2009-08-23 21:00 & 2009-08-25 22:00
OK, so I’m back since August 2nd but have been terribly busy ever since:
Returning on a Sunday afternoon only to get up the next morning at 6 to go to work. Two days work in Villach, 3 days in Sofia, home to my parents for the weekend. Getting friends from Vienna (Birgit & Felix) over to surf my couch – from Sunday to Friday. Being in Salzburg for work on Monday, having a shitload of work for a deadline. Being in Trento & Riva del Garda in Italy for 3,5 days – going there on a Sunday afternoon till midnight only to return on the 19th at midnight at home. I wanted just a little bit of peace and recreation this weekend so I stayed at home and did nothing :D In between I edited and sorted my photos every now and then, the rest of this post was written on the way. Don’t know if anyone is every going to read all of it but it’s a nice little archive for myself :)
The route:
Here is the route that represents my trip from July 9th to August 2nd: Klagenfurt (AT) » via Salzburg (AT) to » Gossau (CH) » Winterthur (CH) » Basel (CH) » Brussels (BE) » Dour (BE) » Kontich (BE) » Brussels (BE) again » Antwerp (BE) » Ghent (BE) » Bruges (BE) » Rotterdam (NL) » Amsterdam (NL) » Göttingen (DE) » back to Klagenfurt (AT)
The calculator says my trip was roughly 3,600 km long. It’s a pretty accurate number since I had the GPS logger (and corrected some of the routes by hand), the actual length should be a little over this number since a few times the GPS logger didn’t work in the trains or metros because it lost the connection.
Here’s the Google Earth image of the route:
(click for a larger view on my route!)
And now I continue with the “diary” that was written on the way, including the detailed map of where I’ve been in each city and some images. The whole gallery will be featured on flickr, see the link below.
2009-07-09 08:57
I’m in the train to Salzburg where Sonja and Wolfi from Linz are going to pick me up. Venkman gave me a lift to the train station, I’m just so lazy. It was raining and I hope the weather will be better once I leave Austria, because there’s been way too much rain already, so it would be nice to have better weather for once. There’s the GPS logger next to my Netbook, hopefully logging every 2 minutes to get a good idea where I am all the time. Makes mapping photos afterwards so much easier :)
Two slight glitches though at the start, nothing dramatic. For starters I forgot my baseball cap, but I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing I forgot. Immediately checked for the more important stuff to be here: ticket, money, credit card, passport. Check. Check. Check. Check. Netbook. Check (Duh…). Camera. Check. iPod. Check. So far so good. The second glitch was that my trip is longer than 22 days and I totally forgot to count the days that my ticket is valid. So for going back home on the 1st and 2nd of August I won’t have the Interrail ticket any longer. Will have to find something cheap to get back. No big deal but apparently the ÖBB can’t change the ticket, can’t take it back and can’t give me a new one that’s valid from Sunday on. Even though I didn’t even use it yet. Stuuuupid.
Nothing that would change my mood though, I’m on holiday now, that’s all that counts. The shitload of work coming up as soon as I return (or, in the worst case, sooner) must be ignored for now.
2009-07-11 10:27
In my tent in Gossau, just had a quick breakfast. It’s been great already, seeing friends again and meeting lots of new people. Very interesting and everytime you notice that the world is a small place after all. And hell, I even already got couch invitations for Winterthur, Basel and Rotterdam in addition to the already promised couches in Belgium :D Yesterday was the start of this gathering, the real thing is tonight: the famous Paella, cooked by our hosts Vince and Anni. Looking forward… :)
Still, the weather could be better but if I had to choose I’d rather have this than rain. It was only a few drops so far but it’s actually pretty cold. Especially in the night. Of course I have my super light summer sleeping bag instead of a real, cozy, warm one… d’oh :)
People are slowly getting up now. We’re going to the Waterpark at 12:00.
2009-07-11 17:54
Back from the Waterpark (we were 70 people!), lots of fun and I had my Lomo Fisheye with the Submarine case with me. Unfortunately a lot of water got into the case and I don’t really know how. Camera still works and even the flash triggers, but I stopped making photos afterwards and rewinded the film. Hopefully the 20 something photos I took aren’t damaged or something.
