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Europe Journal, Part 2
Posted 12 years agoDay 11 – Sunday, March 31, Easter Sunday:
Brothers and sisters, hear the Good News! Rejoice! Again I say, Rejoice! Rejoice, for He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!
Bit of a somber morning, today, as we had to make our final farewells to the crew. Also a VERY early day, today – DST apparently didn't go into effect in Europe until today, and we had to be up at 5 so we could get all our stuff out the door and have breakfast at 6. Now I know what dad feels like when he has to get up at 3:45 every morning.
We were bused to the airport, arriving at around 8-ish. Our flight didn't leave until 10:45, though, so we had lots of time to get to our gate. Said gate was not that far from where we entered, actually. Checking bags at Schiphol (the name of the airport) was pretty cool – there was no attendant, but instead, you place it in a little cell with a gate on it, and the floor tips up to carry the bag off to be loaded on the plane!
The flight was pretty short – less than an hour, in fact, with very little in the way of seeing stuff from the plane. Pretty much what a flight from Seattle to Spokane is like – the plane goes up, and, more or less, right back down again. Our destination, Charles de Gaulle Airport, was, in a word, amazing to look at. The airport itself was clearly meant to feel open, with its large, curving terminal windows and high ceilings, and the walkway from the plane was essentially one long, glass tube meant to permit travelers to see as much of the airport as they could.
One thing that set me on edge today, and sporadically across the rest of our stay here, was the presence of soldiers from the French Military (I assume Army, but I'm not certain). Normally, the sight of soldiers doesn't rattle me too much – indeed, seeing soldiers usually fills me with a great sense of pride (support our troops, America!), knowing that they are the ones who keep us safe back home, but there was one key difference – unlike the boys in uniform I'd seen before, these guys had their rifles at the ready, and on patrol (alright, so there were two differences, sue me). 3 guys patrolling the airport terminal, each with a FAMAS ready to fire at a moment's notice – not exactly a very comforting first impression about the country.
Driving from the airport was also a bit hectic. Our driver knew very little English, for a start, so we couldn't really ask him much. The shuttle also had a couple already on board, so it was a tight fit for all six of us, and I had to sit backwards. In addition, his driving was...frantic, to say the least. While I certainly didn't feel in danger, even dad didn't drive as crazy as this guy, and I was actually nauseated afterward. I NEVER get car-sick. On the plus side, his arrival meant we had to wait an hour less than we would've had to were it not for the assistance of the representative we met in the airport terminal.
Our arrival to our new ship, the Spirit, was...disappointing, to say the least. Granted, it was an older ship, but even so, it was quite lacking. For starters, the lounge was at the front of the ship, while the restaurant was all the way at the back, instead of both being at the front. It pretty much meant that we would have to wait in line to enter the restaurant each evening after our briefings for the next day's activities. Also, despite having paid the same amount as our friends we were traveling with, we somehow ended up in a cabin at the BOTTOM of the ship. Internet availability down here is, in a word, terrible. And the bedroom of my apartment at college had more space than this little closet they called a cabin.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We dropped off our bags in our rooms before we took a small excursion of Paris. One thing the ship had going for it – it was maybe 20 minutes of a walk to the Eiffel Tower from where we were docked, so we made it our priority to get there as quickly as possible. How awesome that we'd get to check one of the biggest reasons for going to Paris off the list almost straight away!
...Or so I hoped.
I had figured there'd be a line to go up the tower, but...not like this. NOT LIKE THIS. The twisting, compact mass of people waiting to ascend the tower would've been an hour's wait, probably even longer than that – and that was if you wanted to WALK up the tower. So, no Eiffel Tower yet. Still got some awesome shots of it as we traveled down the path behind it to L'Ecole Militaire (Military School/Academy).
Just before the military school, there was a large piece of art in front of the building – a modern arch with pillars and glass surrounding it, with the word “peace” in numerous languages printed on the pillars and glass. To my dismay, however, a few of the glass panes had clearly taken a hit from something, with the resultant spider-web pattern seen throughout at least 3 of them. One pane was even removed from the structure entirely; a result, we surmised, from having been completely shattered by a heavy impact – maybe the vandal had a shotgun.
As we wandered about Paris a bit more, we stopped in a cafe that had been referred to us by another of our friends who visited the City of Romance previously, and had some hot chocolate and a croissant for a midday meal. On a side note, we learned later that croissants actually are not French in origin – they're Austrian. Who would've guessed?
Resuming our jaunt, we eventually happened by Les Invalides (literally, “The Wounded Ones”), which was, at one point, a military hospital. It was also the site of Napoleon's tomb, but we would've had to pay to enter, and we decided not to do anything that required us to pay our first day in France (time being the primary factor here). So, it was one more thing we had to add of our list of things to do when the cruise was over.
It was another hour before we got back to the ship – just in time for an overview of the entire itinerary of what all was going to happen for the next week. Once the briefing was concluded, remember my mentioning of the restaurant being in the back of the ship? Seating was, indeed, at a premium because of this. Our first waiter on this cruise was a greenhorn – very by-the-book, I couldn't substitute the cheese plate for my appetizer (and the plate came after I'd left the restaurant, as well), and we couldn't order more than one plate per course. The main course I had was advertised as being a “grilled leg of lamb,” but it was fairly apparent that the leg wasn't grilled so much as it was baked. The rest of the meal was average, but not worth going into detail about.
Now, as to the room we were housed in. Being down at the waterline, the window didn't open – which also means no circulation, so taking hot showers fogs up the place. As previously mentioned, internet also sucks – granted, the Embla's connectivity was nothing to write home about, either, but Spirit's online was so terrible, it made the previous ship's service look fast. And, again, space in the room is at a premium – we wound up stashing our suitcases upstairs in our friends' room, which was about equal to what they had on the last ship. About the only positives the room would be that the beds are separate (though they're also hideaway beds, which docks points somewhat), the bathroom is about as large as the last and has a curtain instead of a fussy glass door for sealing, and there's something that actually resembles a desk for my lappy to rest on. Even so, our last ship made us feel spoiled, a fact that would make itself more prevalent in the days to come...
Day 12 – Monday, April 1, April Fool's Day:
I'm not sure who the fool is, today – our crew, for their sub-par performance, or us, for not being more careful when it came to selecting our ship to travel aboard.
Breakfast was a disappointment. No omelets unless you ordered from a waiter, the eggs that were available were cold and runny, and our drinks didn't arrive until AFTER we'd eaten our meal, despite ordering before we had our first bite. Need I say more?
After our breakfast was concluded, we got ready for a bus tour of Paris. We traveled down Champs-Elysses, saw the Arc du Triomphe, and a few other interesting sights before stopping at Notre Dame (which, by the way, means “Our Lady” when translated). Unfortunately, the tour wasn't quite as good because we got sub-par seats (towards the back of the bus), and the only people who got good shots when the bus slowed for the more interesting sights were those up front.
Notre Dame...a place as famous as it was would understandably have a fairly long line, but it only took us about 20 minutes to get in. And explaining her beauty would be both redundant and pointless – redundant because the fact goes without saying, and pointless because there are no words that exist to describe her. She is, again, something you have to see in person yourself to truly know what it's like. If the fact that the two hours we were given weren't enough time for us to see everything doesn't tell you how incredible the experience was, nothing will.
Lunch was about as bearable as breakfast was, so instead I'll skip to the main event of our afternoon – the Louvre. We actually drove through the museum on our morning tour before the excursion that afternoon.
No, you didn't read that wrong. It was actually possible for cars to drive through some of the archways of the Louvre, though it was a tight squeeze for our bus. The garage required us going on a side street, though, instead of through the building proper.
It turned out that the current museum was built upon the remains of the old fortress that it once was, and had been excavated for public viewing. Of course, we saw the “big three” at the Louvre – the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory statue, and, of course, most famously of all, Mona Lisa. However, we also saw the French Crown Jewels (which are actually fake!) in addition to countless other works of art while there. Our guide told us that if you spent a minute looking at every piece the Louvre had to offer, it would take three months before you saw it all. Granted, not everything is on display at once, but even so, at the pace she was going, it would've been three YEARS before we got through the tour. Thankfully, once we got past Mona Lisa, there really wasn't much else to see, so we left the group and had a small snack at McDonald's, of all places, and joined back up a little later.
Before dinner, I knew that there'd be a bit of a wait before we could go into the restaurant after the briefing, but I had no idea just how bad it would be. They seemed awfully adamant about not letting anyone in until the announcement came, even though dinner was a bit late because of the things beforehand. Already, I was starting to miss my old boat. Even though we had a new waiter tonight, it still took forever before our food came to us. I actually skipped dessert for once because things were taking too long.
Still, we have to play with the cards we're dealt, and I can only hope the cruise improves as it goes on. We bid Paris farewell for the next week and set out to our first stop – the town of Vernon (with a long “o” sound).
Day 13 – Tuesday, April 2
Breakfast was slightly better this morning. The eggs at least stayed warm this time, but drinks still took forever and a day to get to us. Once finished, we got ready for a trip to the town of of Giverny and the house and gardens of Claude Monet – one of the original impressionist painters. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown – as cold as it was, there wasn't a whole lot of the grounds that were in bloom yet, so it wasn't as colorful as it could have been. Still, the water lily pond for which his paintings were famous for was still quite beautiful to look at/walk along.
The trip was, again, undermined by several factors – notably, the pace our guide was going at. Our guide at the Louvre looked like a sprinter next to the one we had today. With almost none of the flora in bloom, it only served to exacerbate the issue. Ironically, if the grounds were in bloom, she'd probably be going too -fast- for our liking.
In addition to the above, one of the big strikes against the visit to Monet's house and studios? No photography of the interiors. NONE. They wouldn't even permit non-flash photography. Probably to keep people coming back, but even so, there were posters and whatnot of the artworks inside at the gift shop. It was still a nice place to visit, but, again, was let down by the circumstances with which we were given to experience it.
Once we had finished visiting the grounds, we headed into Giverny (say “zhee-ver-nee”) for the remainder of the time we had available to us, and visited the church where Monet and his family were buried. After our time was up, we headed back to Vernon and the ship for lunch, “A Taste of Normandy,” it was called. Some bread, cheese, and wines – nothing particularly interesting.
Afterwards, we toured the city of Vernon, exploring its history and observing the scars that World War II had left on its buildings. We also stopped in several shops in the city, and had a baguette as a snack early in our venture. Baguettes in the USA either are hard as a rock, or little else than white bread. The baguette we had in Vernon, however, was crispy and warm. We spent around 4 hours walking around in the small town – by the end of the walk, I was so drained of energy, it was all I could do to make my way to a chair and collapse in it.
The rest of the evening consisted of the usual briefing and dinner. Again, nothing really worth noting/mentioning.
Day 14 – Wednesday, April 3:
Back to crappy breakfast this morning. Eggs runny again, food cooled down awfully fast, and the oatmeal was overloaded with cinnamon. The rest of the morning was spent on the river, as we weren't due to arrive at our next city until after lunch was concluded – I took the time to update this journal a bit more, as a result. Lunch was semi-decent, at least – fish fingers, bread, and poached salmon – it was a welcome change from what we'd had the past couple days.
We had arrived in the city of Rouen (roll the “r” and say rew-ohn) for a walking tour. It was here in Rouen that Joan of Arc was tried and executed by the church – we actually visited the very spot that she met her end by being burned at the stake. A tall pillar topped by a cross now sits at the appointed spot, in front of a church meant to look like a ship turned upside-down...mostly. There were also two windows meant to look like fish, but if looked at straight on from the interior, where they are divided by a pillar, a more memorable appearance is achieved – that of a face looking towards the altar.
Rouen may have 35 churches and a famous gilded clock that dates from medieval times, but there's no way we would be able to see all of the former in the time we had, and the latter was part of our tour through the town, anyway. We did, however, make reservations at a restaurant for dinner that night, having been quite fed up with the quality of food thus far on our Tour de France, but that wasn't until 7:30 that night. So, we mainly roamed the town for the rest of the day, checking out a few more churches (and some ruined ones, as well), and getting some more chocolate from a shop whose name translated as “The Tears of Jean of Arc.” Can't remember the reason behind the name.
Anyway. We headed back to the ship for a little bit to hear the briefing for tomorrow's activities concerning Normandy before heading off to the restaurant I mentioned earlier. And my goodness, was it the right choice. Since I took some French in high school, I was able to translate a little bit of what the menu had to offer, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. I had a grilled steak (it was slightly overdone, but didn't detract from the taste too much), dad had lemon chicken (wonderfully flavored, I must add), and our friends had veal with a mushroom-type sauce (which was absolutely divine to taste, and complemented the mountain of french fries we received quite well) and a leg of lamb done to perfection. Whatever dinner on the boat was, I sure didn't shed any tears about missing it.
It was a good thing we left when we did, as we noticed that it was starting to rain – I could even smell a little hint of ozone in the air. Once back at the ship, we had little else to do but get in bed – tomorrow was going to be a long and emotionally-challenging day.
Day 15 – Thursday, April 4:
The day started off fairly well for a change – I ordered a ham and cheese omelet (as opposed to getting eggs) from the waiter and it tasted pretty good – the french toast I had as an afterthought could've been better, though. Still, the sausage, bacon, and oatmeal I had accompanying my meal stayed fairly warm for the duration I was eating. I knew I had to load up on food, though, because it was a 2 hour drive via bus from Rouen to Normandy – the ship wasn't designed for using the waterways that could take us to the coast.
I zoned in and out of sleep on the way to Normandy, our first stop being along of strip of Gold Beach in the town of Arromanches (say “Air-row-mahnsh”), home to the D-Day Museum. It was here that we saw how the Allies planned, executed, and used the mobile harbors known as “Mulberries” to aid in keeping the soldiers supplied after landing on the beaches. The remains of both the titanic concrete caissons used to form a breakwater and steel pontoons for keeping the portable bridges afloat can still be seen at this beach – though there are only about 2 dozen of the 116 caissons left today, and the pontoons are clustered together, savaged by the elements. And, wow, was it windy. The wind must have been blowing at 30 miles an hour at the least, and didn't let up while we were there.
The museum showed in great detail how the Mulberries worked – the bridges were secured using long cables fed out by boats built specifically for the landing, and the massive mobile harbors anchored themselves in place by means of four giant steel pillars that would be hydraulically embedded in the sea floor. All of this was designed to move up and down with the tide, so the troops, supplies and materiel could continually be offloaded 24 hours a day. Two Mulberries were meant to be used, but Mulberry “A,” at Omaha Beach, was destroyed by a fierce storm. Needless to say, Mulberry “B,” at Gold Beach, survived, though repairs were still needed.
The lunch we had in-town at Arromanches was alright – the appetizer was a salad plate, causing no small measure of ire for me (in case you couldn't tell already, I hate fruits and veggies), but the main course was scalloped potatoes and chicken. Dessert was some kind of chocolate cake on something like a cracker, but it, too, was quickly devoured. Dad and I used some of the remaining time we had to take more pictures of the beach and some of the military hardware that were now monuments before we had to return to the bus.
