London to Amsterdam, May 2000

I met Ian and Christina at Gatwick. We traveled with Angie, a woman I'd met on the 'plane, to Victoria Station in London. We had soup and bread there, and chatted for a while.

We said goodbye to Angie, bought tickets to Cologne, and 'saw London;' most of it underground. We popped down, over and up just long enough to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, and that big Millenium ferris wheel.

Back in the tubes. Wow, what a bizarre engineering marvel that is. Ian told me that there is a saying that the rumor is there'e no 'up there;' that London is all tubes. It's immense, modern, bizarre, multilayered and posted with the occasional high-tech security center.

That was London.

We traveled to Belgium via channel tunnel and got a train to Cologne. We went out to Thai food there. Ian and Christina ordered and all that in German.

The cathedral there is immense and foreboding, beautiful in a dark way. We lingered around that on several occasions. Nearby is an original Roman gate to the city. We went and saw the Rhine--a fast, powerful river.

We took a train that stopped many times up to Bad Breisig, the little city where they've been living. No taxi would answer the telephone at our stop, and so we hiked a mile or so to the top of a (very steep) hill, around and around on a narrow brick road, to the castle, where they were living.

Yes, a castle. I spent my first night in Europe at the top of a real damn castle on the top of a hill in the middle of the Continent. It was pretty dandy. We toured the grounds the next day.

Then it was time to get on the next train — to Amsterdam.

I was becoming a bit ill. Having become deyhdrated, I was fighting off an infection in my ear-throat gland. I slept all the way to Amsterdam.

When I got here, I knew I had to find a place to stay, for sure. I was showing up a day late at my host's place, and had not been able to connect via telephone. I reserved a room in a hostel, having been 'recruited' by a 'runner' working for the hostel. She was cute and all, but I think I wasn't suckered as much as I just felt like a sure place to sleep was extremely important.

I left my pack there. I took the Metro- — the subway — to Weesperplein station. I met up with my host. He scolded me for being a day late, but gently. Willem was genial, and the accomodation was excellent. A houseboat in Amsterdam — you'd expect it to be cool, as long as everything is on the up-and-up. And it was.

I had to go get my pack. It seemed important for me to walk. So I did.

I found a coffeeshop on the way and stopped for a few moments. The guy there showed me where I then was on the map. I proceeded to become completely lost from there. I got lost on the way to finding my pack, and after I picked it up, I got lost again. I had the guilders to take the Metro but for some logic I did not. I'm not sure why. I wanted to walk.

It's a good town to be lost in. And oh, did I get lost. Wow. Hours and hours. There were times I was just walking and looking for any place I'd passed before so I could go another direction this time.

After about eight hours of walking around central Amsterdam in absolute geographical confusion (but never worrying about safety,) I re-found the houseboat, went to my room, and fell asleep for most of a day or two.