Day 1 - Mon Aug 23

After leaving Toronto the previous niqht at 2040h and not being able to sleep a wink during the flight, I landed in Amsterdam at 1000h local time. No matter though, as I was ready to go. Dini & her boyfriend found me near the train terminal at Schiphol and off we went to Amsterdam Centraal. As they are students, they were able to buy me a "companion" train ticket for near nothing. I was rather surprised by the familiar sight of copies of the "Metro" littering the train cabin.

We managed to get a hold of Winnie after getting off the train, and she arrived with her boyfriend a short time later. Under gloomy skies, we walked the streets of Amsterdam. Canals, bridges, bicycles, cobblestones, and confusing traffic flow all struck me. The city is built for walking & biking. I was told the names of many landmarks, and then promptly forgot all of them.

I will definitely remember pay-toilets. I would think that this promotes urination in public places...

After strolling past many shops and a place where "old ladies" live, we picked up some sandwiches at a broodjes place; I chose the peklevees, which is apparently some kind of bacon, though it tasted much like ham to me.

We munched on through a large flower market, and made for the Van Gogh museum. Afterwards, Winnie had to go home, and then Dini & Chris took me for a walk through the park. Next was pannenkoeken. Yum! And very filling. Dini tried to teach me the delicate art of eating these with a fork. A ride on the tram back to Centraal station was just on time, as the skies opened up.

They "put me on a train" to Rotterdam where I eventually found Liz & Yin Ling, and we went to dinner in Chinatown. I went back with Yin Ling to her house afterwards where she put me up for a night in her sister's room (Stephany was away having fun in Asia).

Day 2 - Tue Aug 24

Took the tram to Rotterdaam Centraal. The on-board agent, seeing that I was an anqlophone who had no clue how to use the system, struck up some talk with me. When told that I was Canadian, he noted that yes indeed I didn't seem like an American and was quite pleased. We shared tidbits about our respective homelands. He was kind enough to point out and give a brief history of various landmarks as we passed them, and recommended many things for my day trip.

My improvised self-guided walking tour included the Lijnbaan shopping area, Stadhuis, St. Laurenskerk, Beurs WTC, Hoogstraat shopping area, the bibliotheek, a nearby market, Kijkkubus (square houses), the Willemsbrug, De Hef (the largest "drawbridge" I’ve ever seen, with the centre span elevated some 15 stories to allow ship passage. I’m not sure if it ever comes down though), and the Erasmusbrug. Evident everywhere was the ultra-modern and often experimental architecture for which Rotterdam is famed. Sculptures and other artwork were in abundance on sidewalks, street corners, and even in the water.

The rain was getting quite heavy as I walked over to the museum park. My rain gear, consisting of a rain jacket and ball cap, actually kept me sufficiently dry and comfortable. Nevertheless I decided to duck into the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to escape the dampness. This turned out to be a marvellously fortuitous choice, as the museum houses a diverse and remarkable collection of art. Famous works included those by Rodin, Kandinsky, Salvador Dali, and Degas. Also very memorable was the haunting painting of the Tower of Babel.

Whilst making my way to Chinatown, I passed through an enormous public skate park that would be any skater’s delight. 100% steel construction! Chinatown itself was more or less one city block and it was more or less what you would expect a Chinatown to look like, with its collection of restaurants, bakeries, and magazine shops. The rain was coming down again, this time almost torrential, so I took cover for a few minutes before a brisk trot over to the hofsplein and an interesting nearby monument.

The rendez-vous back at Centraal station was at 1900h and in due time everyone eventually arrived. Dinner with Danny, Liz, Kwok-Tai, Cindy, Liz, and Yin Ling was at a nearby pub called Street Life. I had the dagschoetel, though I don’t remember what it was called exactly; it was some kind of beef or ground steak, washed down with Duvel beer. A small quirk was that I was politely asked to remove my ball cap, which I thought queer for a bar, but I didn’t mind (though my hair was predictably terrible underneath).

After just a couple of days in the Netherlands I think I had finally started to get the hang of pronouncing a few select words of their beautiful language. I remember when I first met these kids back in Taiwan, and I was quite charmed then by the new foreign language I heard them speak. In fact during my plane ride aboard Air Canada to Amsterdam, I was quite pleased to hear flight announcements made in three languages.

So during dinner there was quite a brouhaha over attempts to wrap my tongue around some certain words, in particular my intentional butchering of toegang, ingang, and uitgang.

It was decided that I would visit Brussels the next day with Danny, Cindy, and Liz. Therefore to save a little travel time, Liz graciously offered to let me stay with her family in Rotterdam (instead of with Cindy, as originally planned) for the night.