The next stop was the Longues-sur-Mer battery, which overlooked Juno and Omaha Beaches. Four massive naval guns had been taken from their original ships and mounted into these concrete bunkers to put shots down range of 6 miles out to sea. Two of the bunkers were completely intact (ignoring natural erosion), one was mostly intact but had some structural damage, and the fourth was almost completely annihilated – a massive piece roughly 6 feet by 6 feet by 8 feet was almost 50 feet away from the destroyed bunker. Barbed wire completely surrounded the most heavily damaged bunker, while the other bunker that was partially destroyed only had barbed wire around the hole in its roof. I couldn't help but straddle the barrel of the last turret in an homage to Dr. Strangelove, though I sadly had no cowboy hat with which to wave about. We stayed at the battery for about 15 minutes, but that was plenty of time to get all the pictures we needed before heading to the hardest part of the day...
Omaha.
(NOTE: For a truly moving experience, I suggest the next part be read while listening to Honor from the mini-series The Pacific.)
Nine-thousand, three-hundred and eighty-seven.
That is the number of Americans who are buried at the American Cemetery, overlooking the cliffs of Omaha Beach. And of those who lost their lives in the initial landings at Normandy, one-thousand, five-hundred and fifty-seven could not be identified or located; their names are written on the walls surrounding the entry to the memorial. Even as I write this, I find it hard to hold back tears. Ascending the steps into the memorial proper, there was a statue of a man, reaching out to the sky. At his feet was inscribed the following:
“MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD”
That alone was enough to tell me that this visit was not going to be an easy one. Unbeknownst to me, the cemetery had been expecting us, as they had arranged an event for us in remembrance of those lost in the war. First was the Star-Spangled Banner, which I could only sing in a low whisper without choking up, but after they played Butterfield's Lullaby (or as it's more commonly known, “Taps”), dad and I were reduced to tears. I'm glad I had someone to hug, as I'm sure he was, as well – I don't know how either of us would've been able to handle the experience if either of us was alone.
The entrance to the memorial also detailed the European Campaign from D-Day to VE-Day on one wall, and the full extent of the D-Day landings on the other wall. After the ceremony, we were each given a rose to lay at the grave of a soldier lost in the line of duty. I would like to take a moment to honor the two men we chose, both Washington natives:
SSGT ROY C. KOHLER, 18 BOMB SQ, 34 BOMB GP (H) – JULY 24, 1944
1LT ROY J THOMSON, 365 FIGHTER SQ, 358 FIGHTER GP – JULY 14, 1944
After paying our respects, we wandered the grounds of the cemetery before finishing up in the Visitor Center – we unfortunately couldn't see as much of the center as we would've liked, as the line was so long to get in. While we were exploring the site, there were a bunch of kids, probably no older than high schoolers, who were laughing as they were going along, treating the whole thing as a joke. My God, angry and sad tears at the same time. Do these kids not realize that they own THEIR lives to the lives of the men here? That they wouldn't be speaking French but German if it wasn't for these men? There are no words to describe what I wanted to do to them to make them realize their ungratefulness, but I was able to restrain myself.
As we left the Normandy Cemetery, I gave one final farewell salute to the brave men and women who now rested at this hallowed ground. But we still had one more place to visit, and that was Omaha Beach proper. If I thought Gold Beach was windy, Omaha had gale-force winds. There were a couple monuments that had been erected in honor of those lost on the beaches – one was made of granite and built in the '60s – the other was made of metal and was a more modern addition. Now try to picture landing on a beach with 40+ mph winds, going against troops from the Russian Front, who were probably the best Germany had to offer, and no way of knowing if you were stepping on sand or a land mine.
While on the beach, dad used his foot to write “OMAHA 2013” in the sand. I assisted once I saw what he was writing, and we photographed our handiwork. There was another line I wanted to add below this, but I soon discovered that the water was coming in too far to permit its completion. The most disappointing part is that I could have finished it in plenty of time had it not been for the tide. So, instead, I will write what was intended to be the final product:
OMAHA
2013
THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES
FOR OUR FREEDOM
On the way back from Normandy, I was feeling a bit nauseated – I still have no idea why. Some napping managed to remedy the issue, though, and in a little under 2 hours, we were back aboard the ship. I managed to get a table for us that was closer to the entrance with a different waiter tonight, and I think our service improved as a result of it.
I will never forget this day, or the men who we owe our very existence to. May their sacrifices never be forgotten.
Day 16 – April 5, 2013:
The omelet wasn't quite as good this morning – it was a little cold, and it was more ham than it was egg. The rest of it was alright, though. We were also on the river again for this morning, but I didn't really get around to updating until around lunchtime. It was actually snowing a little bit this morning, but the flakes were so small, I couldn't tell. We reached our destination of the town of Les Andelys (say “Lays An-dell-ees”), and the castle of Château Gaillard (say Geel-ard), castle of Richard the Lionheart, therein, at 1:30 PM.
The hike up to Gaillard was an exhausting one – the grade was between 10 – 15 percent the whole way up, and thanks to the snow, was a little slippery near the top. Château Gaillard was also built on top of a very steep set of hills, if not outright cliffs, and there were little or no guardrails/fences at the top to keep us from slipping over the sides. Did I mention I'm acrophobic (afraid of heights)?
However, once we were safely down from Château Gaillard, dad and one of our friends still wasn't done with the climb. Instead, we headed farther up the hill to its summit, allowing us to get a fantastic view of Gaillard, Les Andelys, and its surrounding countryside. My legs were pretty much destroyed from the hike, but I wouldn't trade the view I saw for it. Besides, I needed the exercise anyway.
We didn't stay in Les Andelys for long – we left at 3:00 PM, 1.5 hours after we arrived. There wasn't much else to see in the town, anyway.
Since it was the Captain's Dinner tonight, the meal consisted of 4 courses and a dessert. However, as yesterday's little note mentions, I had to get to the restaurant doors early so I could secure the same table as the previous night. It turned out there was another woman who was making for that very table, so I had to be clever in my execution. I sped up slightly, but not enough to make it obvious that I was determined to get to the table, and got in on one end of the table before she noticed me or sat down. When she told me that there were going to be 6 people sitting at the table, I asked her, doing my best to play innocent, “Are...there not other tables like this one?” In my opinion, I wasn't being rude, but matter-of-fact, and it was enough for her to find another table.
As to the dinner itself, it was up-and-down the whole way. It started off well-enough with the cheese plate and seared pepper salmon (which was cold when it got to me, oddly, but still good), but the waiter brought my father and I soup that neither of us ordered. Since we didn't specify not wanting the soup, my guess is that the waiter took that as us still wanting it. It was alright, but both of us only had half the bowl before we stopped. Then came the twice-baked potato...cake. Not only did it not taste as good as an actual twice-baked potato, the layers of the cake dad and I received were burned. How that managed to get by the cooking staff is beyond me.
Luckily, the main course, Filet Mignon, was every bit as delicious as it was generously portioned – a big 'ol slab of the priciest beef money can buy, each about the size of a tea cup saucer. The dessert, unfortunately, was underwhelming, though I did get a taste of what crepe suzette actually tastes like.
After dinner, I spent a bit more time updating the journal before calling it quits for the night. Tomorrow was going to be a busy morning, and I wanted to ensure I was well-rested.
Day 17 – Saturday, April 6:
Another 6 AM wake-up call in order to get off the boat by 8. However, by the time I was done getting showered and dressed, I still had to wait 25 minutes (until 7) before I could have my breakfast. Oh, Embla, how I miss thee. No omelet this morning, just runny eggs. At least they were somewhat warm. Conflans(-Sainte-Honorine) (rhymes with “con scrawns”) was where we stopped before making our trip to the Palace of Versailles, and is named because it is where the Seine and Osie (say “waz”) Rivers converge, or confluence with each other (Conflans, confluence – geddit?).
It was a little more than 45 minutes of a bus ride before we reached the grand palace that was to be our final stop before reaching Paris once more. Versailles was so large, in fact, dad wasn't able to take any pictures that included it all in one shot! Three kings, Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, were its only inhabitants before the French Revolution deposed the monarchy. There were still countless works of art to be found in its opulent, spacious halls and rooms, however – while we couldn't see all of it, we got to view the pieces from the king's and queen's quarters, which gave a definite feel for what the rest of the palace was like.
Once we had concluded our tour of the palace interior, there was still the matter of the gardens to visit. One thing I wasn't aware of (or forgot, perhaps) was that the gardens were undergoing restorations from a storm that occurred in 1999. In spite of this, it remained a sight to behold – and at the time we were visiting the gardens, the numerous fountains that were working were being operated in sync with music that blared across the vast expanse of greenery.
While the option was available to spend the entire day at the palace, my father, our friends, and I felt that we would be finished long before the extra time we would have had. Though we wish we could have seen more, we nonetheless felt we had made the right choice, and we were back at the boat by 1 PM. Lunch was considerably better than what it had been; certainly better than breakfast, if nothing else. Smoke ham, a bit of a leg of lamb, and some veal, plus bread and a Parisian pastry – I can't remember what it was called, or what it even was, but having had it, think of a Bavarian Cream-Filled Doughnut on steroids, and you've pretty much nailed the taste.
As it turned out, Versailles was the only activity that was going on today – so, once again, the afternoon was spent on the river, and again I updated the journal. We still have 4 days left before we head back to the USA, but I'm already feeling homesick in spite of the sights I've seen.
It was the Chef's Dinner tonight, but not much worth mentioning, as was so often the case. However, since we would be leaving for our hotel in Paris tomorrow morning, we had to be sure that everything was packed away and ready to be shipped off to the bus at a moment's notice. I'd be glad when we finally got off this tub.
Day 18 – Sunday, April 7:
We're free! WE'RE FRRREEEEEEEE!!!! We're finally out of that Godforsaken closet of a room for good, and it feels AWESOME!
...Can you tell I'm happy? XD
Breakfast, as usual, was a bit of a letdown. Otherwise, we got our room cleaned out and we were on the bus to the hotel at 9:30. When we arrived at the hotel, we discovered we couldn't actually get into our rooms until later that day, so we headed out to explore some more of Paris. First stop: a return visit to the Arc de Triomphe.
Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say it was our first visit, seeing as driving around it in a bus wouldn't really count as a visit. Show of hands: how many of you knew you could actually go up INTO the Arc? There was almost no line to ascend the arch, but there were a lot of steps. Tiring steps, at that. But once we had ascended the final steps of the column, we were finally in the first level of the arch proper.
It was quite interesting seeing the inside of the arch – the first tier had a camera that gave you a view of the exact center of the arch if there was a hole straight down through the middle. The second tier had a pair of rotating models of the arch that you could pivot around to see the details of the sculptures and their significance. I was quite entranced by the whole sight, and I looked around to call dad over.
...Dad?
...Uh-oh...
There wasn't any sign of him or my friends anywhere. At first, I decided to wait for a little bit, feeling that he'd be back to come get me. After a few minutes, though, I wondered if I should head up to go find him. However, I had the feeling that if I continued up to the top of the arch, he would've arrived at the second tier a little bit after I'd left. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. Once at the top of the arch, I waited until he had come back up. Once he found me, he scolded me, sobbing because he was scared something had happened to me, and I apologized for giving him a fright like that. It may be one of the few things I'll never let myself live down.
The view from the top of the arch was truly spectacular – in fact, we felt that it may well have made for a great substitute for going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. There was next to no line, it was cheaper, and it gave us just as good of a view of Paris in its entirety. After taking as many photos as we could, we descended the arch to its base and took more pictures of the Triomphe roundabout, in addition to more accurate pictures of the arch itself.
Once finished with filling our cameras with photos of the arch, we headed down Champs-Elysses (which I found out translates as “Elysian Fields”) for some more sightseeing. We passed by several shops (and explored a few, as well), but we were starting to get hungry and so headed to find some lunch. As it turned out, we headed to the first place we visited for some food in Paris, Cafe du Marche. Unfortunately, while the hot chocolate we had was good, the food itself was...questionable at best. We spent an hour and a half in that restaurant, most of it just waiting to be served. Two of us ordered cheeseburgers, and one of the burgers was scorched on the outside, but practically raw on the inside when it was finally served to us. Even the burger I had was pretty pink on the inside, but at least it was edible. Most of the time we waited for a club sandwich and chicken burger we ordered, which the waitress had forgotten we had ordered. Felt like I was back on the boat again. Blargh.
With our disappointing (albeit filling) lunch done, we headed to Les Invalides to take a tour of the museum, detailing all sorts of arms and armor from medieval times up through the second world war. As much as I wanted to ogle at everything in the museum, we had a bit of a schedule to keep. So, while we took stock of all the military hardware, we kept a brisk pace as we made our way through. While I didn't see (or notice, seeing as we were pressed for time) a flamberge (flame-patterned sword), I did see a Chauchat (say show-show or show-shaw) Machine gun. Its construction was so shoddy, there were probably just as many deaths as a result of the gun jamming as there were deaths from enemy fire (take a look on Wikipedia or TvTropes for a look at just how bad it was).
With the military museum visit completed, we ventured to Napoleon's Tomb, which was part of Les Invalides. Inside Napoleon's Tomb, aside from Napoleon III's coffin itself, were 4 other coffins containing other famous individuals, though I didn't recognize their names. There was also a scale model of Les Invalides and its surrounding area towards the back of the building, which gave you a sense of just how large the entire complex was.
It was around 5:30 PM that we finished our walk around Paris for the day and began the trek back to our hotel to check into our rooms, taking photos of numerous other sights along the way. Before we headed out that morning, we had checked some of smaller items, which included my lappy, into concierge before we headed out. Turned out to be the best idea – not 10 minutes after we left the hotel, a wannabe pickpocket tried to distract us by showing us a ring he claimed we “dropped.” However, we weren't about to fall for the ruse.
Finally, having gotten our gear sorted out and stowed in easy-to-access places, we settled in for the night. Tomorrow waits for no man, and certainly not us.
Day 19 – Monday, April 8:
Breakfast was SO much better than the crap we had on the Spirit, consisting of sausage, bacon done just right, and ham-and-cheese omelets cooked to perfection. However, when we walked in, it made me glad we had meal cards when I saw the price – the buffet breakfast was 29 Euros per person! Now, don't get me wrong, the food was great, but not 29 Euros great.
It was a good thing we had a full list of things to go see today – internet at the hotel wasn't free, and I would have been mighty bored, otherwise. However, that also meant a lot of walking to do, as well, so I also was sort of dreading the trip. Even so, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, so I wasn't going to complain.