Now Vince is still preparing the Paella and it should be ready in an hour, shutting down my computer now and looking forward for some food and drinks. Jakob will make 56 liters of Mojito again like last year (actually more than last year). Yay :)
2009-07-13 10:00
My tent is packed and on it’s way to Linz with Wolfi, I’m ready to leave but will hang around a little longer and then go to Lisa in Winterthur with Marianne (Norway) and Chris (England).
Yesterday we were doing Free Hugs in St. Gallen but the people in St. Gallen were a little suspicious about it :D still great fun and a BBQ at Vince’s afterwards.
After the Paella Jakob from Southern Tyrol was doing his famous Mojito and Vince publicly thanked the “Austrian-Italian Bastard” and Maurizio from Italy responded with “he’s not Italian” and me with “he’s not Austrian either” :)
People are slowly leaving now, will have to say goodbye a few times…
2009-07-14 11:00
Good morning! Having a sleep on a comfortable couch is so much better than sleeping in the tent when it’s cold. I feel refreshed to say the least :)
Left at 12:30 yesterday after helping Vince cleaning up and then went to Winterthur by train. Chris already left directly for Belgium so it was only me and Marianne.
In Winterthur I tried to search for a host in Basel and then we went shopping for some food. Cooking, Eating, Talking, playing Singstar. Damn. :) I shouldn’t be allowed to sing. Ever. And worst of all there were also songs in Swiss-German!!! For fucks sake.. well, it was fun though :D Now I’m going to see Winterthur, at least more than the train station or the supermarket :) Will leave for Basel at around 16:00 to get to my host and then there’ll be some Ultimate Frisbee in the evening.
I also worked on a rough route yesterday to know where I want to be and how long so I can start looking for more hosts in these cities or tell friends when I will be in their area.
While browsing around I found that I will be in Belgium not only for the Ghent festival but also there will be the Dour festival – www.dourfestival.be – I will stop by there on the 18th to see the Gaslight Anthem and the Dropkick Murphys :) Still need to look for a space in a tent though as mine should be in Austria already. Trying to find a host at the festival now, a few Couchsurfers already posted about going there together.. so… :)
Winterthur detail:
2009-07-14 17:00
Zürich main station, already in the train that will leave to Basel any second now. Today Lisa and me went to the Fotostudio, a photography museum in Winterthur where there were three exhibitions, very interesting, a lot of cool stuff. [Oh, yeah, train is leaving now.] After the museum we went for a drink in the old city part that is Winterthur and I have to say that it really feels like the old city part of Klagenfurt. Both cities have around 90.000 – 100.000 people living there and a very small city center. The interesting thing about Winterthur is that years ago it was only industry but then the factories went abroad to cheaper countries. So you have the city center and then directly to it the industrial part but they are still using the old factories for business purposes. For example an old train factory is now a supermarket and they still have large photos of the former times inside. Pretty cool stuff.
The grand Winterthur tour was probably even shorter than the Klagenfurt tour, which is funny. Still, the public transportation system is much better, but that’s the case in the whole of Switzerland when you compare it to Austria I suppose. Interrail made no problems so far, conducters sometimes don’t even check the passport.
I have to be more careful about the GPS logger though, already forgot to activate it a few times, for example I noticed on the train when we left Gossau to go to St. Gallen that I have left the device in the tent. Also, the Winterthur city walk was not recorded because I forgot to activate it. Wouldn’t have been many different location saves though :) I only started recording when I left Lisa’s place but at least now it’s recording the first longer route from Winterthur to Zürich to Basel. And from now on I just have to think about it more often.
2009-07-14 23:30
Basel is very cool so far and I haven’t even seen the city that much. Arrived at the train station and was about to buy a tram ticket when an old lady approached me and asked me if i wanted to have her day-ticket since she’s not going to use it any longer for this day. For free. Yay :)
Then I went to my host David and soon after we went by foot to one part of the Rhine river and swam with the current for about 20 minutes and got out at another part of the river. That was so cool! During sunset, a little cold, but still a nice view and unique perspective :) Another Couchsurfer joined us for the swimming (actually more floating than swimming :) and afterwards having a few drinks. Now we left because the weather got worse and worse. Time for a shower. I hope I’m allowed to use it, you never know with these crazy hosts nowadays :o)
2009-07-16 13:28
In the train from Basel to Brussels where I’m scheduled to arrive at around 20:00 with a little delay already because of the French border patrol doing… stuff…. in the train in Basel main station. Hope to be in the right train though as there were some announcements but all in French :D The sign said Bruxelles so this should be about right.
