Site Visit: Hell on Earth

I made a deal with the Devil this weekend.

First, I lost a game of Russian Roulette. I’m not sure how you snoopers* play, but in this version our program director scheduled a three day weekend and encouraged us to travel. Accepting the risk in hopes of emerging from a weekend unscathed, I left my innocence and trust in European transit systems at the door. I will give you all the abridged version in case I write a memoir one day. We’ll circle back in a couple of decades so you can get the full story.

*For you new readers, I address all readers as “snoopers” due to this blog’s diaryesque tone and rejection of real words. 

Friday, June 28, 2024

Please read the next sentence to the tune of Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. I hopped on a train to the Hague and had a great time. Y’all can read normally now. I went to the Mauritshuis Museum to see the Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer but I must admit I don’t care much about this painting. Thank you, Vermeer, I understand what you’ve done for society but I think you have enough fans without me. My favorite painting of the day was Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher by Johannes Moreelse for nothing more than I like mischievous intellects.

Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher, Johannes Moreelse, c.1630.

Afterwards, I went to the beach in Scheveningen. The wind forcefully buried my beach towel and myself in the sand, which upset me, but it wasn’t anything some good ol’ Japanese gin couldn’t fix.

Day: 9/10. The sand was sharp and my skin is too delicate for that. I’m a lady.

Saturday, June 29, 2024

I don’t want to reuse the Party in the USA bit but I think it could be cute if you snoopers chose to do it anyway. I hopped on a train and went to Utrecht. I wanted to see the famous flower market, Janskerkhof Bloemenmarkt, and I did. I crushed it. I bought pink flowers for my professor who had COVID at the time and I didn’t even cry when the Dutch saleswoman was harsh. So awesome.

I decided it was high time I saw a castle, so I hopped on another train and went to Kasteel de Haar. I do not know anything about this castle because the museum tickets were too late in the day, but I do know that the gardeners of de Haar are really good at their jobs. Thank you, gardeners.

This is me pretending I am not taking a photo of myself in front of this castle. 

Hopped on a train back to Amsterdam, and had a nice rest of my evening.

We’ve met this cat before. I’m just showing you how the rest of my day was lovely. 

Day 10/10. I give out 10s pretty easily. I’m a happy girl.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

The Beginning of the End

I am literate in English but cannot read the signs the universe sends me. If any snoopers are or know of a translator, hit me up.

One of my close friends lives in Marburg, Germany, so we thought it would be completely peaceful to meet up with each other while I’m on the same continent as him. Idiots.

Prior to hopping (I am purposely using hopping a lot because you will see the mighty fall I took. Spoiler alert) on this train, I bought a chocolate croissant and coffee from the train station’s Starbucks. I didn’t want Starbucks, but it was the only cafe open and not completely packed before I embarked on a 3-hour journey. When I walked in, I asked the barista for a cappuccino. I kept speaking so I could order a chocolate croissant and she interrupted me. That’s fine. It’s early and she’s doing her job. She asked me for my name, then if I spelled Stephanie with a PH or an F. I instinctively just began spelling my name, S-T-E- until I was cut off. She then informed me that she simply needed to know if it was a ph or an f. Now, she could have just kept listening and  she would have gotten her answer. Again, that’s fine. I told her PH. Finally, it was my time to ask for a chocolate croissant. If she could have legally spat on me, she would have. She scolded me that it was “chocolate au pain” not “chocolate croissant.” Did I mention this was a Starbucks? Or that she clearly knew what I meant at 7am and that my Bambi eyes show how scared and vulnerable I am at all times? Please just give me a croissant? Eventually, I leave and am reading a book on the train. I move my cup to make space for my glasses. Then I see it. My name on the cup.

S-T-E-F-A-N-I-E.

I don’t know what game this barista was playing but it was rigged from the start. She didn’t spit in my face but she surely spited in it. There’s no real reason to tell this story besides that I was nearly bludgeoned on what will be one of the worst travel stories of my life.

Let’s Fast Forward

My friend and I had a lovely day. We went to the Beethoven Museum, the Botanical Gardens, drank beers in a park, ate yummy German treats, and experienced God’s wrath as a family.

It’s 20:00 and my train has been delayed. That’s fine. His train was leaving later so he could help me find a new train. Apparently if the train is delayed over twenty minutes, people can take a different one without buying a new ticket. The train got delayed by ten minutes, then thirty, then an hour, then it decided not to exist at all. Same with his.

It’s uncomfortably hot in this train station. Everyone is on edge like in that scene in The Great Gatsby when they’re in the hot apartment in New York.

After finding an outlet to charge our dying phones in a McDonald’s, we took a tram to a different train station in a city I cannot pronounce but is pictured below in hopes of taking a train from that station. On the way, those trains became delayed or cancelled. Awesome. I was now officially trapped in Germany.

Ironically acting like this station was ever an intended destination. It was that or cry. 

It’s 00:00 now and the only two options are to get a hotel room or taxi to his apartment in Marburg. The chances of lying my head in Amsterdam that night or attending the Van Gogh tour the following day were long gone. The taxi at the station offered us a ride home for two hundred eighty euros. Boy, bye. We walked to a Holiday Inn Express and were told it would be four hundred fifteen euros for the night. Okay, taxi time. The hotel gave us a taxi service number and we spent two hundred thirty euros to take the most terrifying car ride of my life.

This taxi driver was hustling, using three screens to run his taxi business as he was driving. He did not once drive in a lane but straddled two at all times, or three if we were drifting a corner. He went 70 km/hour at all times but amped up to 100 km/hour after he got caught for speeding. He almost hit a deer. I was so exhausted and scared I was almost jealous of the deer.

Finally, we get to Marburg and my friend’s lovely girlfriend set up toiletries and pajamas for me. We got to sleep four hours before I had to bike to the train station and take a six-hour journey back to Amsterdam. I was forced to sit next to two drunk Brits for two hours because my make-up ticket for the cancelled train did not come with a seat reservation. That’s not necessary to say but if you’ve spent time in Amsterdam, you get me.

This doesn’t sound terrible but let me list some helpful descriptors for the experience:

• Humidity like The Great Gatsby
• My day started at 06:00 and ended at 02:30
• Phone dying and not much left in the portable charger at all times
• My friend speaking German to station employees to beg for help so we could get home
• The taxi driver yelling in German from 00:00 to 01:30 while using three screens and committing felonies
• All of this started after my third beer

Whatever. I don’t care if not a single snooper understands the stress of this day. I had a great friend who laughed at each horror with me and made the entire fiasco bearable. I win. Also, yes. This was the abridged version. There were more horrors but I cannot relive them. Maybe S-T-E-F-A-N-I-E could, but I cannot.

Day(s): Do not try me.

Ando Dutch Cat Watch Count

12!!!!!!!!! Akash spotted this one but I captured it on my phone and got to pet it. SO COOL.

Not the best photo but I am so tired. Please accept.