Our guide handed out some tickets for the metro ride we would take to begin the trip around Paris. We were shown various sights around the city before we decided to take our leave in the Jewish Quarter for our lunch, which consisted of most of a baguette and a cheese pizza. Don't think it was any pizza like you'd have in the States, though – here, there was no tomato sauce, just tomatoes cooked into the bread, and it was a rectangle about a foot and a half long and about half as wide. It filled us up so well, we figured we would be skipping dinner again this evening. Oh, we also bought a chocolate eclair after the meal, which we quickly devoured.
Lunch concluded, we set off to meander about the city some more. Our eventual destination was Saint-Chapelle, a church within the Palace of Justice on the central isle (where Notre Dame also was). Unfortunately, before we got in, we discovered that any items the police considered dangerous would be confiscated and not returned to us – one of my friends had an engraved pocket knife that held some sentimental value, so they couldn't enter at the time (they got to see it later via a concert, which they thought was excellent). Saint-Chapelle was...wow. Words cannot do it justice. You'd have to see it yourself to behold how awesome the visit was.
After the visit to Saint-Chapelle, our friend who had to wait took us across the river where they had gone, and we eventually found ourselves inside a gelato shop. Alright, I know gelato's Italian, but, hey! It was my first ever taste of it. It may have set us back more money than I would have liked to spend, but it was just so good.
Once we were done at the gelato shop, we accompanied our friends to get their tickets for the concert at Saint-Chapelle before bidding them farewell, showing them the metro they'd need to visit. Actually, we had to run back to them a second time before we headed out, because we discovered that the metro spot wasn't where we initially thought it was! Once the course correction was relayed, though, we made our way to the metro, taking photos along the way. We'd spent nearly ten hours walking, and though it was longer than I would have liked, I was glad I got to see the sights I did.
Arriving back in the hotel room, I decided to journal some more, but as I sat down at the computer, typing away, I thought to myself, “I don't have time for this. I need to be spending more time with my dad, not staring at a screen.” So, I finished journaling early and we put Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on my laptop for the rest of the night. During the movie, our friends called us to let us know they'd arrived back at their room safely, and when the movie was done, we went to sleep for the night. One more day of sightseeing before we got out of here.
Day 20 – Tuesday, April 9:
Rain, rain, go away, bother me some other day...
Breakfast was awesome, once again. And still made me feel glad that we had the meal cards to avoid forking over 60 Euros just to eat. One of our friends wasn't feeling particularly well this morning, so we decided we'd keep the sightseeing to a minimum today. Fortunately, there was only one more place we really wanted to see: Sacre-Coeur, the white cathedral atop one of Paris' highest hills.
Our best option for seeing Sacre-Coeur, we were told, was to get a packet of tickets from a tobacco shop just up the street (ugh). There was a funicular cart to the top that required a ticket each way, so round trip would be 4 tickets each. Each packet held 10 tickets, so we could easily ride the metro, take the funicular up and down, and back to the hotel easily.
Once we arrived at the metro station for Sacre-Coeur, I had a feeling it wouldn't drop us off right in front of the church, but I just didn't know how far from the church we'd be. As it turned up, it was all uphill from the stop to get to Sacre-Coeur, not counting the funicular. Speaking of which, we discovered the funicular actually wasn't necessary to use to reach the top, but we had the tickets so we figured we might as well.
When we reached Sacre-Coeur, I wasn't aware that you could actually climb the structure up to the dome to have a view of the city. With 300 stairs to climb, some of which took us onto the building's rooftops, it was a long, tiring climb. However, as was the case with the Arc du Triomphe, I couldn't complain about the view.
...Or what was remaining, anyway.
A massive rain squall was quickly making its way toward us from the Northwest. As time passed, we could actually see parts of the city become engulfed by the dark clouds of rain that would soon make it very difficult to get back down. As previously mentioned, some of the stairs we had to climb were on the rooftops, exposed to the rain. The stony roof was incredibly slick as we made our descent – at one point, I actually slipped slightly. Not enough to fall, but it was a close call, nonetheless.
Safely down from the dome, we made our way into the crypt. It was dark, quiet, and filled with artifacts from the medieval period. There were also two statues that had been made in 2005 – likely in honor of some more modern leaders of Sacre-Coeur. Perhaps I'll never know. Maybe when I get back home, I'll hop on Wikipedia and see what that yields.
All the same, we took all the photos we could of the dank underground before proceeding into the chapel proper. Inside Sacre-Coeur itself, however, photography of any sort was forbidden. A shame, really – unlike the situation with the Monet house, there was so much that I wished we could have taken pictures of. Infuriatingly, there were some who not only disobeyed the no photography rule, they were using FLASH photography. Do these idiots have no respect for sanctity or history?! But, best not to dwell on the negative, and we marveled at the amazing works, nonetheless.
Our tour of Sacre-Coeur finished, we decided not to take the funicular down the hill – there was a set of stairs right next to it that we walked down, instead. The rain still hadn't let up, though, and the steps were a bit slippery. Thankfully it wasn't to the extent that was present on the rooftops, but we still used caution as we went down. Feeling a bit hungry (and wanting to get out of the rain), we walked only a short distance before we found a small bar. Inside, we ordered 2 steaks with fries, a buckwheat pancake plate, and gorgonzola pasta dish. It was all so good, we rated it one of the best lunches we had on the trip.
While we had talked about going to a museum known as D'Orsay, we didn't feel it was a must to visit it – and with the rain still pouring down (and one of us a bit sick), we decided to skip it. We wandered around for a bit before we got on the metro again, but my dad and one of our friends wanted to stay on and visit the end of the line, known as La Defense. I gave dad a quick hug and kiss goodbye before I got off the train, and I walked with our friend who wasn't feeling too well back to the hotel.
Now, it was my turn to be worried.
Ever since dad started going to Europe every now and again, any time he was on his own, I always felt worried that I'd get the call that I'd never want to hear. Maybe it had something to do with my mother's death, but now the thought of being without parents absolutely terrified me. Arriving back at my room at 4:30 precisely, I sat down in front of my lappy and began, once again, to update my journal. But, as you may have guessed, I was incredibly anxious, looking out a window that I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to see him from, checking down the hallway every few minutes, and just pacing around my room. To what purpose, I couldn't say, except perhaps a vain attempt to somehow calm my mind.
5 minutes became 10, then 10 became 20...it was a very unnerving time as I waited for my dad. Though my friend reassured me that he'd be fine, you could tell from my behavior that words just weren't good enough for me. In a moment of clarity, early on in the ordeal and at various points throughout, I prayed for his safety and that he'd return.
Suddenly, a knock at the door.
My mind raced with thoughts. The police? The hotel manager?
No, just my friend who'd come back with me, delivering our boarding passes for tomorrow. I again told them of my fear for my father's safety, and they repeated that he'd be fine – their kids also were like me when they went out of the country and out of contact, thus. Still, I couldn't help but wonder where dad was at that moment. 45 minutes had passed and there was still no sign of what had become of him. I kept trying to update the journal, but my restless behavior only continued to worsen. In spite of all this, I kept my spirits up, and my faith that the Lord would not let anything happen to dad without His allowance.
5:30. An hour after I had gotten back to the room, the phone rang. Now what? Cops? My other friend who had gone with dad?
No. It was him, this time. I was almost in tears upon hearing his voice once more.
Dad had said that they were going across the street to see if there was some chocolate to be had, and wanted to know if I would go with him. Considering my rather fragile state of mind at this point, I agreed to the offer, thanking God once I had hung up for getting dad back to me safely. Looking back on it as I was writing this journal, maybe that's something else God needed to reveal to me – my fear for those who I held dear was irrational to the point of ridiculousness. Just one more step along life's strange, long and bumpy road.
Anyway. Having rejoined dad, we made our way across the street to check out the mall. There honestly wasn't much that looked all that interesting inside – clothes, a grocery store (yep), and some furniture, but otherwise, not a lot to write home about. However, just when I thought that we were heading back to the hotel room, dad threw me a curveball by proposing we go to La Defense (which he and our other friend who'd gone with him had already taken numerous photos at) to check another mall there.
Well, there was a lot more than just the mall there, lemme tell you. The main draw of La Defense is La Grande Arche, an ultra-modern arch that was directly in line with the Arc de Triomphe, but several kilometers away. The rain was also starting to clear up (finally), and with the sun coming out, a pair of rainbows made their appearance. We took many more photos in La Defense before having our last meal in Paris, and Europe by extension (our breakfast notwithstanding) at...McDonald's of all places. Pricy McDonald's, at that – a double cheeseburger will set you back 2.5 Euros, or slightly more than 3 bucks in the US. But, it was nice to be able to know I could go to sleep that night on a satisfied stomach. La Defense was an awesome last stop on our tour of Paris – I only wish we could have found it sooner to enjoy it some more.
Day 21 – Wednesday, April 10:
Urgh. Waking up at 5:30 is what I did in school, not on vacation. But we had to be up as early as we were in order to get our stuff ready for the airport (bags out at 6:30), and have breakfast (which started at the same time). We skipped the omelets, good though they were, due to the time constraint, having plain scrambled eggs instead. Unlike the eggs on the ship, the scrambled eggs in the hotel were done to perfection. All in all, an excellent meal to end our trip.
Once we had made a final check of our room, making sure that we hadn't forgotten anything, we left the ritzy pad for the last time, and at 7:18, bid Paris, and Europe, au revoir. Roissy-Charles de Gaulle International Airport was waiting for us, half an hour away.
Security...ugh. The less said about it, the better. Granted, security usually takes the better part of an hour to get through, anyway, but it was a very inefficient hour we had to endure. We must have had our boarding passes checked 5 times before we actually got to our gate to take off. Then it was another hour or so waiting for us to be checked in. Once on board, though, the plane was a vast improvement over the one we took to get here. We actually had enough leg room to stretch our legs completely, and I could plug in my laptop and not worry about the battery going dead. So, after watching Battleship for the first time, and getting my dad to watch Dark Knight Rises for his first time, I plugged in lappy and updated the journal, once again – my last time before I got home at 2:00 PM, PDT. During the flight, we passed over Iceland and a frozen section of the Arctic Ocean – both made for some awesome photos.
I also attempted to finish writing my next section of the story, but between my laptop's poor heat dissipation and the turbulence of the aircraft, I had to wait until I was home. Even then, I was so exhausted that I had to wait until today to get it finished. Hopefully I can write the following section soon. This trip has truly made me realize that I need to turn my life around – and keeping at the job hunt and a constant writing schedule will do much to aid in that process, I feel. It has been an amazing experience, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
To those of you who made it this far, my hat goes off to all y'all. Mike and the rest of the Imperials will be back VERY soon.
Brothers and sisters, hear the Good News! Rejoice! Again I say, Rejoice! Rejoice, for He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!
Bit of a somber morning, today, as we had to make our final farewells to the crew. Also a VERY early day, today – DST apparently didn't go into effect in Europe until today, and we had to be up at 5 so we could get all our stuff out the door and have breakfast at 6. Now I know what dad feels like when he has to get up at 3:45 every morning.
We were bused to the airport, arriving at around 8-ish. Our flight didn't leave until 10:45, though, so we had lots of time to get to our gate. Said gate was not that far from where we entered, actually. Checking bags at Schiphol (the name of the airport) was pretty cool – there was no attendant, but instead, you place it in a little cell with a gate on it, and the floor tips up to carry the bag off to be loaded on the plane!
The flight was pretty short – less than an hour, in fact, with very little in the way of seeing stuff from the plane. Pretty much what a flight from Seattle to Spokane is like – the plane goes up, and, more or less, right back down again. Our destination, Charles de Gaulle Airport, was, in a word, amazing to look at. The airport itself was clearly meant to feel open, with its large, curving terminal windows and high ceilings, and the walkway from the plane was essentially one long, glass tube meant to permit travelers to see as much of the airport as they could.
One thing that set me on edge today, and sporadically across the rest of our stay here, was the presence of soldiers from the French Military (I assume Army, but I'm not certain). Normally, the sight of soldiers doesn't rattle me too much – indeed, seeing soldiers usually fills me with a great sense of pride (support our troops, America!), knowing that they are the ones who keep us safe back home, but there was one key difference – unlike the boys in uniform I'd seen before, these guys had their rifles at the ready, and on patrol (alright, so there were two differences, sue me). 3 guys patrolling the airport terminal, each with a FAMAS ready to fire at a moment's notice – not exactly a very comforting first impression about the country.
Driving from the airport was also a bit hectic. Our driver knew very little English, for a start, so we couldn't really ask him much. The shuttle also had a couple already on board, so it was a tight fit for all six of us, and I had to sit backwards. In addition, his driving was...frantic, to say the least. While I certainly didn't feel in danger, even dad didn't drive as crazy as this guy, and I was actually nauseated afterward. I NEVER get car-sick. On the plus side, his arrival meant we had to wait an hour less than we would've had to were it not for the assistance of the representative we met in the airport terminal.
Our arrival to our new ship, the Spirit, was...disappointing, to say the least. Granted, it was an older ship, but even so, it was quite lacking. For starters, the lounge was at the front of the ship, while the restaurant was all the way at the back, instead of both being at the front. It pretty much meant that we would have to wait in line to enter the restaurant each evening after our briefings for the next day's activities. Also, despite having paid the same amount as our friends we were traveling with, we somehow ended up in a cabin at the BOTTOM of the ship. Internet availability down here is, in a word, terrible. And the bedroom of my apartment at college had more space than this little closet they called a cabin.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We dropped off our bags in our rooms before we took a small excursion of Paris. One thing the ship had going for it – it was maybe 20 minutes of a walk to the Eiffel Tower from where we were docked, so we made it our priority to get there as quickly as possible. How awesome that we'd get to check one of the biggest reasons for going to Paris off the list almost straight away!
...Or so I hoped.
I had figured there'd be a line to go up the tower, but...not like this. NOT LIKE THIS. The twisting, compact mass of people waiting to ascend the tower would've been an hour's wait, probably even longer than that – and that was if you wanted to WALK up the tower. So, no Eiffel Tower yet. Still got some awesome shots of it as we traveled down the path behind it to L'Ecole Militaire (Military School/Academy).
Just before the military school, there was a large piece of art in front of the building – a modern arch with pillars and glass surrounding it, with the word “peace” in numerous languages printed on the pillars and glass. To my dismay, however, a few of the glass panes had clearly taken a hit from something, with the resultant spider-web pattern seen throughout at least 3 of them. One pane was even removed from the structure entirely; a result, we surmised, from having been completely shattered by a heavy impact – maybe the vandal had a shotgun.
As we wandered about Paris a bit more, we stopped in a cafe that had been referred to us by another of our friends who visited the City of Romance previously, and had some hot chocolate and a croissant for a midday meal. On a side note, we learned later that croissants actually are not French in origin – they're Austrian. Who would've guessed?
Resuming our jaunt, we eventually happened by Les Invalides (literally, “The Wounded Ones”), which was, at one point, a military hospital. It was also the site of Napoleon's tomb, but we would've had to pay to enter, and we decided not to do anything that required us to pay our first day in France (time being the primary factor here). So, it was one more thing we had to add of our list of things to do when the cruise was over.