I left Basel with an urge to come back, it’s a very nice city and swimming was fun the other day. Walking around, looking at places and buildings was interesting as everything looks well preserved and there’s lots to see in the smaller streets as well.
What struck me was that apparently there are none or at least very little traffic lights in the center, at least for pedestrians as far as I remember. You just go and the cars almost always stop for you.
While walking around and crossing the various bridges over the Rhine I ended up at the Kunsthaus Basel and my host David told me the day before that there is a Van Gogh exhibition going on that apparently is huge and one of the major exhibitions in Europe this season. So I went in, not very cheap though. Around 22 Euro, but then again they say that it’s not very likely that they get so much Van Gogh paintings together any time soon. The focus on this exhibition was on his landscape paintings, except his famous self-portrait there was only one portrait which he always wanted to see hanging next to a landscape painting of his (at least that’s what they told me based on letters vom Van Gogh to his brother). The rooms were based on various stages in his short life, Netherlands, Paris and the South (?) of France and I was lucky enough to be there just when a tour in German started so I went along. Lots of information and apparently they could now say for almost certain that Van Gogh didn’t cut his own ear but rather a fellow painter who’s name I forgot that he was arguing with. If you want to know it there’s a book called “The Ear Of Van Gogh” :) Also I didn’t know that he was so young when he died (mid 30s if I remember correctly) and that he committed suicide by shooting himself but he only died two days later from the injuries. So you see, lots of interesting stuff and there was more. Probably Wikipedia would be much more elaborate if you really want to know.
Next to the Kunsthaus there was the Cartoon Museum and they also had an exhibition that I went to. It was about sex and erotic in cartoons throughout the time and also the subtle and not so subtle hints and mixtures about stages from erotic to pornography. Also, interesting but I thought there could have been so much more, it was rather short.
Then it really started to piss in Basel and I found shelter in a McDonald’s. Gladly, McDonald’s offers free wireless lan in all of Switzerland as well.
Oh, now it seems that the customs control is coming up to me next, we’ll see what they have to say about the huge amount of drugs I’m trying to smuggle.
Boooooooooring!! They really asked the guy from the USA opposite me a lot of questions (he’s a professional athlete, 400m hurdles specialty) and went through bits of his luggage but I only had to show my passport and tell them that I’m a tourist on an Interrail trip through Switzerland on my way to Belgium and that I don’t have 10.000 EUR or more in cash or valuables with me. As if..
OK, back to the rest of Basel. So I waited until the rain stopped and therefore had the chance to continue planning my trip and sending couch requests and made a more refined plan for Brussels/Dour/Kontich/Brussels again/Antwerp/Ghent and then I got in touch with my host David. We met up with friends of him at the Basel City Beach – an artificial beach on the top floor of a big parking house at the Messeplatz. Beach, pool, Beachvolleyball, Bars… pretty awesome and an excellent view over Basel. We were there until sunset and then went to the Rhine river for some pasta. No pizza. Pasta. I ate pasta. Me. Spaghetti. Me. Spaghetti. If you know me than you know what that means. And I ate all of it and it was good. There, I said it. And the universe is still there and did not implode, explode or whatever. Interesting. Still, please don’t tell my Mum :D
Basel detail:
yeah the GPS logger is very precise :)
Stopping at Selestat train station right now, just for the record. The surrounding area looks like Carinthia with a lot of acres and it’s 14:10 by now.
2009-07-16 19:35
Almost in Brussels. Played with the GPS device a bit and noticed that I had a gap between Selestat and Luxembourg, my fault as I didn’t restart the device after it was plugged in. Now I know better :/
2009-07-19 13:21
Brussels train station. Waiting for the train that will bring me to Kontich to visit Ben who is house-sitting there. Brussels / Belgium in general was great so far, will return to Brussels for Monday/Tuesday but I like it so far. I will get fat here though. Waffles. Chocolate. Fries. More Waffles. More Chocolate. More Fries. You get the point.