Day 3 - Wed Aug 25

Liz fed me some nice tea and cakes for breakfast and showed me some family pictures around her house. I always enjoy seeing family pictures, and I was pleased to also meet her mom and little brother during my short stay. Meeting and talking with siblings, parents, and other relatives is always great thing because it really helps me to get to know my friends better.

We made a quick walk over to the tram station, passing some kind of bird farm near Liz’s house. On this, my third straight day of using the tram, I decided the system is simply astounding compared to the junk we put up with in Toronto. I would estimate the walking distances to reach a stop to be comparable to those at home, though my sample size in Holland probably isn’t quite large enough for a good judgement. Their speed and reliability however, are simply fantastic.

Unlike in Toronto, the trains actually follow a schedule and are very on-time. This is probably in part because they travel on their own tracks (not having to share the road with cars) and have their own traffic signals. (At second glance, I see this is also true of the Toronto subway, but for some reason I can still out-pace the subway on my bicycle.) As a consequence, the trams travelled between stops at what seemed to be a very brisk speed. The tram cars all looked very new, very clean, and modern.

Admittedly the fares are quite a bit more than I’m accustomed to. The ticket I bought the previous day was Î 2.40 for a 20-minute ride (in comparison TTC cash fare is currently $2.25 for unlimited one-way travel). You can purchase your ride from an onboard agent who comes around to check everyone’s tickets. More common is to purchase a strippenkaart a priori, which is similar to the 10-ride tickets that we use at home for the GO Train. The fares are distance-based, so you stamp your card at the appropriate strip using one of the little machines on the train or at the station. The agent can also stamp it for you if you aren’t sure how many strips to use. At transfer points, there are additional agents standing at entrances to again check or stamp your cards. With such a system, I’d think that many people would try fare-cheating by "forgetting" to stamp their cards, but I suppose the occurrences are not serious enough to cause any great concern. The quality of the system indicates to me that their finances are in excellent order; it costs a bit more to ride, but you get what you pay for.

A world of difference jumped out at me in a very familiar place: McDonald’s. Danny and Cindy were waiting for us at Rotterdam Centraal so we jumped in Danny’s car and drove out to a McDonald’s along the highway. We decided to go inside for a bite instead of using the McDrive. Sin Yee was so nice as to buy me an "ice tea" and a McKroket. Ok first things first: in North America we call it "iceD tea", and it’s flat and very sweet. What I had in Holland was carbonated and not so sweet, which was actually well to my liking. (In contrast, I recall that in health-conscious California, the iced tea is also flat but has no sugar at all.) Now about this McKroket – a kroket is actually a common Dutch fast-food snack, which consists of a deep fried coating containing something resembling chicken pot pie filling. What kind of sauce and meat was inside exactly, I can’t say. But turn it into the shape of a patty and put it between a bun and you have a McKroket for just €1. Also available for €1 were two McDonald’s doughnuts, which looked very unappetising, though I found it a slightly amusing sight. In Canada, home of the highest per capita doughnut consumption on Earth, I guess we take our doughnut cornucopia for granted.

Brussels was only about a two hour drive from Rotterdam. The first thing that was interesting was the lack of a border crossing. This was very nice, as I am so very accustomed to getting hot pokers shoved up my arse when crossing into the US from Canada. The next fascinating thing was the gradual transformation of signs into other languages. As we crept further from the Dutch border, I started to see more and more French and eventually English. There was even Flemish, which is a version of Dutch used in Belgium. You really needed to open up your language eyes, as many signs were posted in only one language, some others in two, seemingly without preference.

We made stops at most of the places a single-day tourist would visit: Atomium, the Chinese and Japanese pavilions, the magnificent main square, and the Manneken Pis. Of course we had some Belgian waffles too. The rain dogged us for most of the day, but it was kind enough to let up a bit during the times we needed to walk outside. A particularly fond memory is the sight of Liz bundling up with a scarf in the middle of summer.

Dinner was at a Belgian restaurant, The Magic Reubens, where my six years of Canadian French training was finally put to meagre use. I had an authentic Belgian dish – some kind of beef carbonnade – with Belgian beer, of course. Thus far in my dinner outings, I always felt rather sheepish leaving a 10% or less tip, which is apparently the norm. So while the food seems slightly pricey, especially considering the Euro-to-Canadian exchange rate (about 1:1.6 right now), one has account for the 15% tax and 15% tip that we dish out at home.