It was another hour before we got back to the ship – just in time for an overview of the entire itinerary of what all was going to happen for the next week. Once the briefing was concluded, remember my mentioning of the restaurant being in the back of the ship? Seating was, indeed, at a premium because of this. Our first waiter on this cruise was a greenhorn – very by-the-book, I couldn't substitute the cheese plate for my appetizer (and the plate came after I'd left the restaurant, as well), and we couldn't order more than one plate per course. The main course I had was advertised as being a “grilled leg of lamb,” but it was fairly apparent that the leg wasn't grilled so much as it was baked. The rest of the meal was average, but not worth going into detail about.
Now, as to the room we were housed in. Being down at the waterline, the window didn't open – which also means no circulation, so taking hot showers fogs up the place. As previously mentioned, internet also sucks – granted, the Embla's connectivity was nothing to write home about, either, but Spirit's online was so terrible, it made the previous ship's service look fast. And, again, space in the room is at a premium – we wound up stashing our suitcases upstairs in our friends' room, which was about equal to what they had on the last ship. About the only positives the room would be that the beds are separate (though they're also hideaway beds, which docks points somewhat), the bathroom is about as large as the last and has a curtain instead of a fussy glass door for sealing, and there's something that actually resembles a desk for my lappy to rest on. Even so, our last ship made us feel spoiled, a fact that would make itself more prevalent in the days to come...
Day 12 – Monday, April 1, April Fool's Day:
I'm not sure who the fool is, today – our crew, for their sub-par performance, or us, for not being more careful when it came to selecting our ship to travel aboard.
Breakfast was a disappointment. No omelets unless you ordered from a waiter, the eggs that were available were cold and runny, and our drinks didn't arrive until AFTER we'd eaten our meal, despite ordering before we had our first bite. Need I say more?
After our breakfast was concluded, we got ready for a bus tour of Paris. We traveled down Champs-Elysses, saw the Arc du Triomphe, and a few other interesting sights before stopping at Notre Dame (which, by the way, means “Our Lady” when translated). Unfortunately, the tour wasn't quite as good because we got sub-par seats (towards the back of the bus), and the only people who got good shots when the bus slowed for the more interesting sights were those up front.
Notre Dame...a place as famous as it was would understandably have a fairly long line, but it only took us about 20 minutes to get in. And explaining her beauty would be both redundant and pointless – redundant because the fact goes without saying, and pointless because there are no words that exist to describe her. She is, again, something you have to see in person yourself to truly know what it's like. If the fact that the two hours we were given weren't enough time for us to see everything doesn't tell you how incredible the experience was, nothing will.
Lunch was about as bearable as breakfast was, so instead I'll skip to the main event of our afternoon – the Louvre. We actually drove through the museum on our morning tour before the excursion that afternoon.
No, you didn't read that wrong. It was actually possible for cars to drive through some of the archways of the Louvre, though it was a tight squeeze for our bus. The garage required us going on a side street, though, instead of through the building proper.
It turned out that the current museum was built upon the remains of the old fortress that it once was, and had been excavated for public viewing. Of course, we saw the “big three” at the Louvre – the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory statue, and, of course, most famously of all, Mona Lisa. However, we also saw the French Crown Jewels (which are actually fake!) in addition to countless other works of art while there. Our guide told us that if you spent a minute looking at every piece the Louvre had to offer, it would take three months before you saw it all. Granted, not everything is on display at once, but even so, at the pace she was going, it would've been three YEARS before we got through the tour. Thankfully, once we got past Mona Lisa, there really wasn't much else to see, so we left the group and had a small snack at McDonald's, of all places, and joined back up a little later.
Before dinner, I knew that there'd be a bit of a wait before we could go into the restaurant after the briefing, but I had no idea just how bad it would be. They seemed awfully adamant about not letting anyone in until the announcement came, even though dinner was a bit late because of the things beforehand. Already, I was starting to miss my old boat. Even though we had a new waiter tonight, it still took forever before our food came to us. I actually skipped dessert for once because things were taking too long.
Still, we have to play with the cards we're dealt, and I can only hope the cruise improves as it goes on. We bid Paris farewell for the next week and set out to our first stop – the town of Vernon (with a long “o” sound).
Day 13 – Tuesday, April 2
Breakfast was slightly better this morning. The eggs at least stayed warm this time, but drinks still took forever and a day to get to us. Once finished, we got ready for a trip to the town of of Giverny and the house and gardens of Claude Monet – one of the original impressionist painters. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown – as cold as it was, there wasn't a whole lot of the grounds that were in bloom yet, so it wasn't as colorful as it could have been. Still, the water lily pond for which his paintings were famous for was still quite beautiful to look at/walk along.
The trip was, again, undermined by several factors – notably, the pace our guide was going at. Our guide at the Louvre looked like a sprinter next to the one we had today. With almost none of the flora in bloom, it only served to exacerbate the issue. Ironically, if the grounds were in bloom, she'd probably be going too -fast- for our liking.
In addition to the above, one of the big strikes against the visit to Monet's house and studios? No photography of the interiors. NONE. They wouldn't even permit non-flash photography. Probably to keep people coming back, but even so, there were posters and whatnot of the artworks inside at the gift shop. It was still a nice place to visit, but, again, was let down by the circumstances with which we were given to experience it.
Once we had finished visiting the grounds, we headed into Giverny (say “zhee-ver-nee”) for the remainder of the time we had available to us, and visited the church where Monet and his family were buried. After our time was up, we headed back to Vernon and the ship for lunch, “A Taste of Normandy,” it was called. Some bread, cheese, and wines – nothing particularly interesting.
Afterwards, we toured the city of Vernon, exploring its history and observing the scars that World War II had left on its buildings. We also stopped in several shops in the city, and had a baguette as a snack early in our venture. Baguettes in the USA either are hard as a rock, or little else than white bread. The baguette we had in Vernon, however, was crispy and warm. We spent around 4 hours walking around in the small town – by the end of the walk, I was so drained of energy, it was all I could do to make my way to a chair and collapse in it.
The rest of the evening consisted of the usual briefing and dinner. Again, nothing really worth noting/mentioning.
Day 14 – Wednesday, April 3:
Back to crappy breakfast this morning. Eggs runny again, food cooled down awfully fast, and the oatmeal was overloaded with cinnamon. The rest of the morning was spent on the river, as we weren't due to arrive at our next city until after lunch was concluded – I took the time to update this journal a bit more, as a result. Lunch was semi-decent, at least – fish fingers, bread, and poached salmon – it was a welcome change from what we'd had the past couple days.
We had arrived in the city of Rouen (roll the “r” and say rew-ohn) for a walking tour. It was here in Rouen that Joan of Arc was tried and executed by the church – we actually visited the very spot that she met her end by being burned at the stake. A tall pillar topped by a cross now sits at the appointed spot, in front of a church meant to look like a ship turned upside-down...mostly. There were also two windows meant to look like fish, but if looked at straight on from the interior, where they are divided by a pillar, a more memorable appearance is achieved – that of a face looking towards the altar.
Rouen may have 35 churches and a famous gilded clock that dates from medieval times, but there's no way we would be able to see all of the former in the time we had, and the latter was part of our tour through the town, anyway. We did, however, make reservations at a restaurant for dinner that night, having been quite fed up with the quality of food thus far on our Tour de France, but that wasn't until 7:30 that night. So, we mainly roamed the town for the rest of the day, checking out a few more churches (and some ruined ones, as well), and getting some more chocolate from a shop whose name translated as “The Tears of Jean of Arc.” Can't remember the reason behind the name.
Anyway. We headed back to the ship for a little bit to hear the briefing for tomorrow's activities concerning Normandy before heading off to the restaurant I mentioned earlier. And my goodness, was it the right choice. Since I took some French in high school, I was able to translate a little bit of what the menu had to offer, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. I had a grilled steak (it was slightly overdone, but didn't detract from the taste too much), dad had lemon chicken (wonderfully flavored, I must add), and our friends had veal with a mushroom-type sauce (which was absolutely divine to taste, and complemented the mountain of french fries we received quite well) and a leg of lamb done to perfection. Whatever dinner on the boat was, I sure didn't shed any tears about missing it.
It was a good thing we left when we did, as we noticed that it was starting to rain – I could even smell a little hint of ozone in the air. Once back at the ship, we had little else to do but get in bed – tomorrow was going to be a long and emotionally-challenging day.
Day 15 – Thursday, April 4:
The day started off fairly well for a change – I ordered a ham and cheese omelet (as opposed to getting eggs) from the waiter and it tasted pretty good – the french toast I had as an afterthought could've been better, though. Still, the sausage, bacon, and oatmeal I had accompanying my meal stayed fairly warm for the duration I was eating. I knew I had to load up on food, though, because it was a 2 hour drive via bus from Rouen to Normandy – the ship wasn't designed for using the waterways that could take us to the coast.
I zoned in and out of sleep on the way to Normandy, our first stop being along of strip of Gold Beach in the town of Arromanches (say “Air-row-mahnsh”), home to the D-Day Museum. It was here that we saw how the Allies planned, executed, and used the mobile harbors known as “Mulberries” to aid in keeping the soldiers supplied after landing on the beaches. The remains of both the titanic concrete caissons used to form a breakwater and steel pontoons for keeping the portable bridges afloat can still be seen at this beach – though there are only about 2 dozen of the 116 caissons left today, and the pontoons are clustered together, savaged by the elements. And, wow, was it windy. The wind must have been blowing at 30 miles an hour at the least, and didn't let up while we were there.
The museum showed in great detail how the Mulberries worked – the bridges were secured using long cables fed out by boats built specifically for the landing, and the massive mobile harbors anchored themselves in place by means of four giant steel pillars that would be hydraulically embedded in the sea floor. All of this was designed to move up and down with the tide, so the troops, supplies and materiel could continually be offloaded 24 hours a day. Two Mulberries were meant to be used, but Mulberry “A,” at Omaha Beach, was destroyed by a fierce storm. Needless to say, Mulberry “B,” at Gold Beach, survived, though repairs were still needed.
The lunch we had in-town at Arromanches was alright – the appetizer was a salad plate, causing no small measure of ire for me (in case you couldn't tell already, I hate fruits and veggies), but the main course was scalloped potatoes and chicken. Dessert was some kind of chocolate cake on something like a cracker, but it, too, was quickly devoured. Dad and I used some of the remaining time we had to take more pictures of the beach and some of the military hardware that were now monuments before we had to return to the bus.
The next stop was the Longues-sur-Mer battery, which overlooked Juno and Omaha Beaches. Four massive naval guns had been taken from their original ships and mounted into these concrete bunkers to put shots down range of 6 miles out to sea. Two of the bunkers were completely intact (ignoring natural erosion), one was mostly intact but had some structural damage, and the fourth was almost completely annihilated – a massive piece roughly 6 feet by 6 feet by 8 feet was almost 50 feet away from the destroyed bunker. Barbed wire completely surrounded the most heavily damaged bunker, while the other bunker that was partially destroyed only had barbed wire around the hole in its roof. I couldn't help but straddle the barrel of the last turret in an homage to Dr. Strangelove, though I sadly had no cowboy hat with which to wave about. We stayed at the battery for about 15 minutes, but that was plenty of time to get all the pictures we needed before heading to the hardest part of the day...
Omaha.
(NOTE: For a truly moving experience, I suggest the next part be read while listening to Honor from the mini-series The Pacific.)
Nine-thousand, three-hundred and eighty-seven.
That is the number of Americans who are buried at the American Cemetery, overlooking the cliffs of Omaha Beach. And of those who lost their lives in the initial landings at Normandy, one-thousand, five-hundred and fifty-seven could not be identified or located; their names are written on the walls surrounding the entry to the memorial. Even as I write this, I find it hard to hold back tears. Ascending the steps into the memorial proper, there was a statue of a man, reaching out to the sky. At his feet was inscribed the following:
“MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD”
That alone was enough to tell me that this visit was not going to be an easy one. Unbeknownst to me, the cemetery had been expecting us, as they had arranged an event for us in remembrance of those lost in the war. First was the Star-Spangled Banner, which I could only sing in a low whisper without choking up, but after they played Butterfield's Lullaby (or as it's more commonly known, “Taps”), dad and I were reduced to tears. I'm glad I had someone to hug, as I'm sure he was, as well – I don't know how either of us would've been able to handle the experience if either of us was alone.
The entrance to the memorial also detailed the European Campaign from D-Day to VE-Day on one wall, and the full extent of the D-Day landings on the other wall. After the ceremony, we were each given a rose to lay at the grave of a soldier lost in the line of duty. I would like to take a moment to honor the two men we chose, both Washington natives:
SSGT ROY C. KOHLER, 18 BOMB SQ, 34 BOMB GP (H) – JULY 24, 1944
1LT ROY J THOMSON, 365 FIGHTER SQ, 358 FIGHTER GP – JULY 14, 1944
After paying our respects, we wandered the grounds of the cemetery before finishing up in the Visitor Center – we unfortunately couldn't see as much of the center as we would've liked, as the line was so long to get in. While we were exploring the site, there were a bunch of kids, probably no older than high schoolers, who were laughing as they were going along, treating the whole thing as a joke. My God, angry and sad tears at the same time. Do these kids not realize that they own THEIR lives to the lives of the men here? That they wouldn't be speaking French but German if it wasn't for these men? There are no words to describe what I wanted to do to them to make them realize their ungratefulness, but I was able to restrain myself.
As we left the Normandy Cemetery, I gave one final farewell salute to the brave men and women who now rested at this hallowed ground. But we still had one more place to visit, and that was Omaha Beach proper. If I thought Gold Beach was windy, Omaha had gale-force winds. There were a couple monuments that had been erected in honor of those lost on the beaches – one was made of granite and built in the '60s – the other was made of metal and was a more modern addition. Now try to picture landing on a beach with 40+ mph winds, going against troops from the Russian Front, who were probably the best Germany had to offer, and no way of knowing if you were stepping on sand or a land mine.
While on the beach, dad used his foot to write “OMAHA 2013” in the sand. I assisted once I saw what he was writing, and we photographed our handiwork. There was another line I wanted to add below this, but I soon discovered that the water was coming in too far to permit its completion. The most disappointing part is that I could have finished it in plenty of time had it not been for the tide. So, instead, I will write what was intended to be the final product:
OMAHA
2013
THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES
FOR OUR FREEDOM
On the way back from Normandy, I was feeling a bit nauseated – I still have no idea why. Some napping managed to remedy the issue, though, and in a little under 2 hours, we were back aboard the ship. I managed to get a table for us that was closer to the entrance with a different waiter tonight, and I think our service improved as a result of it.
I will never forget this day, or the men who we owe our very existence to. May their sacrifices never be forgotten.