Arrived here in Thursday night and headed directly to my host – Esteban from Argentina and Lisa from Brussels. It was really great, we took the bikes to drive to a Friteria to start my Belgium stay with typical Belgium food and on the way we even passed the Basilik, the biggest church here. We stayed up late and I didn’t only learn things about Belgium but also about Argentina :D
The next day Esteban gave me a map and suggested a route to walk so I headed for the center. After I got out of the train station I switched my camera on at the same time as the first water drop hit the floor. It rained for about three minutes – long enough for me to find shelter, pack the camera in the backpack and pull the raincoat over the bag. As soon as I was finished it stopped raining and besides a few little drops it didn’t rain again during the day. Lucky me. Brussel itself is a very nice town. Walked around for a whole day to see the center, of course also the Mannequin Piss and the European Parliament, Jubelpark and the Atomium. Picked up lots of food during the day, including some very fancy (and very tasty) handmade marzipan chocolate from Masons.
In the evening I met up again with my hosts who picked me up and we drove a little out of town with the car to celebrate the start of the mussels season by going for diner. There I also tried Kriek for the first time – Belgium Cherry Beer. Tasty :)
Saturday I left Brussels to go to Dour for the Dour festival to see The Gaslight Anthem and the Dropkick Murphys. It was huge and people told me it’s the best festival in Belgium because “Rock Wechter is way too commercial”. Met up with a few other Couchsurfers from Norway, Belgium, France who met up and set up a CS camping spot :)
Loved the performances of GA and DM and was very close to the stage, also making some lomo photos of GA. Still, not so many people for GA as compared to DM 3 hours later – DM easily filled the whole place. The Pet Shop Boys where scheduled to play after the Dropkick Murphys at the main stage but I went to the Belgium Air Guitar Finals. Unfortunately, a lot of people already where there so I didn’t really see anything. Fun though :D
Got tent-hosted by Stoffel from Ghent who also is a Couchsurfer and he already offered me his couch in Ghent :) He went to sleep at around seven in the morning, a few hours after me I think and I left at 10 to go back to Brussels to pick up my stuff at Esteban’s. Hope I’ll be in Kontich soon, need a long shower :D
But so far so good. :) Exactly two weeks left to explore more of Belgium and the Netherlands :)
2009-07-19 14:02
Five minutes of sitting in the train and it really started to piss down. Combined with all the wind even the area with a roof over it is already soaking wet :)
2009-07-19 14:20
You know that a place isn’t worth a visit when even the conductor on the train asks you during checking your Interrail ticket why you’re going there :) No rain any more but also no GPS signal. The same happened on the way to Dour, probably it’s a problem to get a signal in some trains?!
2009-07-20 14:20
Exactly 24 hours since the last note haha. Well, on my way back from Kontich to Brussels. Kontich really is in the middle of nowhere with not much to do. Visiting Ben there was fun though and he cooked for us (Green Curry Chicken, spicy and eggs in the morning). He’s not only house-sitting there but also sitting three rabbits, two cats and one hell of a weird dog. A greyhound, retired racer probably (“Retired Greyhound racing dogs for Dummies” was in one bookshelf) but a very strange dog that is. Doing nothing out of own interest, just following us around or lying there. Looked depressed somehow. Not even wanted to play with a ball or anything. Not even wanted to run outside. At least we tried (Ben has been trying for some time now haha).
Not sure now what I am going to do in Brussels now, besides having lunch and then making plans. There are a few CS events in the afternoon/evening, because there will be a national holiday in Belgium tomorrow.
Brussels detail:
2009-07-22 01:30
So on Monday I was going to my other host in Brussels, Prestina, to meet up and go to the city for another kind of city walk, a tour given by another Couchsurfer which included a few things that I already saw when I explored the city the first time but he managed to provide some actual interesting information, that was cool. After that we went to Bal National 2009 which was basically a huge party with DJs and live music at some place where we stayed and ‘danced’ for quite some time. The next day we walked around Brussels a little more just because of the national holiday and then Bart, Geoff and me went to Antwerp to Bart’s place.