I learned a lot during the time on the road through chatting with the others. Apparently police cruiser patrols are uncommon on the highways, but photo radars are quite abundant, which keeps the speed under control. It was interesting to see the braking of traffic when passing through known radar points. We got back into Rotterdam late at night (in part due to some detours caused by road construction) and Cindy took me on a train to Driebergen-Zeist. Her little brother picked us up and took us back to their home. I met her three brothers, mom, and dad, and they were all very kind to me.

Day 4 - Thur Aug 26

I suppose it is also the engineer’s eye that caused me notice a difference in all the doors. Firstly, they seemed to be slightly more sturdy and soundproof. Secondly, there are no door stops set in the frames; instead the stops are in the form of a lip on one side of the swinging door, which rests against the frame when closed. Lastly, instead of doorknobs, they use handles, which I think are much nicer.

The toilets were also quite different. Yes you can still sit and do your business, but there is much less water in the bottom, and the flushing action is directed much more like a stream or horizontal waterfall, which seems to scrub the porcelain better than the swirling action we’re accustomed to. The water-efficient paradigm was also true of the sinks and showers. Water was supplied at lower flow rates, but at a high velocity. We would do well to emulate this.

Cindy fed me some breads and cheeses and cold cuts, then took me to Utrecht Centraal to purchase my train tickets (to Germany). Again, I was feeling so very bashful about her taking such good care of me and going to such great lengths to accommodate me. I was rather surprised that I couldn’t pay for local train tickets using my credit card. The ticket machines could accept the Maestro credit card but not Visa, which debunks the latter’s decree that it’s "all you need", but anyway cash always works well. Regarding train tickets, I was lucky that most of my friends are students so that I could ride with them at a highly discounted price. It was also fortuitous that Sin Yee works as a ticket agent, and she was able to help me a lot through her familiarity and knowledge.

I took a train from Utrecht to Almelo, arriving earlier than I expected before noon. Again, the weather was terrible. Winnie found me at the station a little while later and we walked over to a nice Italian-style sandwich place for lunch with her boyfriend and his sister. Almelo is quite a nice place, with all the amenities that you would want and a pleasantly quaint feeling to it. Winnie and Song Ho took me for a walk around the city centrum, visiting the mall, an outdoor market (which closed up early due to the rain), and various shops, and we picked up some foodstuffs to be consumed later.

We had some very nice ice cream, stopped by the local church, and of course the windmill. We then stopped in at a snack bar run by Winnie’s "ah yi" and got a load of food to bring back to Song Ho’s place. There, they made me eat. And eat. They told me I wasn’t allowed to leave unless I finished everything. Dutch snacks look very very weird but they’re very tasty, I must say. Frikandels, krokets, and other weird things with weird sauces containing mayo, peanut butter, and barbecue-like stuff. It was quite an impressive amount of food, and proudly, I finished every last bite.

Near 1600h, Winnie had to go to work (well past the time she was supposed to show up), so Song Ho took me for a stroll round the local supermarket. This was actually a marvellous experience for me; to know the culture you definitely must know the food. The Dutch love their bread. As such there are many shelves devoted to things you can put on bread: jams, spreads, cheeses, spreadable cheeses, spreadable meats, etc. They also love their dairy. The selection of milk and yoghurt products was quite vast. They have a lot of different flavoured milk and many different yoghurt drinks. I picked out some mango milk which I later tried, and it really tasted more like mangoes than milk. Beer at the supermarket also seemed quite cheap. We picked up some Hoegaarden Witbier which, as it turned out, was to be consumed mostly by me.

After playing a few video games back at Song Ho’s place, we then went over to the restaurant to meet everyone for dinner. They really stuffed me silly. This included two pieces of haring, the latter of which I managed to consume in a single bite. The food was very nice, and again everyone made me feel so welcome.

After dinner we went to see "The Village". It was, well, strange. The particular theatre we went to provided a pre-movie laser show, which was rather cheesy but also rather neat. Also rather neat was the allowance of beer inside the theatre and the pee-break provided in the middle of the movie. Back at Winnie’s place, they made me eat some more. This time it was some fantastic Dutch cake that we had picked up earlier, along with more beer and some wine. Stuffed, yes I was.

Day 5 - Fri Aug 27

Well the day started with yet more eating, and before leaving, Winnie stuffed my bag with even more food, some of it without my knowledge. She kindly dropped me off at Almelo station, where I proceeded via train to Deventer, then on another train to Arnhem. I had an hour between trains there, but the cold and rainy (yet again) weather quickly quashed any notions I had of wandering far from the station.

The next train I boarded was the Intercity Express (ICE) to Köln. All I need say is these trains are marvellously equipped and marvellously fast; it is said that speeds of 300 km/h are reached on certain routes. On arrival at Köln, I hopped on another train for a short ride over to Bonn.