Day 16 – April 5, 2013:
The omelet wasn't quite as good this morning – it was a little cold, and it was more ham than it was egg. The rest of it was alright, though. We were also on the river again for this morning, but I didn't really get around to updating until around lunchtime. It was actually snowing a little bit this morning, but the flakes were so small, I couldn't tell. We reached our destination of the town of Les Andelys (say “Lays An-dell-ees”), and the castle of Château Gaillard (say Geel-ard), castle of Richard the Lionheart, therein, at 1:30 PM.
The hike up to Gaillard was an exhausting one – the grade was between 10 – 15 percent the whole way up, and thanks to the snow, was a little slippery near the top. Château Gaillard was also built on top of a very steep set of hills, if not outright cliffs, and there were little or no guardrails/fences at the top to keep us from slipping over the sides. Did I mention I'm acrophobic (afraid of heights)?
However, once we were safely down from Château Gaillard, dad and one of our friends still wasn't done with the climb. Instead, we headed farther up the hill to its summit, allowing us to get a fantastic view of Gaillard, Les Andelys, and its surrounding countryside. My legs were pretty much destroyed from the hike, but I wouldn't trade the view I saw for it. Besides, I needed the exercise anyway.
We didn't stay in Les Andelys for long – we left at 3:00 PM, 1.5 hours after we arrived. There wasn't much else to see in the town, anyway.
Since it was the Captain's Dinner tonight, the meal consisted of 4 courses and a dessert. However, as yesterday's little note mentions, I had to get to the restaurant doors early so I could secure the same table as the previous night. It turned out there was another woman who was making for that very table, so I had to be clever in my execution. I sped up slightly, but not enough to make it obvious that I was determined to get to the table, and got in on one end of the table before she noticed me or sat down. When she told me that there were going to be 6 people sitting at the table, I asked her, doing my best to play innocent, “Are...there not other tables like this one?” In my opinion, I wasn't being rude, but matter-of-fact, and it was enough for her to find another table.
As to the dinner itself, it was up-and-down the whole way. It started off well-enough with the cheese plate and seared pepper salmon (which was cold when it got to me, oddly, but still good), but the waiter brought my father and I soup that neither of us ordered. Since we didn't specify not wanting the soup, my guess is that the waiter took that as us still wanting it. It was alright, but both of us only had half the bowl before we stopped. Then came the twice-baked potato...cake. Not only did it not taste as good as an actual twice-baked potato, the layers of the cake dad and I received were burned. How that managed to get by the cooking staff is beyond me.
Luckily, the main course, Filet Mignon, was every bit as delicious as it was generously portioned – a big 'ol slab of the priciest beef money can buy, each about the size of a tea cup saucer. The dessert, unfortunately, was underwhelming, though I did get a taste of what crepe suzette actually tastes like.
After dinner, I spent a bit more time updating the journal before calling it quits for the night. Tomorrow was going to be a busy morning, and I wanted to ensure I was well-rested.
Day 17 – Saturday, April 6:
Another 6 AM wake-up call in order to get off the boat by 8. However, by the time I was done getting showered and dressed, I still had to wait 25 minutes (until 7) before I could have my breakfast. Oh, Embla, how I miss thee. No omelet this morning, just runny eggs. At least they were somewhat warm. Conflans(-Sainte-Honorine) (rhymes with “con scrawns”) was where we stopped before making our trip to the Palace of Versailles, and is named because it is where the Seine and Osie (say “waz”) Rivers converge, or confluence with each other (Conflans, confluence – geddit?).
It was a little more than 45 minutes of a bus ride before we reached the grand palace that was to be our final stop before reaching Paris once more. Versailles was so large, in fact, dad wasn't able to take any pictures that included it all in one shot! Three kings, Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, were its only inhabitants before the French Revolution deposed the monarchy. There were still countless works of art to be found in its opulent, spacious halls and rooms, however – while we couldn't see all of it, we got to view the pieces from the king's and queen's quarters, which gave a definite feel for what the rest of the palace was like.
Once we had concluded our tour of the palace interior, there was still the matter of the gardens to visit. One thing I wasn't aware of (or forgot, perhaps) was that the gardens were undergoing restorations from a storm that occurred in 1999. In spite of this, it remained a sight to behold – and at the time we were visiting the gardens, the numerous fountains that were working were being operated in sync with music that blared across the vast expanse of greenery.
While the option was available to spend the entire day at the palace, my father, our friends, and I felt that we would be finished long before the extra time we would have had. Though we wish we could have seen more, we nonetheless felt we had made the right choice, and we were back at the boat by 1 PM. Lunch was considerably better than what it had been; certainly better than breakfast, if nothing else. Smoke ham, a bit of a leg of lamb, and some veal, plus bread and a Parisian pastry – I can't remember what it was called, or what it even was, but having had it, think of a Bavarian Cream-Filled Doughnut on steroids, and you've pretty much nailed the taste.
As it turned out, Versailles was the only activity that was going on today – so, once again, the afternoon was spent on the river, and again I updated the journal. We still have 4 days left before we head back to the USA, but I'm already feeling homesick in spite of the sights I've seen.
It was the Chef's Dinner tonight, but not much worth mentioning, as was so often the case. However, since we would be leaving for our hotel in Paris tomorrow morning, we had to be sure that everything was packed away and ready to be shipped off to the bus at a moment's notice. I'd be glad when we finally got off this tub.
Day 18 – Sunday, April 7:
We're free! WE'RE FRRREEEEEEEE!!!! We're finally out of that Godforsaken closet of a room for good, and it feels AWESOME!
...Can you tell I'm happy? XD
Breakfast, as usual, was a bit of a letdown. Otherwise, we got our room cleaned out and we were on the bus to the hotel at 9:30. When we arrived at the hotel, we discovered we couldn't actually get into our rooms until later that day, so we headed out to explore some more of Paris. First stop: a return visit to the Arc de Triomphe.
Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say it was our first visit, seeing as driving around it in a bus wouldn't really count as a visit. Show of hands: how many of you knew you could actually go up INTO the Arc? There was almost no line to ascend the arch, but there were a lot of steps. Tiring steps, at that. But once we had ascended the final steps of the column, we were finally in the first level of the arch proper.
It was quite interesting seeing the inside of the arch – the first tier had a camera that gave you a view of the exact center of the arch if there was a hole straight down through the middle. The second tier had a pair of rotating models of the arch that you could pivot around to see the details of the sculptures and their significance. I was quite entranced by the whole sight, and I looked around to call dad over.
...Dad?
...Uh-oh...
There wasn't any sign of him or my friends anywhere. At first, I decided to wait for a little bit, feeling that he'd be back to come get me. After a few minutes, though, I wondered if I should head up to go find him. However, I had the feeling that if I continued up to the top of the arch, he would've arrived at the second tier a little bit after I'd left. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. Once at the top of the arch, I waited until he had come back up. Once he found me, he scolded me, sobbing because he was scared something had happened to me, and I apologized for giving him a fright like that. It may be one of the few things I'll never let myself live down.
The view from the top of the arch was truly spectacular – in fact, we felt that it may well have made for a great substitute for going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. There was next to no line, it was cheaper, and it gave us just as good of a view of Paris in its entirety. After taking as many photos as we could, we descended the arch to its base and took more pictures of the Triomphe roundabout, in addition to more accurate pictures of the arch itself.
Once finished with filling our cameras with photos of the arch, we headed down Champs-Elysses (which I found out translates as “Elysian Fields”) for some more sightseeing. We passed by several shops (and explored a few, as well), but we were starting to get hungry and so headed to find some lunch. As it turned out, we headed to the first place we visited for some food in Paris, Cafe du Marche. Unfortunately, while the hot chocolate we had was good, the food itself was...questionable at best. We spent an hour and a half in that restaurant, most of it just waiting to be served. Two of us ordered cheeseburgers, and one of the burgers was scorched on the outside, but practically raw on the inside when it was finally served to us. Even the burger I had was pretty pink on the inside, but at least it was edible. Most of the time we waited for a club sandwich and chicken burger we ordered, which the waitress had forgotten we had ordered. Felt like I was back on the boat again. Blargh.
With our disappointing (albeit filling) lunch done, we headed to Les Invalides to take a tour of the museum, detailing all sorts of arms and armor from medieval times up through the second world war. As much as I wanted to ogle at everything in the museum, we had a bit of a schedule to keep. So, while we took stock of all the military hardware, we kept a brisk pace as we made our way through. While I didn't see (or notice, seeing as we were pressed for time) a flamberge (flame-patterned sword), I did see a Chauchat (say show-show or show-shaw) Machine gun. Its construction was so shoddy, there were probably just as many deaths as a result of the gun jamming as there were deaths from enemy fire (take a look on Wikipedia or TvTropes for a look at just how bad it was).
With the military museum visit completed, we ventured to Napoleon's Tomb, which was part of Les Invalides. Inside Napoleon's Tomb, aside from Napoleon III's coffin itself, were 4 other coffins containing other famous individuals, though I didn't recognize their names. There was also a scale model of Les Invalides and its surrounding area towards the back of the building, which gave you a sense of just how large the entire complex was.
It was around 5:30 PM that we finished our walk around Paris for the day and began the trek back to our hotel to check into our rooms, taking photos of numerous other sights along the way. Before we headed out that morning, we had checked some of smaller items, which included my lappy, into concierge before we headed out. Turned out to be the best idea – not 10 minutes after we left the hotel, a wannabe pickpocket tried to distract us by showing us a ring he claimed we “dropped.” However, we weren't about to fall for the ruse.
Finally, having gotten our gear sorted out and stowed in easy-to-access places, we settled in for the night. Tomorrow waits for no man, and certainly not us.
Day 19 – Monday, April 8:
Breakfast was SO much better than the crap we had on the Spirit, consisting of sausage, bacon done just right, and ham-and-cheese omelets cooked to perfection. However, when we walked in, it made me glad we had meal cards when I saw the price – the buffet breakfast was 29 Euros per person! Now, don't get me wrong, the food was great, but not 29 Euros great.
It was a good thing we had a full list of things to go see today – internet at the hotel wasn't free, and I would have been mighty bored, otherwise. However, that also meant a lot of walking to do, as well, so I also was sort of dreading the trip. Even so, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, so I wasn't going to complain.
Our guide handed out some tickets for the metro ride we would take to begin the trip around Paris. We were shown various sights around the city before we decided to take our leave in the Jewish Quarter for our lunch, which consisted of most of a baguette and a cheese pizza. Don't think it was any pizza like you'd have in the States, though – here, there was no tomato sauce, just tomatoes cooked into the bread, and it was a rectangle about a foot and a half long and about half as wide. It filled us up so well, we figured we would be skipping dinner again this evening. Oh, we also bought a chocolate eclair after the meal, which we quickly devoured.
Lunch concluded, we set off to meander about the city some more. Our eventual destination was Saint-Chapelle, a church within the Palace of Justice on the central isle (where Notre Dame also was). Unfortunately, before we got in, we discovered that any items the police considered dangerous would be confiscated and not returned to us – one of my friends had an engraved pocket knife that held some sentimental value, so they couldn't enter at the time (they got to see it later via a concert, which they thought was excellent). Saint-Chapelle was...wow. Words cannot do it justice. You'd have to see it yourself to behold how awesome the visit was.
After the visit to Saint-Chapelle, our friend who had to wait took us across the river where they had gone, and we eventually found ourselves inside a gelato shop. Alright, I know gelato's Italian, but, hey! It was my first ever taste of it. It may have set us back more money than I would have liked to spend, but it was just so good.
Once we were done at the gelato shop, we accompanied our friends to get their tickets for the concert at Saint-Chapelle before bidding them farewell, showing them the metro they'd need to visit. Actually, we had to run back to them a second time before we headed out, because we discovered that the metro spot wasn't where we initially thought it was! Once the course correction was relayed, though, we made our way to the metro, taking photos along the way. We'd spent nearly ten hours walking, and though it was longer than I would have liked, I was glad I got to see the sights I did.
Arriving back in the hotel room, I decided to journal some more, but as I sat down at the computer, typing away, I thought to myself, “I don't have time for this. I need to be spending more time with my dad, not staring at a screen.” So, I finished journaling early and we put Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on my laptop for the rest of the night. During the movie, our friends called us to let us know they'd arrived back at their room safely, and when the movie was done, we went to sleep for the night. One more day of sightseeing before we got out of here.
Day 20 – Tuesday, April 9:
Rain, rain, go away, bother me some other day...
Breakfast was awesome, once again. And still made me feel glad that we had the meal cards to avoid forking over 60 Euros just to eat. One of our friends wasn't feeling particularly well this morning, so we decided we'd keep the sightseeing to a minimum today. Fortunately, there was only one more place we really wanted to see: Sacre-Coeur, the white cathedral atop one of Paris' highest hills.
Our best option for seeing Sacre-Coeur, we were told, was to get a packet of tickets from a tobacco shop just up the street (ugh). There was a funicular cart to the top that required a ticket each way, so round trip would be 4 tickets each. Each packet held 10 tickets, so we could easily ride the metro, take the funicular up and down, and back to the hotel easily.
Once we arrived at the metro station for Sacre-Coeur, I had a feeling it wouldn't drop us off right in front of the church, but I just didn't know how far from the church we'd be. As it turned up, it was all uphill from the stop to get to Sacre-Coeur, not counting the funicular. Speaking of which, we discovered the funicular actually wasn't necessary to use to reach the top, but we had the tickets so we figured we might as well.
When we reached Sacre-Coeur, I wasn't aware that you could actually climb the structure up to the dome to have a view of the city. With 300 stairs to climb, some of which took us onto the building's rooftops, it was a long, tiring climb. However, as was the case with the Arc du Triomphe, I couldn't complain about the view.
...Or what was remaining, anyway.
A massive rain squall was quickly making its way toward us from the Northwest. As time passed, we could actually see parts of the city become engulfed by the dark clouds of rain that would soon make it very difficult to get back down. As previously mentioned, some of the stairs we had to climb were on the rooftops, exposed to the rain. The stony roof was incredibly slick as we made our descent – at one point, I actually slipped slightly. Not enough to fall, but it was a close call, nonetheless.
Safely down from the dome, we made our way into the crypt. It was dark, quiet, and filled with artifacts from the medieval period. There were also two statues that had been made in 2005 – likely in honor of some more modern leaders of Sacre-Coeur. Perhaps I'll never know. Maybe when I get back home, I'll hop on Wikipedia and see what that yields.
All the same, we took all the photos we could of the dank underground before proceeding into the chapel proper. Inside Sacre-Coeur itself, however, photography of any sort was forbidden. A shame, really – unlike the situation with the Monet house, there was so much that I wished we could have taken pictures of. Infuriatingly, there were some who not only disobeyed the no photography rule, they were using FLASH photography. Do these idiots have no respect for sanctity or history?! But, best not to dwell on the negative, and we marveled at the amazing works, nonetheless.