It started to rain but finished again pretty fast so we went for dinner and then visited the Kulminator. The Kulminator is a famous bar in Antwerp where they sell around 800 different beers and I drank two of them. 9% and 10%. After that we walked around a little in Antwerp and then went to Jenever, a bar with a lot of different kinds of Schnaps-like drinks where I had cactus and pineapple and herbs. Tasty. Tomorrow I will explore the city and also try to find a small tripod for some night shots in Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges.
2009-07-23 01:25
Almost the same time as yesterday. Walked around in Antwerp longer today, really nice and I covered a lot of space, but I still got a few things to see tomorrow during the day. Been to the photography museum which was practically a bargain: 6 EUR for 3 exhibitions, 2 of them very good and one more about historical development, but the other two were great. Also, the Stadspark of Antwerp is sweet, great to spend time there, took a lot of photos of cute little bunnies :) For once, the Canon 70-300 came in really handy :) The weather was OK, quite hot at times but also cloudy and always on the verge of rain. And pretty hard light which makes it so difficult to take photos. Maybe I just don’t know how to work my way around that :D
After I got back to Bart’s place I went to go play Basketball with Geoff and Stefan. We ended up playing against 10-12 year olds and those were some sneaky bastards :) Lightning fast and very good when it comes to throwing the balls. Height advantage? Not so much :) But a lot of fun. It was constantly dripping, not so much of actual rain but enough to make the street wet and most important slippery. The kids were good sports and having fun is all that matters :) After that we went for some drinks, of course without the kids. Then it really started pouring down. Gladly, we were inside. I think I won’t make it to my desired night shots because tomorrow night will be Kulminator night again and Ben is coming for a few drinks from Kontich. Wuhu :)
Antwerp detail:
2009-07-24 12:35
I will arrive in Ghent soon, looking forward to see that place. A little later than I expected but (a) Antwerp was fun and (b) I slept a little longer than expected today :)
Kulimnator last night was great again, tried a lot of different beers and in the end I even bought a 1984 (!) Chimay beer. For a 0.33l bottle it was rather expensive but it should be fun to drink that on my birthday in almost a month :) And even Ben paid us a visit and around Midnight I guided him back to the Bus station and went to the train station to take some photos at night. Soon after I started however I got a police escort to the exit. The train station was closing..
Will probably stay in Ghent for only one night and then make my way to Bruges.
Ghent detail:
2009-07-26 02:57
Should have stayed in Ghent one night longer to make sure I actually have a host in Bruges. Went here with a few pending requests, none of which were answered. As I arrived in Bruges I was going to a bar with free wifi and made some more urgent requests and looked for some hostels, ended up finding a hostel around the corner, went there and learned that it was already fully booked. Spent some time at the bar area with a few people from Canada and the States and somewhere else, talking, finding out that one was a fellow Couchsurfer, introducing the rest to it as well. Using the wifi to search for other hostels only to find out they were all fully booked. Didn’t want to go to a hotel for 70+ EUR and staid there until we got thrown out around 1 am. There was one guy left from the States, Chris, who also was “hostless”/”hostelless” and we partnered up to pull an all-nighter. We went for 200m to the next open bar where I’m writing this right now. “Ene klene Nachtmuzik” it’s called and I do hope they don’t close any time soon. I’m afraid they will, though. Nice music, nice talks with Chris who is originally from New York, no Couchsurfer but a free and open mind. He’s asleep on the table now, probably shouldn’t have ordered the Ename tripple (11.3%) :D Also, he barely touched the Genever, which I said he should try as long as he is in Belgium… he made a one-day only trip to Bruges and now I feel kind of like the Belgium-Expert :D Gives me time to write this.. it’s funny and I learned another valuable lesson: don’t go to any city where you don’t have a host. I do have a host for tomorrow in Rotterdam but if you don’t have a host and don’t want to go to an expensive hotel you shouldn’t go to a city without a host. Thought it would be easier with sending short-notice requests and with using networking, but that was probably too short-notice and didn’t work out in the end. Fun fact: I made 3 requests for a couch in Ghent, all of which were answered with a yes within a few hours. And that during Gentse Feesten. The requests in Bruges weren’t even read when I arrived here, some 12 hours after I sent them.