Total train travel time including waiting was a little over four hours. Kirsten did a good job of locating me at the station, and drove me back to their place.

The roads are, in general, very narrow. Fittingly, most cars are very compact. And fittingly or not, gasoline prices are absurdly high (by North American standards); try €1.25 (~$2.00 CDN) per litre on for size. Whether any of these is the chicken or the egg or the omelette is probably a moot point.

I must say, though, that I envy all those tiny cars; I'd choose many of them over any of the models available at home. The only problem is the lack of automatic transmissions, or, shall I say, my lack of ability to drive a stick.

Further reflection on this is cause for some embarassment. I'm accustomed to the unfortunate and often true stereotype of tiny oriental ladies who drive as if blindfolded. Having now been smartly chauffeured around by a few oriental ladies - Yin Ling, Winnnie, her mom, and her friend - driving manual, however, my world has been blown apart!

Jörg drove us from their place in Bonn to his parents' house in Dreisbach, providing my first taste of the autobahn. In general, the roads I'd seen thus far in Europe were in excellent condition compared to Toronto. (This is also true of some other cities I've recently visited, such as San Diego and Vancouver, to name two). Then again, they don't get such dramatically terrible freeze-thaw cycles combined with the sheer volume of traffic found in a metropolis. With these and the countless millions of associated maintenance dollars in mind, I suppose we can be excused if our transportation infrastructure at home is somewhat underwhelming.

Another feature of the European road layouts is that they are impossibly confusing, especially for one who has been raised on the gridiron system. There are really few true N-S or E-W roads; they just twist and wind in whatever direction suits them.

Upon arrival at the Ritter residence, I was introduced to Jörg's parents, who treated me very kindly. Jörg's mom had prepared an excellent dinner that included pork schnitzel in a cream sauce with onions and mushrooms. It was served with bread, which, as I learned, is something the Germans take much pride in producing. As such, almost every household has a store-under-the-counter motorised circular blade bread slicer thing.

Jörg's dad kept offering drinks to me, starting with some nice beers and then moving on to pine-flavoured schnapps and krappa. They were rather impressed that I actually enjoyed the unique tastes of the latter two. I was assured that this constant insistance on alcohol consumption was not in fact typical of the Germans.

After dinner we went to a local watering hole called "Matrix", where I was introduced to Mark, Cristian, and Benny. Everyone was quite enthusiastic about introducing me to the various beers that were available. By night's end I had indeed tried them all - altbier, pils, weizen, and kölsch. Altbier remains my favourite.

Day 6 - Sat Aug 28

Due to the events of the previous night, the day started rather late. Again, Mrs. Ritter provided an excellent meal – the potato salad in particular – before Jörg and I set off to go see the soccer match. Or, shall I say, football match. The drive to Gelsen-Kirchen took about two hours, made slightly more harrowing due to various construction zones along the way. Nevertheless, we arrived on schedule to watch Hansa versus Schalke.

The actual game was not bad, though not overly enthralling; I’ve seen better on television. The real entertainment for me were the atmosphere and antics inside the stadium. The first thing to strike me was the sheer number of people present. The official count was somewhere near 60 000 spectators. Of these, a large section behind the goal at field level was the designated "fan club". These folks, all decked out to a man in team jerseys, would sing and chant a vast number of team songs, almost as if pre-orchestrated, some even with synchronised gestures and "dancing". No need for cheerleaders here.

Almost humorously, the visiting team also had a fan club section. This was relegated to a far corner of the stadium, and separated from the other fans by a glass barrier. During the course of the game there was at times quite a battle of vocal chords reverberating back and forth between the two ends of the stadium. At half-time we joined the mad concession rush and picked up some beer. To speed up the lines, all payments were made using a prepaid card, which could be purchased from a separate counter.

Apparently Munich is the most detested team in the land. On this particular day, the out-of-town scoreboard showed Munich getting their arses whipped, and everyone laughed mockingly at each update.

The visitors ended up winning handily by a score of 2-0. After all the pats on the back were done, as per custom Hansa ran towards the corner of the stadium housing their own fans and saluted them, followed by headlong dives in the grass. Before going back to the parking lot, we got some nice concession sausages to complete the experience. We then decided to stop at a nearby gas station to get some beverages for the ride home. I was surprised to see the doors were locked up and they were selling things from the front window. It seems that this is normal practice to safeguard against hooliganism following football games!