Our tour of Sacre-Coeur finished, we decided not to take the funicular down the hill – there was a set of stairs right next to it that we walked down, instead. The rain still hadn't let up, though, and the steps were a bit slippery. Thankfully it wasn't to the extent that was present on the rooftops, but we still used caution as we went down. Feeling a bit hungry (and wanting to get out of the rain), we walked only a short distance before we found a small bar. Inside, we ordered 2 steaks with fries, a buckwheat pancake plate, and gorgonzola pasta dish. It was all so good, we rated it one of the best lunches we had on the trip.
While we had talked about going to a museum known as D'Orsay, we didn't feel it was a must to visit it – and with the rain still pouring down (and one of us a bit sick), we decided to skip it. We wandered around for a bit before we got on the metro again, but my dad and one of our friends wanted to stay on and visit the end of the line, known as La Defense. I gave dad a quick hug and kiss goodbye before I got off the train, and I walked with our friend who wasn't feeling too well back to the hotel.
Now, it was my turn to be worried.
Ever since dad started going to Europe every now and again, any time he was on his own, I always felt worried that I'd get the call that I'd never want to hear. Maybe it had something to do with my mother's death, but now the thought of being without parents absolutely terrified me. Arriving back at my room at 4:30 precisely, I sat down in front of my lappy and began, once again, to update my journal. But, as you may have guessed, I was incredibly anxious, looking out a window that I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to see him from, checking down the hallway every few minutes, and just pacing around my room. To what purpose, I couldn't say, except perhaps a vain attempt to somehow calm my mind.
5 minutes became 10, then 10 became 20...it was a very unnerving time as I waited for my dad. Though my friend reassured me that he'd be fine, you could tell from my behavior that words just weren't good enough for me. In a moment of clarity, early on in the ordeal and at various points throughout, I prayed for his safety and that he'd return.
Suddenly, a knock at the door.
My mind raced with thoughts. The police? The hotel manager?
No, just my friend who'd come back with me, delivering our boarding passes for tomorrow. I again told them of my fear for my father's safety, and they repeated that he'd be fine – their kids also were like me when they went out of the country and out of contact, thus. Still, I couldn't help but wonder where dad was at that moment. 45 minutes had passed and there was still no sign of what had become of him. I kept trying to update the journal, but my restless behavior only continued to worsen. In spite of all this, I kept my spirits up, and my faith that the Lord would not let anything happen to dad without His allowance.
5:30. An hour after I had gotten back to the room, the phone rang. Now what? Cops? My other friend who had gone with dad?
No. It was him, this time. I was almost in tears upon hearing his voice once more.
Dad had said that they were going across the street to see if there was some chocolate to be had, and wanted to know if I would go with him. Considering my rather fragile state of mind at this point, I agreed to the offer, thanking God once I had hung up for getting dad back to me safely. Looking back on it as I was writing this journal, maybe that's something else God needed to reveal to me – my fear for those who I held dear was irrational to the point of ridiculousness. Just one more step along life's strange, long and bumpy road.
Anyway. Having rejoined dad, we made our way across the street to check out the mall. There honestly wasn't much that looked all that interesting inside – clothes, a grocery store (yep), and some furniture, but otherwise, not a lot to write home about. However, just when I thought that we were heading back to the hotel room, dad threw me a curveball by proposing we go to La Defense (which he and our other friend who'd gone with him had already taken numerous photos at) to check another mall there.
Well, there was a lot more than just the mall there, lemme tell you. The main draw of La Defense is La Grande Arche, an ultra-modern arch that was directly in line with the Arc de Triomphe, but several kilometers away. The rain was also starting to clear up (finally), and with the sun coming out, a pair of rainbows made their appearance. We took many more photos in La Defense before having our last meal in Paris, and Europe by extension (our breakfast notwithstanding) at...McDonald's of all places. Pricy McDonald's, at that – a double cheeseburger will set you back 2.5 Euros, or slightly more than 3 bucks in the US. But, it was nice to be able to know I could go to sleep that night on a satisfied stomach. La Defense was an awesome last stop on our tour of Paris – I only wish we could have found it sooner to enjoy it some more.
Day 21 – Wednesday, April 10:
Urgh. Waking up at 5:30 is what I did in school, not on vacation. But we had to be up as early as we were in order to get our stuff ready for the airport (bags out at 6:30), and have breakfast (which started at the same time). We skipped the omelets, good though they were, due to the time constraint, having plain scrambled eggs instead. Unlike the eggs on the ship, the scrambled eggs in the hotel were done to perfection. All in all, an excellent meal to end our trip.
Once we had made a final check of our room, making sure that we hadn't forgotten anything, we left the ritzy pad for the last time, and at 7:18, bid Paris, and Europe, au revoir. Roissy-Charles de Gaulle International Airport was waiting for us, half an hour away.
Security...ugh. The less said about it, the better. Granted, security usually takes the better part of an hour to get through, anyway, but it was a very inefficient hour we had to endure. We must have had our boarding passes checked 5 times before we actually got to our gate to take off. Then it was another hour or so waiting for us to be checked in. Once on board, though, the plane was a vast improvement over the one we took to get here. We actually had enough leg room to stretch our legs completely, and I could plug in my laptop and not worry about the battery going dead. So, after watching Battleship for the first time, and getting my dad to watch Dark Knight Rises for his first time, I plugged in lappy and updated the journal, once again – my last time before I got home at 2:00 PM, PDT. During the flight, we passed over Iceland and a frozen section of the Arctic Ocean – both made for some awesome photos.
I also attempted to finish writing my next section of the story, but between my laptop's poor heat dissipation and the turbulence of the aircraft, I had to wait until I was home. Even then, I was so exhausted that I had to wait until today to get it finished. Hopefully I can write the following section soon. This trip has truly made me realize that I need to turn my life around – and keeping at the job hunt and a constant writing schedule will do much to aid in that process, I feel. It has been an amazing experience, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
To those of you who made it this far, my hat goes off to all y'all. Mike and the rest of the Imperials will be back VERY soon.
Europe Journal, Part 1
Posted 12 years agoHey, guys!
You may have been wondering where I've been for the past 3 weeks. Well, I was in Europe, traveling through The Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Sit back and allow me to recount the whole experience for all y'all.
WARNING: WALLS OF TEXT AHEAD!
Day 1 – Thursday, March 21:
The day started off well enough. Woke up at around 6-ish, PDT, to some scrambled eggs and bacon. I had made sure that as many people knew I would be traveling out of the country for the next few weeks, be they family or close friends, and certainly potential employers. You all know who you are who I managed to reach in time.
Anyway, we left the house at about 10 AM to pick up friends of ours, Jim and Evie, and made a stop at my Aunt's to pick her up and drove to the airport at Sea-Tac. We had to wait in Security for about 10 minutes, and had Ivar's for lunch. Afterward, we headed to our airplane at the South Satellite, arriving at about 1:30 PM.
Then things got...interesting. Our plane was scheduled to leave at about 2:35, but it was about 10 minutes later that we actually backed out from the gate. But then, the real fun began. (/sarcasm) We'd barely moved maybe 20 feet before they brought us back to the gate, saying there was an electrical problem. About half an hour later, the captain then told us that the plane's computer was having issues – without that, we wouldn't be able to take off safely. It was another half hour before we got any updates (which weren't good, admittedly), saying they were doing everything they could to get us airborne. But after yet another half hour (2 hours elapsed, total), they booted us off the plane, saying the issue couldn't be resolved in any reasonable amount of time. Thankfully, there was another plane that wasn't scheduled to go anywhere, right next to ours, in fact, and it was (almost) ready to fly.
I say “almost,” because they took an HOUR getting the plane all ready for boarding. Now I'm no aviation expert, but you'd think they'd be able to get things done a bit quicker, considering our plight. Even after the plane was all ready for our departure, we waited yet ANOTHER hour to complete the boarding process. At the end of it all, it was 6:55 PM, PDT before we were actually airborne – a far cry from our expected 2:50-ish time. This meant instead of arriving in The Netherlands at around 8:30 the next morning, we wouldn't actually get in until 12:20 that afternoon. Not exactly the -best- of starts to the trip. But, other than that, the flight was uneventful – although I will say the airline food may have made my stomach do a few somersaults.
Day 2 (technically still 1) – Friday, March 22:
Ah, Amsterdam – my first, true moments of being out of the country (my trips to Canada don't count). One of the first things I noticed upon reaching our destination was that the Dutch spoke roughly equal amounts of Dutch as well as English. Indeed, we found out later that the people of The Netherlands were more than happy to help tourists find their way, so we could always ask for directions if we needed them. We loaded up our bags into a van, got to our ship, then found our rooms and settled in. We had a quick lunch aboard the ship before setting off into Amsterdam and seeing the sights. The boat wasn't scheduled to leave for another 2 days, so we took the time to enjoy the city and what it had to offer.
One of the first places we visited was the Anne Frank House – yes, THE very house where Anne and her family hid out from the Nazis in the Secret Annex. We had pre-purchased tickets for the tour, but our scheduled time was at around 1 PM – we didn't get to the Anne Frank House until almost 4. Thankfully, the receptionist told us that our tickets were still valid, and we could take the tour.
Some things you have to keep in mind about what Anne Frank and her family went through – for one, there was, by my best guess, only 1300-ish square feet in the secret annex, in which almost a dozen people were crammed into. Also, during the day, they couldn't make ANY noise, lest the workers in the warehouse above which they were confined heard them – they couldn't even use the toilet (or flush it, at least). To this day, no one knows who it was who betrayed Anne Frank and her family and friends to the Nazis. Only Otto Frank, Anne's Father, survived the Holocaust.
After we'd seen enough of Amsterdam for the day, we headed on back to the boat for our dinner and overview of the events for the next day. Still suffering from jet lag, I actually fell asleep during the overview a couple times. But, I still managed to get enough strength to head downstairs to the main restaurant and have dinner before we finally called it a night, and got to sleep.
Day 3 – Saturday, March 23:
Woke up, got showered, and headed to the restaurant for breakfast, which consisted of eggs, bacon, toast, and sausage. Dad and I then got off the boat to go on a canal tour of Amsterdam, which took about an hour as we sailed through the various waterways. Fun fact: Amsterdam is sometimes known as the “Venice of the North,” because of all the various waterways that criss-cross the city. The coat of arms of Amsterdam has 3 “Xs” running down the middle of the shield – our guide informed us that they represented the three ancient enemies of Amsterdam – Water, Plague, and Fire (our snarky canal boat driver remarked that he thought the enemies were sex, drugs and rock n' roll XD). After the tour (during which dad took LOTS of pictures), we paid a visit to the floating flower gardens – bit of a disappointment, really, as they were little more than flower markets that happened to be positioned on one of the canals.
The afternoon took us to the city of Delft, which was where The Netherlands' founder, Prince William of Orange, declared the nation's sovereignty. It is because of this event that most of the Dutch in the country wear orange clothes – to honor the prince's act. It was a nice little walking tour through the city, and we also paid a visit to one of three locations where Delft china comes from. Any of you who think you might have Delftware, as it is called, be warned – only these three establishments are genuine - the rest are trademarked knockoffs. Some of the Delftware in the shop we visited was worth almost 1300 Euros (for us in the States, that's about $1800 after factoring in the exchange rates)!
Once our visit in Delft was concluded, we headed back to the boat, and after meeting our captain, we waved farewell to Amsterdam, and set off that night to the next town after dinner.
Day 4 – Sunday, March 24, Palm Sunday:
One thing I forgot to mention about The Netherlands – it's windy (why do you think there's so many windmills?)! We woke to discover that this day was the coldest it had been since 1916 - a record that had stood for nearly 100 years. Our ship had docked in the city of Hoorn (say “horn”), where we awaited our guides to take us on a frigid walking tour of the city. In point of fact, we were told that usually it's about 20 degrees Celsius warmer this time of year, but the freezing winds from the north were making things unusually cold.
The morning walk was more than just a sightseeing tour, however – the people in charge of our cruise line had contacted various families in the city to give us an experience of what it was like to live in the Netherlands. Our hostess, who I must begin was very kind, was very informative about her life and others' in Hoorn as well as elsewhere in The Netherlands. She had a wonderful view of the city from her apartment – hell, I might just consider retiring here when I've done all the work that God wants me to do.
After a lovely mid-morning snack and talk with her (I didn't want to leave!), we headed back to the boat for some lunch before heading out on a bus to see one of the things that The Netherlands is really known for – its Tulips.
...Or rather, one of the farms where they're grown, anyway.
Sadly, it was still 3 weeks too early before we could actually see fields of the lovely flowers in bloom, but we still saw the vast multitudes of Tulips inside one of the many greenhouses where they were kept before being packaged and sent off elsewhere. Believe it or not, Tulips are such a major export of The Netherlands, there are actually auctions where companies bid on collections of the flowers for their own customers.
Unfortunately, jet lag was still affecting me, even 3 days after our flight, and I spent most of the ride to the farm more or less asleep in my seat. It was a shame, because there were a lot of cool towns and sights that I missed along the way. Good thing dad took lots of pictures.
Again, after the trip to the Tulip farms, we headed back to the ship for the overview of tomorrow, then dinner, and (finally!) sleep. But, not before I got some playtime on my computer. XP
Day 5 – Monday, March 25:
Let me tell you a story.
A story of a time when the world had gone mad.
A time when your daily life meant either taking orders from a mass-murdering psycho dictator or being crushed under the bootheels of his dark-brown trenchcoated secret police.
No, this isn't the present day United States, this is Arnhem in September of 1944.
Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower had gotten together and decided that in one moment, they would say to Der Fuhrer and his Nazis, “ENOUGH!” and storm through Arnhem to Berlin. The mission:
OPERATION: MARKET GARDEN
This was the site of the largest airborne operation of the war – and one that has not been seen since.
Over 20,000 troops
5,000 tons of military supplies, munitions, and machinery
and much more...
It was supposed to be a simple mission – drop our boys from the US, Britain, Canada, and some of the Polish Resistance into the fields surrounding Arnhem, and take the bridges so that Allied ground forces could reinforce the town before continuing on to the heart of Hitler's crumbling empire, with the hope that the war would be over by Christmas.
...Unfortunately, it was anything but simple.
British intelligence had come up short in reporting just how large the German garrison was at Arnhem. There were far more troops stationed in the city than expected – even worse, the Nazis were supported by the 1st and 2nd Panzer divisons – they had TANKS. We didn't. Also, the Polish Resistance wound up landing across the river from the rest of the troopers who made it to Arnhem. If that wasn't enough, the Nazis, anticipating the attack, had destroyed the rail bridge leading into the city, and dismantled a pontoon bridge that was a few kilometers up the way. Only one bridge – a large steel girder bridge, remained. Some felt it was a Bridge Too Far. (Yes, that is what the movie is named for.)
In spite of the long odds, troopers led by then-Colonel Frost managed to reach the last remaining bridge. Frost and his troops were being hit hard from all sides as they tried to hold their positions for 4 days, praying that the ground troops would arrive in time. But the sheer number of German forces, between the soldiers and the tanks backing them up, tested the will of the paratroopers to their absolute limit. The ground forces had started late, and what should have taken 2 days, wound up taking 5.
