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Location: Blogs Simon and Melody's Blog |
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| Posted by: supersi |
Saturday, April 14, 2007 |
Mel’s big recruiting event week is here, which lands her (and me for a couple of days – hey someone needs to carry the pregnant lady’s bags, right?) back in Brussels. I had planned in advance to go to Amsterdam for Saturday, so as Mel was working I got up early to make the 2.5 hour train journey.
When one mentions Amsterdam, you sometimes get a funny look as if the only thing there is magic coffee shops and places of ill-repute. Although that side from the 60’s and 70’s does remain to some degree, it is much more a beautiful cityscape of canals and 17th-century town houses. During its “Golden Age” in the 1700’s, it was the centre of a vast trading network and colonial empire, whose wealthy merchants built their residences along its 160 canals and between its 1200 bridges. Also, it was Canada that liberated Holland after WWII, so they love Canadians! Not that I have ever been ashamed to don my red Canada Olympic team backpack anywhere in the world, mind you. Since the train didn't arrive until almost lunch time I decided to just stick to the local touristy stuff and hopped on one of the hop-on, hop-off canal boats.
One of the things I noticed about all those lovely town homes, is that at the top of every one there was a big iron hook attached to the roof. I found out that these are there to help with moving furniture in and out. Some of the homes are ridiculously thin, to the tune of only 5 feet wide in some cases. So how do they get the furniture in? They use the roof hook to haul it up the outside and in though the windows. Genius! These Dutchmen were onto something! How is it that they thought of this 400 years ago, and no house I’ve ever seen in England has such hooks? Or maybe it’s just the size of the foreign furniture that’s the problem, and not the size of English homes.
Anyway, the canal cruise was lovely. It was quite hot and sunny out so it was also a relaxing way to see the city. I spent the afternoon walking around and exploring some of the more famous canals in Amsterdam. I passed by Anne Frank House, the place where the young Jewish girl Anne Frank wrote her diaries as she hid with her family for fear of the Nazis. I also witnessed a troupe of breakdancers performing in a public square. I think they would have been more in-place in New York city, but it was fun to watch.
As the evening drew near I was very tried and headed back to the central station to double check the train times. I was supposed to catch a 19:38 train back to Brussels, and it’s a good thing I turned up early because apparently it was now leaving at 18:55! I got on and waited for departure. As mentioned before, travelling on foreign rail makes me a little nervous, even though I’m well used to it by now, so I kept my ears tuned at full attention for any announcements. They usually have an announcement about the stops the train will make, so as long as you can pick out the one you want you know you’re good to go. No announcement came, however, until the train was starting to roll out of the station. As soon as the crackle of the audio system came on, I perked to attention and focussed all my energy (and hope) on hearing “Bruxelles Midi” somewhere in there.
The announcement went something like this: “Madames et Monsieurs … blah blah blah blah – defective toilets – blah blah blah blah blah x20 …” At first I was worried because I didn’t remember seeing a stop on the route called Defective Toilets. Shoot! I’m going to end up in the middle of nowhere again! Will anyone speak English in Defective Toilets?? However, the giggles from the rest of the passengers at the end of the announcement clued me in to the fact that “defective toilets” (say it with a French accent) is actually English for “defective toilets” (say it without the accent). I still didn’t know where my train was going, but as I sat there looking out the window I conceded with myself that this announcement was probably of equal importance to knowing the destination of the train.
Apparently what had happened, was that the train I was now on was actually supposed to be the one two hours before mine, but had been delayed due to – well, you take a wild guess. Even if I didn’t end up back in Brussels, I was just glad I wasn’t responsible for cleaning up the mess! |
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