After returning for supper again at the Ritter house, we headed over to Benny’s place and played video games for a short while. I was told that one particular character in the games resembled Mike, whom I would meet later in the evening, along with a few other new faces at a gathering at Johanna’s. We also picked up Kirsten at her house on the way to the gathering, so I had the pleasure of briefly meeting her folks.

Day 7 - Sun Aug 29

On this day, Jörg and I drove into Frankfurt where we met Katharina at the train station. Conveniently, she was in town to see relatives, and as such she’s quite familiar with the place and was able to act as an excellent guide for the day. We took the subway (I believe they call it the "underground") to bypass some of the not-so-nice parts of the city. If not for our guide, I would have been completely flabbergasted in trying to decipher the spaghetti collection of train routes.

Our first stop was at the opera house, followed by the stock exchange, and then the shopping district (which was unfortunately closed on Sunday). After posing for the token photos in front of the Goethe haus, we visited the old legislature building, which also housed an interesting Egyptian art exhibit in its cellar. I don’t quite recall the sequence of events that followed, but they included visiting Romerberg, the Paulskirchen, some old Roman ruins, and walking through a street market/festival along the banks of the Main.

We sat down at the market for some pork mit kraut and apfelwein. Walking along, Katharina pointed out many "typical" German things, for instance cutey-shaped cookies bearing words like "ich liebe dich" and other silly endearing phrases. She bought a bag of chocolate covered bread-like cookies for us to eat, which were quite fresh and yummy. After having our fill of food, sights, and sounds of the market it was time to go underground again and head to the Palmengarten.

The Palmengarten was quite an impressive collection of gardens and sights. Particularly noteworthy was a huge greenhouse that took you through several different climates ranging from rainforest to desert. Outdoors, there was a nice rock garden, and a pond in which you can find many fish and turtles, in addition to tourists rowing rented boats. One boat we saw deserves special mention; if my memory is correct, sitting in it were a couple and their two young kids, and yet it was the woman manning both oars!

Afterwards, a visit to the rooftop Dachcafe provided an excellent view of Frankfurt, accompanied by many unwelcome visits by wasps. Then back at the train station, we got our last taste of Frankfurt fare - a nice beef sausage for me, most closely resembling the North American hot dog. After that it was time to say goodbye and head back to Ritter central (though not before paying €18 for parking!).

The evening was spent at a local pool hall. Upon entering, each patron receives their own ordering slip, on which the waitresses record the evening's transactions (quite reminiscent of the dim sum system, though on an individual basis). In fact, this is customary in German pubs, with individual tabs written on slips or on coasters, so that there is no need to separate the bill come night’s end. Though even in other establishments where an "all together" bill was tallied, the servers had no problems with separating individual totals and making change on the spot. This was a welcome departure from some of the separate bill nose-thumbing that happens at home.

Anyway, there were a few more new faces on this night, and some pool was played though none too skillfully. There were also a few new beers to try. Additionally, I got a krefelder, which is beer and coke. Not bad, but rather diluted because of the coke. If it were mixed with a big strong 10% beer, then I think I’d like it better. There were also a lot of other concoctions that I didn’t have a chance to test: beer with Fanta, beer with banana, beer with apple juice, and so on. They even mixed various flavours of pop to yield new drinks.

Day 8 - Mon Aug 30

After a breakfast of breads, meats, and cheeses, we set out for Bonn. The original plan was to go pick up some food and groceries before going back to Kirsten and Jörg’s place, but silly me had to go pee first. So we made a pit stop back at their place and then visited some grocery stores.

The greatest thing that I discovered at the supermarket was the shopping carts. Wow! I was so overwhelmed. They look pretty unassuming, until you go and give them a push. Then you immediately notice that all four wheels can turn, giving the cart a silky smooth ride. The extra set of turning wheels (as opposed to only the front wheels turning) give the cart an extra degree of freedom (engineering-speak…yuck!). The result of this is that it’s possible to manoeuvre the shopping cart in basically any direction imaginable, including sideways, diagonal, and even spinning like a figure skater. Now that’s German engineering!

And now to come to the point of this subsection… Probably about half a year ago, when Jörg was in Toronto, I stumbled upon a very unfortunately-named product on the web. It was originally called Neggerkusser, and you can guess what that means. Later for political correctness, it came to be known as Super Dickmann. It was apparently a very popular treat for German kids. Now, not completely sure if this was just another hoax, I forwarded the link to Jörg, who confirmed indeed that these Dickmanns (Dickmen? hahaha) are really delicious.