Well, I don’t mind, another experience I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Still, the original plan was to arrive in Bruges, go to a host, drop my stuff and leave the city to do some night shots with the tripod since Bruges is a beautiful place to visit after all. What I didn’t account for was not having a host, so Chris and me decided to play it safe and stay indoors where it’s warm until we’re about to be thrown out. Just to avoid walking around in the cold. Works good so far but I have no idea when this bar closes. Already found another bar on the use-it map that’s opened until at least 5 am so we’re fine for most of the time and could go on to breakfast directly. But as I said, Chris is sleeping on the table :)
And I’m slowly feeling the alcohol and the lack of sleep from the night before. Yesterday I was in Ghent at the “Gentse Feesten” which is a 10 day street festival in Ghent. My host was working (barkeeper) but I met up with some other Couchsurfers (along with people I already knew from Antwerp and Brussels) and we were having a lot of fun and ended up at the Boomtown-something – live Belgium folk music, very cool, a little Irish, a little Scottish and stuff, instrumental, liked it a lot, people were dancing. Btw WOW, the typing speed is still amazing :D Anyhow, Ghent was great, very beautiful city. I only wish that I would have seen Ghent without the Gentse Feesten because it was very crowded and there was decoration all over, so no chance to see the “original” Ghent. Very nice and preserved town. They say it’s like Bruges but with stuff going on. So far, I can’t tell because I did focus more on finding a place to sleep which didn’t quite work out. Will have a deeper look on Bruges tomorrow. Maybe if we get thrown out I’ll do some night shots, but we’ll probably go for another bar that’s open just to play it safe with outside temperatures being a little low :) I’m not going to freeze though. Hopefully.
2009-07-26 09:15
At the main place in Bruges, recharging the batteries of the netbook and the GPS logger. At 5am we went for some fries (“pre-breakfast”) and then found an open disco. We left after 10 minutes. It’s better to be out in the ((not so) cold) open than in a disco in Bruges :D So we walked around until around 7am when we found an open bakery and bought breakfast. Chris then left for the train station and I’m waiting here for the Belfry to open to go up. Some narrow 366 stairs that is. And my feet already hurt from all the walking in the past two weeks. Still, I think I’m not going to see any more of Bruges after this as I don’t have a place to safely put my big backpack and the train station is too far away to go there, come back and go there again. Pitty though as the weather seems nice for once. Will go directly to Rotterdam via Antwerp then.
Bruges detail:
Are you fucking kidding me?? :D
2009-07-27 11:39
Finally a long sleep and refreshed. Arrived in Rotterdam yesterday and not only got a “couch” but a great meal as well. Fun fact: My host actually asked me for a couch in Klagenfurt three weeks ago and I had to say that I’m travelling through CH/BE/NL and everything. He said I should let him know if I’m in Rotterdam. I did let him know so in the end he is hosting me :)
Now that I’m up I’m going to walk into the city and then the harbour as well.
Rotterdam detail:
2009-07-29 12:17
In the train to Amsterdam, I literally got the couch confirmation 1.5 hours ago as again it was too short notice and Amsterdam hosts are swamped with requests all the time. I didn’t write to just anyone of course so I was prepared to find a Hostel or come back to Rotterdam to sleep where I staid with Birgit. After all, I have an Interrail ticket. But I wrote in the Amsterdam group that I’m still in need of a couch and just got a message from a guy from Canada who is living in Amsterdam since quite some time. On my way there now.
Rotterdam is a very nice place, not so touristy in my opinion and with lots of great stuff to see when you’re just walking around the city. Like, a huge statue of Santa Clause with a butt plug in his hand. Or sculptures and art installations wherever you go. On Monday I couldn’t check some of the places I wanted to go to because they were closed but at least on Tuesday I managed to go to the photography museum which had a pretty big exhibition on Brazil. Not only photos but also Posters, Advertisements, Videos, Books and other stuff more related to lifestyle and art in Brazil.