Finally, on the 5th morning of the invasion, Frost had no choice but to signal his troops to withdraw to a perimeter a few miles West of the city. The combined forces continued to hold out for another 4 days, until the order from Allied High Command came in: withdraw at once.
Market Garden, for all its effort to bring a fast end to the war, failed. World War II drug on for another 6 months.
All this was recounted in Arnhem's Airborne Museum, which served as the headquarters for the aforementioned perimeter, and was originally a hotel. It was here that our 5th day began, but one experience that I will never forget. In the end, 1,485 men died for their countries, and our freedom, in this one battle. We paid a visit to the graveyard where many of these men now rest – many of whom their identities unknown to all but God. The rest of the day was spent walking around Arnhem and one of its parks, but it is a small note compared to the events that occurred nearly 70 years ago.
The journey reminded me, above all else, the following...
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
LEST WE FORGET
Day 6 – Tuesday, March 26:
Brr. Aaron frickin' BRRRR! Cold this morning, and windy as well. Perfect weather for taking a tour of what The Netherlands are also known for – the windmills!
Windmills, in case you didn't already know, were used for grinding wheat, mustard, and sometimes even stone. The Netherlands, however, gave them another use – pumping systems.
No, you didn't read that wrong. Almost 30% of the country is well below sea level – most of it in the Western part of the nation, which, unfortunately, is where most of the population is located. So, the Dutch built more than 1000 windmills to help pump the water out of the nation and (eventually) into the North Sea. And using diesel-electric-powered pumps, they still do, to this day. I bet you're wondering, if they ever decided to stop pumping the water altogether, how long would it take for all that land to be reclaimed by the sea? 100 years? No. 50? Nope. 10? Not even close.
Three.
MONTHS.
Remember the coat of arms of Amsterdam I mentioned? That's how much water the Dutch are fighting to this day. The Netherlands has 17 million people living in it. Now try picturing the Greater Manhattan Metropolitan Area (which is maybe HALF its size in population) suddenly sinking into the sea, with every last man, woman and child with it. THAT'S the kind of fight that The Netherlands has been dealing with for the past 800+ years.
After visiting one of the windmills in the town of Kinderdijk (say kin-dur-dyke), the rest of the day consisted of us sailing around on the boat – there were no other stops along the way. Coincidentally, this was also the day I finally got started on this journal, thanks to the extra time we had. Not much else to say other than we had dinner and got the 411 on our activities for tomorrow.
Day 7 – Wednesday, March 27:
Ah, Belgium. Well-known for its diamond industry, Belgian Waffles, and, of course...
CHOOOOCOLAAAAATE!!!
We paid a visit to the city of Antwerp, Belgium for this part of our tour of Europe. What was our goal? Why, to eat our way through it, of course. XP
Breakfast was our usual shipboard continental breakfast, consisting of an omelette, sausages, and so on. After that, we took a walking tour of Antwerp for a couple hours, during which we visited the Cathedral of Our Lady. Inside the cathedral were paintings of the famous artist Peter Paul Reubens, who made various paintings, sculptures, and architectural designs.
After the visit to the cathedral, we roamed around town for the rest of the day. One of the first places we visited was Centraal Station. It was huge – to say it was similar in size to Grand Central in NYC would not have been an exaggeration. While there, we saw what appeared to be a breakdancing competition of sorts. It was quite interesting to watch how the dancers used their momentum to perform the moves they did.
After about half an hour, we left Centraal to a local fast food joint to have French Fries – yep, French Fries are actually from Belgium, not France! Belgians tend to eat fries with either mayonnaise or gravy – we didn't have any gravy, but I must say that mayo wasn't a big draw for me. As to the fries themselves, forget anything you might know about how fries taste – they're nothing compared to how they taste from the country of origin. They were hot, crisp, and, most importantly, not greasy at all. Who says having no trans fat is a good thing?
Next on our trip through Antwerp – Belgian Chocolate. We stopped at a couple shops to pick up different kinds of chocolate for us to enjoy – both at time of purchase and later on our trip. Trying to describe how awesome Belgian Chocolate is would be like trying to describe rock n' roll to someone who's never heard it before – you'd have to experience it yourself.
With the sun getting low in the sky, we decided that one of our last stops would be at the house of Peter Paul Reubens himself – the very residence in which he worked and died in. While not all the works in the house were made by Reubens, many were either created by Reubens or his pupils. Though the artwork was the main attraction, the grounds themselves were equally astounding to witness. One of the best parts about the visit? Since it was the last Wednesday of the month, entry was free to the house (it would have cost us 14 Euros to enter, normally)!
Before we headed back to the ship, there was time enough for one last stop before we left Antwerp once and for all. So, we decided to get a bite to eat at this restaurant called Desiree de Lille. The food of choice? A Belgian Waffle with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. We had had Belgian Waffles yesterday, but they didn't hold a match to the waffle we had at the restaurant.
Once back at the ship, there was little else we did except dinner and reviewing the next day's activities, as per usual.
Day 8 – Thursday, March 28, Maundy Thursday:
Early start to the day. Had to be off the ship by 8:30 instead of around 9-ish like we usually were. The city we docked at was called Ghent, but our destination was the town of Bruges (yes, for which the movie In Bruges is named for and takes place in). We started off with a 2 hour walking tour of the city, eventually arriving at the clock tower that would serve as our meeting point for getting back to the bus. There would be 2 pick-up times – 11:45 and 3:15. It was our intention to try to be back by 11:45, but not before we went up in the tower to see the entire city.
My heart sank a bit when I saw the line for entering the tower – only a maximum of 70 people could be in the tower at any one time for security purposes. Indeed, it took us the better part of half an hour just getting to the ticket stand before we could actually go up in the tower. Still, I tried to stay upbeat and hoped we'd be up and down in time.
Since the tower was over 600 years old, there wasn't any elevator – a total of 366 steps were the only way to reach the highest observable point in the tower, and there wasn't much room to maneuver. Any time someone was coming down, I'd shout, “down ladder!” to alert our group and anyone else coming up. Racing against the clock, I was doing my best to get to the top of the tower before 11:45 rolled around, all the while doing my best to take in as much of the tower as it had to offer. As “Wild Bill” Hickock once put it best, I “took my time in a hurry,” you might say.
In all, it took an exhausting 10 minutes before I at last reached the top of the tower and its viewing area which contained the carillon (the bells). Inside the panorama, as it was called, there were markings on the stone window sills that displayed the various distances to the cities surrounding Bruges – I chuckled at the distance to Paris, which was some 230 km in a rough south-easterly direction.
As I was admiring both the view of the city and the inside of the bell tower, I eventually asked:
“Dad, what time is it?”
(checks his watch)
“11:45.”
...SHIT.
Desperately, I tried to think of some way I could make lemonade from this lemon I now had – maybe I could catch up to the group, maybe I could get down from the tower in time before they left, maybe we'd run into the group somewhere along the way...
...But as the bells chimed while we were more than 3/4ths of the way down, I knew at that moment we were stuck until 3:15. With a sigh, I had little choice but to resign myself to our fate – the group could've been anywhere in the 15 minutes that elapsed, and just running into them somewhere in town would've been impossible.
Still disappointed that we didn't make the 11:45 deadline, I joined my dad and our friends at a small restaurant across the square from the clock tower. Seeing as we wouldn't be back to the ship until at least 5 PM at this point (it was an hour bus ride, on top of an extra 45 minutes of sightseeing once the group met up at the clock tower), we had to eat some lunch somewhere, and it turned out this was as good a place as any.
It was in this restaurant that I became acquainted with another of Belgium's claims-to-fame: beefsteak. With lots of gravy. And a basket of fries to go with it. I also had some greens to force down my throat – and a tomato. Now, while I've never liked tomatoes to begin with (mainly due to the texture), I couldn't tell you what the greens were, except that we pretty much all agreed they tasted like grass. With that out of the way, I moved on to the good stuff. I must say, gravy plus fries equals mass amounts of win, and the beefsteak was excellent as well.
Well, as long as we were stuck in Bruges, we figured we may as well load up on more chocolate. Because, well, let's be honest – you can never have too much chocolate, right? Unless you're allergic, I suppose...
As one final stop, we paid a visit to the Old Saint John's Hospital a few blocks from the clock tower (and we ran into a statue of Humphrey Bogart dressed in his suit from Casablanca as an aside) to see some more of Belgium's past. Old, indeed – the oldest known register dated from the 12th Century! As the exhibit reminded me, medical science was very primitive when hospitals were first created - originally, they had very little to do with physical healing of the body and more of spiritual healing of the soul. While I knew that hospitals in the early days were probably one of the last places you ever wanted to be, St. John's showed me just how much people were scared of these institutions. At one point during the tour, there was a display of medical equipment that the hospital and others like it used during the 1600s – the needles were bad enough to look at, but I think the mention of a drill they used to bore into you would be enough to make your skin crawl.
Of course, seeing as the hospital was initially intended for healing of the soul, there was plenty of artwork of the Christian faith – Jesus, naturally, but also St. Ursula, which the hospital was primarily dedicated to, and a statue of St. Augustine of Hippo, which I personally found quite interesting.
Before long, we were checking our watches to find that it was a quarter to 3, meaning we had to hurry up and finish looking at the rest of the hospital and its grounds; again, taking my time in a hurry, and doing my best to read up on as much as I could.
Once the bells chimed, though, we quickly made our exit and headed back to the clock tower for the trek back to the buses. While on the walk, I had a bit of an epiphany as to why things went the way they did. As patient as I've been with regards to my job hunt and not seeing any results, I had not quite let go of all my impatience with regards to other things, like the aforementioned time it took to get through the tower. Clearly, I feel this was God's way of showing me that while I'm patient, there's still room for improvement.
Getting back to our exit from the city, we were shown a few other sights around the city, mainly shops and so on. However, the last places we passed by were a park and a nunnery. The park was filled with swans – more than I'd ever seen at one time until that point. And the nunnery, with its rows of white buildings, was quiet and peaceful, disregarding our guide's chatter. It was once we got back to the buses that dad and I realized that, originally, trips to Bruges had a 45-minute walk in to the city, not just the 45-minutes it took to walk out, hence the need for a meeting point.
After getting back to the ship and experiencing the usual nightly routine, I found myself contemplating the day's events as I began to drift off to sleep. It appears that this trip may well be the reason I haven't found a job yet – God feels I need to improve myself a bit more before He puts me where I need to be, and this trip is doing a good job of showing my weakness.
...Huh. Is that snow outside my window? Maybe I'm just seeing things, but I could've sworn I saw a few flakes...
Whatever. Tired. Sleep now.
Day 9 – Friday, March 29, Good Friday:
Back in The Netherlands once again. Another early day, but at least this time, I was more ready and awake when the wake-up call came. Plans for the day: run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
The snow I thought I saw last night must have been forewarning for the trip to the coast we were taking today – we were told one of the stops we were visiting was always very windy, but the cold we were experiencing made me feel glad I'd decided to wear a long-sleeved shirt. Even with it tucked in so's no frosty air would rush up my back, in addition to my fleece and coat, it was still friggin' cold.
Our journey today took us to a little town called Weere (say “veer”). Aside from the giant church that dominated its skyline, there wasn't all that much else in the town – shops, homes, restaurants – pretty humdrum compared to the places we'd been thus far. The focus of the tour, I guess you could say, was the flood of 1953 that devastated a large region of The Netherlands – most people simply referred to it as “the disaster.” I'd say the deaths of 1,836 people, the destruction of 10,000 buildings, and 9% of the total Dutch farmland flooded would qualify as a disaster.
This was all recounted in the second half of our excursion to the Watersnoodmuseum, which was made from the 4 massive caissons that were originally used to plug one of the dikes destroyed in the flood. We decided we were going to do our own thing and not follow the guide this time – instead, we were just going to admire the museum as it came to us. Unfortunately, as we were on a tight schedule, we didn't really get the chance to examine and admire everything the museum had to offer, and wound up making passing glances at the later parts of the exhibition. It was all too soon that we found ourselves back on the bus headed back to the ship.
...I wasn't hallucinating, after all. It's really snowing.
Back on board, we had a lunch centered around, “A Taste of Deutschland.” Naturally, there was polka music playing as we served ourselves Dutch cheese, meat croquettes, and Rookwurst. I dunno what the difference between Rookwurst and Knockwurst is, unless the latter doesn't have cheese as the former does. Other than that, I took the time to update this journal again, seeing as it was another “day at sea” kind of day.
That reminds me, that's probably another thing that God's reminding me that I need to improve on – getting around to things that I say I'll do but wind up taking weeks or months to actually get around to it. Gives me more motivation to get back to writing more of my story for all y'all to enjoy.
Only significant thing about tonight's activities was the Captain's send-off party thing – The Netherlands part of the cruise doesn't end for another day, but I assume they did this because tomorrow would be crazy-busy for them and would be quite tiring for them.
Dinner went thusly: potato cake with salmon caviar on top (not bad, actually) and greens (blargh), risotto and shrimp with mushrooms (mushrooms, bleh, the rest, YUM), various steamed veggies (urgh) with pieces of baked potato (nice) and Filet Mignon (*insert drooling sound here*). Finishing off the night was a selection of Brie, Provolone, and Cambozola (Camembert and Gorgonzola) cheeses with crackers.
The rest of the night was mine to enjoy, which I did via playing some more Secret of Mana. Tomorrow would be another early day, though, so I had to go to bed equally early.
Day 10 – Saturday, March 30:
Right back where we started in Amsterdam. Today's weather: schizophrenic, alternating between being sunny and snowing.
The day started with a trip to the Keukenhoff Tulip Gardens. Problem was, it was still friggin' cold, so the few flowers that were out were mostly daffodils. Were the flowers in bloom, the experience would've been worlds better – I had a hard time remembering what it was until I had written journals for a few other days! There was a hothouse we also visited with other plants and flowers, but even then, not everything was in bloom. All in all, the potential for the experience being spectacular was undermined by the time of year it was, but there wasn't all that much you could do about that. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about the whole trip? Out of the 180 or so passengers from our ship, THREE wanted to stay behind. I mean, WTF? Granted, if the flowers were in bloom, that would at least make sense, but the grounds as they were? We were done in about an hour and a half. Sometimes, idiocy knows no bounds, it seems...
After we got back to the ship and had lunch, we went to visit a church that had been converted into a modern art museum. Bit of a misnomer, really – in my opinion, most “modern art” is neither “modern,” nor is it usually “art.” The church itself only had a few stained-glass windows in it, as well – there were some other things, like crypts and ornate woodwork, but it was really nothing to write home about. On the way to said museum, however, we wound up going through Amsterdam's Red-Light District.
...There are just some things that no man should ever see.
Or smell, for that matter. More smokers there than a Baltimore Bingo Hall. The museum was also more or less in the middle of the district. Ain't irony grand?