So it was a slam dunk that I’d have to try some during my trip to Germany. That, and the soccer game. We had quite a helluva time trying to find a Dickmann at the supermarket. In the end, it turned out that they didn’t have any of the original kind, so we had to settle for Mini Dickmann. And what can I say, they’re delicious! The product they most resemble are Viva Puffs, but minus the jam and with wafer instead of cookie. Basically a fluffy marshmallow-like thing perched on a wafer, all covered in white, milk, or dark chocolate. Yum!

The other great food experience was the döner that we picked up for lunch. One of the quintessential "German" fast foods, I was told. It owes its existence to the Turkish, but it’s now become German because apparently nobody actually eats this way in Turkey. It’s really just some shavings of meat with vegetables in a flat bread, but in combination with its seasoning and sauces it’s just marvellous. Definitely beats eating burgers! Tanu stopped by to enjoy the döners with us. We would see him later in the evening.

Jörg took me on a half-day tour of Bonn. This included the Bonn University, the main square, the Bonner Munster, some ice cream, and the "crappiest" residence in Bonn where his friend lived, and an attempted visit to the city hall (which was closed). The highlight of the day no doubt was the Beethoven haus.

In visiting the place of Beethoven’s childhood, it was quite special to see letters written in his own hand and scores written in his own scrawl. We visited the attic where he is believed to have been born, and saw the very viola and piano that his own fingers had played.

Jörg cooked up a great carbonara for dinner, and Tanu arrived with Claudia afterwards. We went to a cozy little pub to hang out for a while, again seeing a few new faces. Then we headed to Carpe Noctem, a neat little club reminiscent of the Bomber (i.e. subterranean, cheap drinks, lively, and packed like sardines). On this particular night there was a special on Kölsch – €0.50 for a 200cc glass! Sure it was Kölsch (similar to Molson Canadian badness), but there was no beating the price. Even a half-litre bottle of Grölsch was only about €2.50. Claudia played designated driver and got us home safely. My wallet was still full of money even after two bars; I was so impressed.

Day 9 - Tues Aug 31

Kirsten and Jörg laid out a beautiful breakfast of breads, cheese, jams, spreads, cold cuts, and other condiments. One of the cheeses had bits of meat embedded in it (almost the opposite of the macaroni and cheese cold cuts that I used to like so much). In this area (and I’m sure many other areas) of Europe, mayonnaise and mustard is packaged in foil squeeze tubes, much like toothpaste. At first it seemed quite bizarre to be squirting mustard in this manner, but then again it is much easier than trying to use a knife to fish the last dregs from the bottom of a jar.

Another quirk of German culture that I haven’t managed to mention until now is the gradual intrusion of English into their language. Much like Chinese, sometimes they think it sounds cool to substitute English words into certain phrases. And also much like the Chinese, the use of these words is often totally wrong. One of the most humorous instances is the German adaptation of "handy" to refer to cellular phones, viz "Call me on my handy". Hahahaha. Cell phone stores are thus called "handy shops." It is thought that this is the terminology used in the English-speaking world.

Jörg had planned to take me to see the Marksburg castle, and so we went on this day. As we were approaching the town, we spotted an impressive castle overlooking the Rhein. But we weren’t in Marksburg yet, so we kept driving. Then we saw another castle. Ok, this must be it… but nope! Finally we found Marksburg and its castle after a bit of searching. With at least three castles in such close proximity, I concluded that the Rhein must have been a highly important passage.

Woe is me, the tour of the castle was conducted in German only, but Jörg translated what he could and I was also given a special English pamphlet. Memorable highlights include an impressive armoury, the torture chamber, and the privy from which crap would simply be deposited through a hole to outdoors. The walls were several feet thick, and all the features I’ve imagined from fables and bard’s tales were present – arrow slits, cannons, murder holes, narrow winding stairwells, and the like.

Pretending that we were visiting a friend, Jörg snuck us past the gates of the military base at Koblenz. After having a quick look, we went into town to have a walk around. It began to pour (again) so we stopped at a café called Einstein. Then on my request we went to get some more döners (mmm) and visited the monument of King Wilhelm. Many exciting photos were made.

Day 10 - Wed Sep 1

After breakfast I said my goodbyes to Kirsten and went off with Jörg to Köln. With just a few hours before needing to catch my train, naturally the one place to visit was the Dom. I have forgotten to mention thus far that my ISIC card (International Student Identity Card), came in quite useful in Germany. It was generally not much use in Holland, but for most of the admission fees I paid in Germany I got a student discount. The Dom was no different, as we bought admission to both the tower and the treasury.