Yesterday night my host and me went to the CS meeting in Rotterdam with around 30 people I think, in total a surprisingly large group of 6 people from Austria as next to me and Birgit there were also 4 people from Linz who are Couchsurfing for their first time :) It got quite late and getting up was a little hard but I think I’m going to be alright :) Fun fact: After seeing me at the Paella in Switzerland and now again in Rotterdam Birgit welcomed me with something like “oh, you did gain weight in Belgium”. Flattering.. :D
2009-07-30 19:28
I think I found out why I had a hard time getting responses through Couchsurfing lately: the email delivery is hugely delayed, in a few cases for around eight hours. Explains a lot.
Amsterdam is beautiful and there’s lots of stuff to do. After arriving at my hosts place we talked for quite some time and got along very well, cool guy! Then I just walked around a little in the city to see what it’s like. I went home at some time in the evening because I still felt (a little?) hung-over and wanted to have a quick nap and then go back to the city for some night shots. Again, I failed with my plan of making night shots in a city because I just kept on sleeping until 22 and then ended up spending more time with my host. Time well spent though.
Then today I got up early to rent a bike and go to the Anne Frank house, but there was already a large queue and I decided to go to the photography museum. Not that impressive, Rotterdam was way better in terms of the photography museum. After that I was at the Dutch Resistance museum and that was something very great and moving, like the place of information next to the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. It’s a permanent exhibition on the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and not only the Dutch Resistance but also the collaborators. A must see in my opinion, I was there for roughly 2 hours.
Renting a bike in Amsterdam is the thing to do by the way! You’re almost the king of the road :D In Belgium and the Netherlands the cities are very bike-friendly which is surprising if you come from Austria and especially Klagenfurt as Klagenfurt was voted the worst city to bike in in all of Austria :)
After that I went to my host’s again and we went for a bike tour. Exhausting 4 hours that were. A lot of wind all the time but still a very nice trip outside of Amsterdam with a few little villages on the way. And right after we got back home again it started raining down a lot. Good timing. Bad timing: I have to get out now again because I have a ticket for the Anne Frank house.
Not-so-much-fun fact: my camera is useless now. Since I got it second-hand the Tokina 12-24 F4 mostly didn’t really work in any other mode than aperture mode F4 and the camera would crash if I changed the aperture. Now I got along fine with that setting most of the time but now even F4 won’t work anymore. I switch the camera on and it crashes. FUCK!!!!! I still have the 70-300 but well.. the only good thing I can see there is that it happened almost at the end of my trip, not at the start. Now off into the rain.
Amsterdam detail:
2009-07-31 10:35
In the train to Hilversum->Hannover->Göttingen. My trip is almost over, now will be the hopefully relaxing end with a birthday party of a friend tomorrow in Göttingen and the ride back home on Sunday. Still don’t really know the connections and how to get home cheapest but I will check once I’m in Göttingen. I expect to be home late on Sunday and have to get up early on Monday to go to work… that should be fun… and Wednesday I already leave again for Sofia until the end of the week.
Now what can I say, my trip has been amazing so far and I’ve met so many great people and saw a lot of interesting things and maybe really gained a little additional weight in Belgium :D Now if only I could have a few days off to relax after that “vacation” :o
2009-08-02 09:15
On my way back home. I’d almost say finally because I’m a little exhausted and look forward to stay at my own place for some time, but then again, I’m leaving again pretty soon. At least I can look forward to a long bath :)
Göttingen was pretty cool, nice little town the size of Klagenfurt but much more a student town than Klagenfurt. But no chance to relax since there were two BBQs/birthday parties in a row on Friday and Saturday with lots of people and me probably being the only one that never studied :D Lots of fun and interesting people though.
Fun-fact: one of four Mensa’s of the University of Göttingen is built in a former Kreatorium.
OK, time to get some sleep in this uncomfortable train, arrival in Klagenfurt should be in around 10 hours with a change in Munich and one in Salzburg.
Göttingen detail:
Flickr Sets
So here are the flickr sets for the different galleries if you want to see the rest of the photos:
Lomography launched a new camera this week: the Lomography Spinner 360° – featuring yours truly in the “manual” :D
