2003-11-12
All roads lead to K�ln

10:50 a.m.

Oh yes, I went and saw Matrix: Revolutions at the English theater on Wednesday, without having seen the second movie. Will, however, gave me a brief summary which was enough so that I was not lost with the third. I actually saw Matrix Reloaded on Friday, and Will's summary was right on with the movie. I liked the movies pretty well.

First, a teaser. All of those long-promised pictures? Well, you're not going to get many of them. And none of mine (and there were some excellent ones, too) from Switzerland because I DON'T HAVE MY COMPUTER ANYMORE. (Fortunately, though, I had burned Nick a CD of my pictures before Switzerland, so some are salvagable.) With that incentive, I know you're all wondering what happened, but all in due time, so you're going to have to read to find out what.

This weekend, eight of us - Brooke, me, Kelly, Bhavs, Will, Ruey, and Nick - started out on a road trip. Bhavs came back Sunday. Nick, Will, and Brooke got back this morning. The other four of us returned last night, and with a lighter load. This is the story.

Saturday, we picked up our cars and headed off to Amsterdam. Out of eight of us, only three were proficient manual drivers; Nick and Brooke took turns in the other car and I pretty much drove the entire time in ours. Bhavs can drive a stick, but she'd only ever driven British cars. She did drive a little Saturday night, but not much.

We started out, and I took the lead (scary thought, but Kelly is an EXCELLENT navigator). We headed up through Germany towards K�ln (Cologne). Can I say how much I love the Autobahn? I was so excited to drive on it. I had the car up to 190 km/hr at one point; I wanted to go faster, but that was as fast as it would go. It was great.

It seemed to be our fate to go to K�ln. (I pride myself on trying be as correct as I can so I called it "Koln" until Will, who actually knows a decent amount of German, had had enough and said that we were to either pronounce it "Cologne" or make more of an attempt to pronounce it correctly, which is closer to "Kourln".) We passed the city heading north, and then, somehow, were headed back towards it without seeming to have made any exits or turns. Hmm... And then, once in the Netherlands, we accidentally got on the wrong freeway and ended up back in Germany, heading to K�ln again. Oops. About 10 hours after leaving Strasbourg, we ended up in Amsterdam.

We split up in Amsterdam that night; me, Mark, Kelly, and Ruey wanted to head back over towards France to end up in Vimy on Tuesday, Bhavs had to take a train back to Strasbourg to meet up with some friends on Sunday evening,and Brooke, Nick, and Will wanted to continue on.

I am going to stop here and talk about there marathon-no-stop-take-turns-driving trip. Nick hasn't updated his website yet, and neither has Will, but I'm sure that they will eventually. I've seen some of the pictures, and some of the sleep-deprived movies, and they're great. They had plans to go to Denmark, and Sweden. They ended up going to several others, as well. The final tally was 10 countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Italy), 4 days, 5000+ miles. The most that they spent in one area, I believe, was an hour. They got no sleep, took turns driving, and taught Will how to drive. Sunday night, we received a text message from Nick that mentioned something about backing up onto a tow truck, talking their way through the Norwegian Border Control with a stolen Christmas Tree in the back, and that my CDs (which they had) were on their way to Italy...

Will had brought CDs, as did I, and Mark had brought a few. We had switched at one point - mine in the other car and Will's in our car - but after splitting up, both mine and Will's ended up in their car, and we were left at the mercy of Mark's three CD's that he'd brought and the radio. In case you're curious, Dido's song, "White Flag", is really popular over here right now.

Sunday morning, we spent wondering around downtown Amsterdam, which included a vist to a little open-air market, stumbling upon the Red Light district, and taking pictures of the Anne Frank house. Bhavs left us around noon and caught a train back to Strasbourg.

One thing that I have to say is that I have never seen so many bicycles in my life as there were in Amsterdam. Driving in Europe is definitely an experience. I think that I am a much better driver now that I've survived this. The people and bike riders in Europe, and especially Amsterdam, have no fear and just blatantly walk/ride in front of you. And the other car drivers, if you're going too slow, they have no qualms about speeding around you, even with other cars coming the opposite direction. Hesitate one second at the light? Car behind you honks immediately. But, all in all, it was great fun and I love driving in Europe. Which was good, because with Bhavs gone, I was the only proficient driver in the car; Ruey could drive a little, Mark learned a very long time ago, and Kelly had never driven a stick shift. However, on the way to Brussels, she decided that she wanted to learn how to drive manual. At the gas station, I let her take over, gave her a few words of advice, figured she'd stall four or five times, give up, and I'd drive again. Not exactly. On the second try, she got it, and did a great job. On the way to the hotel, she stalled in the intersection about five times, but got it again and we make it okay. She did some more driving on the trip and I am extremely jealous with how well and how quickly she's picked it up. It's really not fair.

However, that night, we had a break-in. Silly tourists, we had left the "Lonely Planet" and "Let's Go" books out in the seat, and while we'd taken all of the valuables inside, Ruey had left some stuff that he'd bought in Amsterdam in the trunk. When we got out in the morning, it wasn't there. Probably about 150 Euros worth of stuff.

The next morning (Monday), we walked around Brussels for a bit; Mark and Ruey had been there before, so they knew some places to visit. I had a real Belgian waffle, bought some chocolate and postcards, and then we left around 2 PM. Our next destination was a little hazy. We headed towards Dunquerque, France. We got there about 5:50/6ish and decided that we should try to head towards Vimy for Tuesday. Before we did that, however, Kelly wanted to see the North Sea, so we parked, and she and I ran out and put our feet in the freezing cold water.

Okay, class is starting, so more later.

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