The climb up the tower was 110m or so of the approximately 150m height. It wasn’t really very tiring because it was broken up by a few landings, such as the level at which the church bells were located. The winding stairwell was quite narrow and dizzying, and most of the stone steps had a dip in the middle created by the wear of thousands of feet marching up and down over the years. The view at the top was, needless to say, fantastic. The interior of the cathedral itself, with its sacred sculptures and relics, was equally impressive. The treasury exhibit underground housed a great many shiny objects from centuries past.

Before heading for the train station and farewells, I had my last döner. I’ll definitely miss all the good food and beers. And the dickmann too.

I took the ICE train to Arnhem, where there was an officer waiting to check our passports on the train platform. He scrutinised some quite closely, but when I handed him mine he simply saw the front, took a glance inside, and replied "Have a nice trip, sir." It could have been my Canadian passport, or maybe my innocent looks (yeah, right). Though, in general during my trip I found that people were quite pleased to learn that I’m Canadian.

Another train took me back to Driebergen, where Cindy’s big brother picked me up. Cindy was at the supermarket, but she returned shortly and began making her special "quiche" and some salad. Along the way she kept realising that she was missing some ingredients, so at one point she sent her kid brother to the store on his bike. Later, she sent him to the neighbour’s to see if they had any vinegar; I was really surprised that they gave him an entire bottle of wine vinegar for keeps. I suppose I’ve been living for too long in keep-out-of-my-backyard Toronto.

I showed LamLam what remains of my piano tickling ability, and tried to help him with a few things he was learning. They have a very nice piano. Ket arrived and soon dinner was served featuring Sin Yee’s lovely quiche. Again they made me eat quite a lot (though I was getting accustomed to this by now). Sleep that night was greatly needed and enjoyed.

Day 11 - Thur Sep 2

Cindy left quite early to take care of some administrative items at school, and thankfully let me sleep in. I had wanted to visit Den Haag and Utrecht before going home, so it was planned for us to go to Den Haag today. After Sin Yee returned from school and decided what she wanted to wear, she provided me quite a comical episode in trying to figure out the proper sock-shoe combination to match her attire. Girls will be girls. Me, I’d only brought four sets of clothes on my trip, and my choices were usually limited to whatever was clean.

Upon arrival at Den Haag and picking up some nice snacks (recommended by Cindy), we eventually managed to find Madurodam – essentially, miniature Holland. The miniatures were quite meticulously constructed, with details such as interiors visible through the windows, running trains and canals, and even live miniature trees. It was sometimes funny that as a tourist, I was able to recognise some landmarks that Cindy had never seen. Nonetheless she was very helpful in telling me about most of the places I didn’t yet know about, including the nudist beach. True to form, the miniature reconstruction included miniature sunbathers in the nude, and of course Cindy had to get a picture of that.

After having enough of being giants, we then went to the beach at Scheveningen and walked along the boardwalk. The weather was really just perfect for that. This was a place where one could conceivably spend an entire day; it was lined with shops, cafes, pubs, and restaurants. The beach was right there, and a casino across the street.

Danny joined us for dinner at a kip restaurant on the boardwalk. I started with carpaccio, which might have been just the most exotic dish I had during the trip. I ordered one of the fish entrées, which turned out to be not much more than your usual fish and chips, except that fish was battered with the Dutch-style crunchy coating (à la kroket). Afterwards, there was some more strolling and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and then Danny, nice guy that he is, drove us back to Den Haag centraal.

Day 12 - Fri Sep 3

My first day at school! I went with Cindy to some of her classes today. She thought I would be bored out of my mind, but I thought it was quite fun. I got to meet many of her friends, and see the place where she spent many long hours. Although I didn’t understand a word they said, I decided that the teachers were very good. I even took some notes.

In between classes I visited the lavatory, and discovered something quite interesting. With a lack of urinals, there were instead toilets with two buttons on the top. I hypothesised that the small button was for small jobs, and the big button for big ones. I was later confirmed to be correct, though I had to ask one of Cindy’s male friends since the damens toilets apparently didn’t have this feature. Also in between classes, we got some refreshments from the vending machine, which interestingly also sold cans of Heineken. Perhaps some people do find the classes boring…

The second class of the day provided some more fun. The size was considerably smaller, say about 20. So after a while the teacher decided that everybody would introduce themselves. A handful had already met me before class or earlier in the morning, so when it was my turn to introduce myself, quite a bit of giggling erupted. The teacher looked quite confused, and thought at first that I was going to be submitting my work in English, but Cindy quickly set that straight.

