. It was in the upper fifties and sunny. I uploaded a lot of new photos into the Leiden album… Odd boats, cars and canals mostly. It’s 5:30am here right now and at the moment we’re preparing for our flight to London. Katie and I are staying at a hostel somewhere near the London bridge for the next 3 nights so there won’t be any opportunity to upload new photos until at least Thursday night. They’ll be up as soon as they can be though! This weekend we’re headed to Amsterdam to take a tour of the Heineken brewery (among other things).

On Thursday I left for the Netherlands. It was the first time I’ve been on a plane in over 10 years, and the flight to Washington DC made a school bus look luxurious. I had a 3.5 hour layover there before my flight to Amsterdam. I used that time to do some reading and hit the head. It was in the bathroom that I did some contemplating and discovered a marvelous device – the toilet seat cover. Obviously there are many like me out there with varying degrees of organizational and cleanliness excessiveness. I guess the idea here is that you rip the tabs and let the center piece dangle in the toilet. Upon doing this, I stepped back to admire this miracle of ultimate public bathroom sanitation. But by the time I had the opportunity to crack a smile, the water had soaked sufficiently up the paper and sucked the whole damn thing into the bowl. Alright, time for round two. This one I managed to rip completely in half. Third time’s a charm though. I got things right and took a seat before the cover’s self timing disposal system kicked into gear. I took this time to marvel at the fact that this tiny stainless steel bathroom stall would be the most room I would experience over the next 7 hours of flight. Then I wondered if 3 toilet seat covers could actually be flushed at the same time.

There was lots to do on the plane. I got some more reading done and watched that movie where Robin Williams becomes president; but I’m not really sure of all the details as the audio kept cutting out every few minutes until I jiggled the headphone jack. Drinks were served regularly, but at $5 a shot, I kept myself restrained to free soda and water. Sometime overnight hot towels were handed out. They weren’t very popular, so I didn’t take one… not that I knew what the hell to do with it anyway: I imagined myself looking like Mr. Bean, first wiping his hands with it, then looking at others and electing to put it over his face as if he were making a bed… before choking on it and throwing it into the narrow aisle where it would be only a matter of moments before a flight attendents cart sucked it up into a wheel, overturning both the cart and attendent. Drinks would spill and chaos would ensue all the while Mr. Bean just sat straight until the blame came his way… and at that point he would shake his head and point to a small child in the seat in front of him.

7 hours later when I arrived (It was 7am Friday locally), it was raining in Amsterdam… but I got my luggage after waiting for the better part of an hour for it to come ’round on the baggage conveyor. Katie was there to meet me and we took the cleanest, fastest train I’ve ever been on (and it was a double-decker!) from Amsterdam to Leiden. It’s weird… Practically everyone commutes on bicycle, intermingling with cars and narrowly missing disaster… but no one ever angrily honks nor lets the finger fly. People drive (and ride) slowly and reasonably – in general the culture seems to be one of reason. Katie and I did some shopping at some local shop whose name I can’t pronounce where we bought everything based on the pictures on the packaging. And then I slept.

I’m a light sleeper though and I awoke very early Saturday morning with the back pains I inevitably get from sleeping on a bed that is not my own. The ravenous flock of screeching seagulls outside the window paired with the slamming of doors and the excercise room of a tenant I now call “Peg leg” located directly upstairs, left my night’s rest lacking in both quality and duration. Katie and did some more exploring and met up with some of her friends from school and went to a different shop to get the implements needed to make dinner. The thing I find most different from home is that you can buy beer and liquor at the local grocery store… and pot at the nearest coffee house. It just isn’t a big deal… but it leaves a memorable smell in the hallway

I put some photos up… the few I actually took today. Tomorrow’s going to be another nice day so I’ll post more then. Monday we leave for London!

Things have changed a lot here. I like the integration between WordPress and Gallery – now you can comment on my posts and images.

It may take some getting used to: You can still navigate to “Hudson River”, “LA Chevrolet”, etc. posts by clicking that link under “Categories”. Every useful entry from my old site made it onto this one, so you should find whatever it is you’re looking for. A random image from one of my albums in Gallery as well as a link to the latest album resides in the right tool bar. Oh! Subscribe to the RSS 2.0 feed listed under those photos to see when new entries are made here.

I’m leaving for Leiden, The Netherlands to see Katie on Thursday. We’re spending a few days in London too, so expect new photos and posts on a regular basis!