After that second class Cindy had enough time to quickly take me on a bus to the train station. As I would need to tell the driver to stamp my strippenkaart, she had me practice saying "Driebergen Zeist station". I’m sure I had Sin Yee quite stressed that morning, with worrying about getting to class and having to arrange for Kenneth to meet me somewhere during the day. Anyway she managed to schedule things so that Kenneth arrived at the train station almost at the same time that we did, so I got on a train with Ken we went to Utrecht Centraal.

I was a bit hungry so we found one of those vending machine walls where you can get Dutch snacks from little cubby holes with doors. First was a kassouflé, which amounted to battered cheese. Good. Then, the satékroket, which is, as its name suggests, a kroket with saté sauce. This was really good, and I will definitely have it again on my next visit to the Netherlands.

The main event planned was a visit to the medieval Dom, which is well over 100m in height and is apparently the first thing visible upon exiting the train station. Still, we managed to wander around for about an hour before finally stumbling upon this massive structure. The pictures can speak for themselves with regards to the architecture. The centre part of the Dom was destroyed by a tornado several hundred years ago, so in recent times permanent scaffolding has been put up to show the size and shape of the structure that once stood there. Due to our discombobulated demeanour on this day, we didn’t manage to find the entrance to the tower, but apparently you can climb up.

Whilst in Germany, it was suggested to me that I ought try friekandels and vla while visiting to Holland. Friekandels, check. Vla? Being a bit thirsty, Ken took me in search of beverages. Ken said vla is quite thick. So at one store I bought a yoghurt drink, which he considered "not thick". Then back at the train station we decided to buy a one-litre carton of vanilla vla. It was the only size available.

Well what can I say, vla is really something else. We poured it into cups like a drink, but I would best describe its taste and texture as a thick creamy pudding. It’s a dairy product, and looking at its nutritional information I discovered that each cup contained something horrendous like 200 calories. It’s certainly not what I would call a refreshing beverage, but perhaps as part of a nice breakfast it would be quite good.

Somewhere along the way, we also visited an electronics and appliance store. The quality of washers, dryers, ovens, refrigerators, and coffee makers was quite impressive. Notably, no spiral element stove stops, and no top-loading washers. These subtle differences say a lot about what the Europeans value in their daily lives.

After the vla, we went back into the streets of Utrecht and chose a quiet café. Cindy had finished her classes and was on her way, and we met up with her a short time later. Tiny thing that she is, she eats quite a bit, so we went to McDonald’s for some food. No food for me, however; the vla had done me in! After that we visited Ket at his workplace in the mall, then went to help Cindy pick out a few things at the department store.

Some more edible features were emphasised there. Amongst the bulk foods were quite an impressive amount chocolate goods and other candies, but one of the most abundant in varieties was black licorice. They had many different sorts of licorice goods and licorice candies, all in black. Back to the train terminal again, where we said bye bye to Ken, and the reamining three of us went back to Driebergen.

Sin Yee was quite exhausted by the time we were back at her place so she went for a nap. I spent some more time with her little brother on the piano, and really had a good time talking with him and their mommy. As always, I learned a lot through these conversations.

Later in the evening I went with Cindy and friends to a club in Bonnik where they were having an Asian night. I tried a beer at first, but it didn’t impress me at all. So for the remainder of the night I had only shots or liquor on ice, aided of course by the generosity of some friends, which had the usual deleterious effects on my disposition.

Day 13 - Sat Sep 4

Thank goodness for Cindy. I had 12 noon flight, and had set my watch alarm to wake me at 8am. What I didn’t remember is that I’m a decidedly heavy sleeper after going out the previous night, so the puny beeping of my watch didn’t so much as stir me, especially not after just four hours of sleep. Just past nine o’clock, Cindy found me snoring heavily and came to wake me up. She also woke up her dad, who drove me to the train station after I was all packed and ready. If she hadn’t awoken, neither would have I.

Flying Air Canada back home, the announcements were made in English, French, and Dutch. The flight attendant spoke Dutch with some of the passengers around me as well. I had come to really enjoy the sound of Dutch, and I remember thinking that I should really relish these last few tidbits I was hearing on the plane. I can still hear the toddler boy behind me exclaiming "dank u wel!", and the stewardess asking him later after a snack, "Was it lekker?".

Though it may seem so from my trip itinerary, wherein I visited basically one city per day, I’m not really a sightseeing fanatic. What I really enjoyed most, and what I’ll remember the most, are the cultural experiences I had, the different people I met, the conversations we had, and the many things that I learned.

Above all I’ll remember the great kindness of all my friends. They taught me, in case I’d forgotten, that true friendships are unconditional, transcend all barriers, and are mutually enriching. My travels would not have been half as much fun without being able to see everyone, and if I had done nothing else but see them it would have still been worth the trip.