After we managed to get out of the racier side of Amsterdam, we stopped at a museum called Our Lord In The Attic, which was a Catholic Church constructed in the upper floors of a few houses. It was built at a time when practicing Catholicsm openly was frowned upon in Amsterdam – to say its creator was inventive was a gross understatement.
Once we had finished touring the museum, we explored Amsterdam a bit more, and found ourselves at a square we had visited the first time we arrived in-town. Last time, the place was empty – but today, it was home to a carnival, seeing as Easter was tomorrow. Yeah, I don't know, either. Still was an entertaining experience, though we didn't go on any of the rides or play the games that were there. Not that I'm complaining – rides were overpriced for what they were, and carnie games are rigged, as-is.
Seeing as it was our last night in The Netherlands, the dinner was our last farewell to the crew we had become so well-acquainted with. Gonna miss those guys – they did their best to be as accommodating as possible.
CONTINUED IN PT II
You may have been wondering where I've been for the past 3 weeks. Well, I was in Europe, traveling through The Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Sit back and allow me to recount the whole experience for all y'all.
WARNING: WALLS OF TEXT AHEAD!
Day 1 – Thursday, March 21:
The day started off well enough. Woke up at around 6-ish, PDT, to some scrambled eggs and bacon. I had made sure that as many people knew I would be traveling out of the country for the next few weeks, be they family or close friends, and certainly potential employers. You all know who you are who I managed to reach in time.
Anyway, we left the house at about 10 AM to pick up friends of ours, Jim and Evie, and made a stop at my Aunt's to pick her up and drove to the airport at Sea-Tac. We had to wait in Security for about 10 minutes, and had Ivar's for lunch. Afterward, we headed to our airplane at the South Satellite, arriving at about 1:30 PM.
Then things got...interesting. Our plane was scheduled to leave at about 2:35, but it was about 10 minutes later that we actually backed out from the gate. But then, the real fun began. (/sarcasm) We'd barely moved maybe 20 feet before they brought us back to the gate, saying there was an electrical problem. About half an hour later, the captain then told us that the plane's computer was having issues – without that, we wouldn't be able to take off safely. It was another half hour before we got any updates (which weren't good, admittedly), saying they were doing everything they could to get us airborne. But after yet another half hour (2 hours elapsed, total), they booted us off the plane, saying the issue couldn't be resolved in any reasonable amount of time. Thankfully, there was another plane that wasn't scheduled to go anywhere, right next to ours, in fact, and it was (almost) ready to fly.
I say “almost,” because they took an HOUR getting the plane all ready for boarding. Now I'm no aviation expert, but you'd think they'd be able to get things done a bit quicker, considering our plight. Even after the plane was all ready for our departure, we waited yet ANOTHER hour to complete the boarding process. At the end of it all, it was 6:55 PM, PDT before we were actually airborne – a far cry from our expected 2:50-ish time. This meant instead of arriving in The Netherlands at around 8:30 the next morning, we wouldn't actually get in until 12:20 that afternoon. Not exactly the -best- of starts to the trip. But, other than that, the flight was uneventful – although I will say the airline food may have made my stomach do a few somersaults.
Day 2 (technically still 1) – Friday, March 22:
Ah, Amsterdam – my first, true moments of being out of the country (my trips to Canada don't count). One of the first things I noticed upon reaching our destination was that the Dutch spoke roughly equal amounts of Dutch as well as English. Indeed, we found out later that the people of The Netherlands were more than happy to help tourists find their way, so we could always ask for directions if we needed them. We loaded up our bags into a van, got to our ship, then found our rooms and settled in. We had a quick lunch aboard the ship before setting off into Amsterdam and seeing the sights. The boat wasn't scheduled to leave for another 2 days, so we took the time to enjoy the city and what it had to offer.
One of the first places we visited was the Anne Frank House – yes, THE very house where Anne and her family hid out from the Nazis in the Secret Annex. We had pre-purchased tickets for the tour, but our scheduled time was at around 1 PM – we didn't get to the Anne Frank House until almost 4. Thankfully, the receptionist told us that our tickets were still valid, and we could take the tour.
Some things you have to keep in mind about what Anne Frank and her family went through – for one, there was, by my best guess, only 1300-ish square feet in the secret annex, in which almost a dozen people were crammed into. Also, during the day, they couldn't make ANY noise, lest the workers in the warehouse above which they were confined heard them – they couldn't even use the toilet (or flush it, at least). To this day, no one knows who it was who betrayed Anne Frank and her family and friends to the Nazis. Only Otto Frank, Anne's Father, survived the Holocaust.
After we'd seen enough of Amsterdam for the day, we headed on back to the boat for our dinner and overview of the events for the next day. Still suffering from jet lag, I actually fell asleep during the overview a couple times. But, I still managed to get enough strength to head downstairs to the main restaurant and have dinner before we finally called it a night, and got to sleep.
Day 3 – Saturday, March 23:
Woke up, got showered, and headed to the restaurant for breakfast, which consisted of eggs, bacon, toast, and sausage. Dad and I then got off the boat to go on a canal tour of Amsterdam, which took about an hour as we sailed through the various waterways. Fun fact: Amsterdam is sometimes known as the “Venice of the North,” because of all the various waterways that criss-cross the city. The coat of arms of Amsterdam has 3 “Xs” running down the middle of the shield – our guide informed us that they represented the three ancient enemies of Amsterdam – Water, Plague, and Fire (our snarky canal boat driver remarked that he thought the enemies were sex, drugs and rock n' roll XD). After the tour (during which dad took LOTS of pictures), we paid a visit to the floating flower gardens – bit of a disappointment, really, as they were little more than flower markets that happened to be positioned on one of the canals.
The afternoon took us to the city of Delft, which was where The Netherlands' founder, Prince William of Orange, declared the nation's sovereignty. It is because of this event that most of the Dutch in the country wear orange clothes – to honor the prince's act. It was a nice little walking tour through the city, and we also paid a visit to one of three locations where Delft china comes from. Any of you who think you might have Delftware, as it is called, be warned – only these three establishments are genuine - the rest are trademarked knockoffs. Some of the Delftware in the shop we visited was worth almost 1300 Euros (for us in the States, that's about $1800 after factoring in the exchange rates)!
Once our visit in Delft was concluded, we headed back to the boat, and after meeting our captain, we waved farewell to Amsterdam, and set off that night to the next town after dinner.
Day 4 – Sunday, March 24, Palm Sunday:
One thing I forgot to mention about The Netherlands – it's windy (why do you think there's so many windmills?)! We woke to discover that this day was the coldest it had been since 1916 - a record that had stood for nearly 100 years. Our ship had docked in the city of Hoorn (say “horn”), where we awaited our guides to take us on a frigid walking tour of the city. In point of fact, we were told that usually it's about 20 degrees Celsius warmer this time of year, but the freezing winds from the north were making things unusually cold.
The morning walk was more than just a sightseeing tour, however – the people in charge of our cruise line had contacted various families in the city to give us an experience of what it was like to live in the Netherlands. Our hostess, who I must begin was very kind, was very informative about her life and others' in Hoorn as well as elsewhere in The Netherlands. She had a wonderful view of the city from her apartment – hell, I might just consider retiring here when I've done all the work that God wants me to do.
After a lovely mid-morning snack and talk with her (I didn't want to leave!), we headed back to the boat for some lunch before heading out on a bus to see one of the things that The Netherlands is really known for – its Tulips.
...Or rather, one of the farms where they're grown, anyway.
Sadly, it was still 3 weeks too early before we could actually see fields of the lovely flowers in bloom, but we still saw the vast multitudes of Tulips inside one of the many greenhouses where they were kept before being packaged and sent off elsewhere. Believe it or not, Tulips are such a major export of The Netherlands, there are actually auctions where companies bid on collections of the flowers for their own customers.
Unfortunately, jet lag was still affecting me, even 3 days after our flight, and I spent most of the ride to the farm more or less asleep in my seat. It was a shame, because there were a lot of cool towns and sights that I missed along the way. Good thing dad took lots of pictures.
Again, after the trip to the Tulip farms, we headed back to the ship for the overview of tomorrow, then dinner, and (finally!) sleep. But, not before I got some playtime on my computer. XP
Day 5 – Monday, March 25:
Let me tell you a story.
A story of a time when the world had gone mad.
A time when your daily life meant either taking orders from a mass-murdering psycho dictator or being crushed under the bootheels of his dark-brown trenchcoated secret police.
No, this isn't the present day United States, this is Arnhem in September of 1944.
Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower had gotten together and decided that in one moment, they would say to Der Fuhrer and his Nazis, “ENOUGH!” and storm through Arnhem to Berlin. The mission:
OPERATION: MARKET GARDEN
This was the site of the largest airborne operation of the war – and one that has not been seen since.
Over 20,000 troops
5,000 tons of military supplies, munitions, and machinery
and much more...
It was supposed to be a simple mission – drop our boys from the US, Britain, Canada, and some of the Polish Resistance into the fields surrounding Arnhem, and take the bridges so that Allied ground forces could reinforce the town before continuing on to the heart of Hitler's crumbling empire, with the hope that the war would be over by Christmas.
...Unfortunately, it was anything but simple.
British intelligence had come up short in reporting just how large the German garrison was at Arnhem. There were far more troops stationed in the city than expected – even worse, the Nazis were supported by the 1st and 2nd Panzer divisons – they had TANKS. We didn't. Also, the Polish Resistance wound up landing across the river from the rest of the troopers who made it to Arnhem. If that wasn't enough, the Nazis, anticipating the attack, had destroyed the rail bridge leading into the city, and dismantled a pontoon bridge that was a few kilometers up the way. Only one bridge – a large steel girder bridge, remained. Some felt it was a Bridge Too Far. (Yes, that is what the movie is named for.)
In spite of the long odds, troopers led by then-Colonel Frost managed to reach the last remaining bridge. Frost and his troops were being hit hard from all sides as they tried to hold their positions for 4 days, praying that the ground troops would arrive in time. But the sheer number of German forces, between the soldiers and the tanks backing them up, tested the will of the paratroopers to their absolute limit. The ground forces had started late, and what should have taken 2 days, wound up taking 5.
Finally, on the 5th morning of the invasion, Frost had no choice but to signal his troops to withdraw to a perimeter a few miles West of the city. The combined forces continued to hold out for another 4 days, until the order from Allied High Command came in: withdraw at once.
Market Garden, for all its effort to bring a fast end to the war, failed. World War II drug on for another 6 months.
All this was recounted in Arnhem's Airborne Museum, which served as the headquarters for the aforementioned perimeter, and was originally a hotel. It was here that our 5th day began, but one experience that I will never forget. In the end, 1,485 men died for their countries, and our freedom, in this one battle. We paid a visit to the graveyard where many of these men now rest – many of whom their identities unknown to all but God. The rest of the day was spent walking around Arnhem and one of its parks, but it is a small note compared to the events that occurred nearly 70 years ago.
The journey reminded me, above all else, the following...
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
LEST WE FORGET
Day 6 – Tuesday, March 26:
Brr. Aaron frickin' BRRRR! Cold this morning, and windy as well. Perfect weather for taking a tour of what The Netherlands are also known for – the windmills!
Windmills, in case you didn't already know, were used for grinding wheat, mustard, and sometimes even stone. The Netherlands, however, gave them another use – pumping systems.
No, you didn't read that wrong. Almost 30% of the country is well below sea level – most of it in the Western part of the nation, which, unfortunately, is where most of the population is located. So, the Dutch built more than 1000 windmills to help pump the water out of the nation and (eventually) into the North Sea. And using diesel-electric-powered pumps, they still do, to this day. I bet you're wondering, if they ever decided to stop pumping the water altogether, how long would it take for all that land to be reclaimed by the sea? 100 years? No. 50? Nope. 10? Not even close.
Three.
MONTHS.
Remember the coat of arms of Amsterdam I mentioned? That's how much water the Dutch are fighting to this day. The Netherlands has 17 million people living in it. Now try picturing the Greater Manhattan Metropolitan Area (which is maybe HALF its size in population) suddenly sinking into the sea, with every last man, woman and child with it. THAT'S the kind of fight that The Netherlands has been dealing with for the past 800+ years.
After visiting one of the windmills in the town of Kinderdijk (say kin-dur-dyke), the rest of the day consisted of us sailing around on the boat – there were no other stops along the way. Coincidentally, this was also the day I finally got started on this journal, thanks to the extra time we had. Not much else to say other than we had dinner and got the 411 on our activities for tomorrow.
Day 7 – Wednesday, March 27:
Ah, Belgium. Well-known for its diamond industry, Belgian Waffles, and, of course...
CHOOOOCOLAAAAATE!!!
We paid a visit to the city of Antwerp, Belgium for this part of our tour of Europe. What was our goal? Why, to eat our way through it, of course. XP
Breakfast was our usual shipboard continental breakfast, consisting of an omelette, sausages, and so on. After that, we took a walking tour of Antwerp for a couple hours, during which we visited the Cathedral of Our Lady. Inside the cathedral were paintings of the famous artist Peter Paul Reubens, who made various paintings, sculptures, and architectural designs.
After the visit to the cathedral, we roamed around town for the rest of the day. One of the first places we visited was Centraal Station. It was huge – to say it was similar in size to Grand Central in NYC would not have been an exaggeration. While there, we saw what appeared to be a breakdancing competition of sorts. It was quite interesting to watch how the dancers used their momentum to perform the moves they did.
After about half an hour, we left Centraal to a local fast food joint to have French Fries – yep, French Fries are actually from Belgium, not France! Belgians tend to eat fries with either mayonnaise or gravy – we didn't have any gravy, but I must say that mayo wasn't a big draw for me. As to the fries themselves, forget anything you might know about how fries taste – they're nothing compared to how they taste from the country of origin. They were hot, crisp, and, most importantly, not greasy at all. Who says having no trans fat is a good thing?
Next on our trip through Antwerp – Belgian Chocolate. We stopped at a couple shops to pick up different kinds of chocolate for us to enjoy – both at time of purchase and later on our trip. Trying to describe how awesome Belgian Chocolate is would be like trying to describe rock n' roll to someone who's never heard it before – you'd have to experience it yourself.
With the sun getting low in the sky, we decided that one of our last stops would be at the house of Peter Paul Reubens himself – the very residence in which he worked and died in. While not all the works in the house were made by Reubens, many were either created by Reubens or his pupils. Though the artwork was the main attraction, the grounds themselves were equally astounding to witness. One of the best parts about the visit? Since it was the last Wednesday of the month, entry was free to the house (it would have cost us 14 Euros to enter, normally)!
Before we headed back to the ship, there was time enough for one last stop before we left Antwerp once and for all. So, we decided to get a bite to eat at this restaurant called Desiree de Lille. The food of choice? A Belgian Waffle with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. We had had Belgian Waffles yesterday, but they didn't hold a match to the waffle we had at the restaurant.
Once back at the ship, there was little else we did except dinner and reviewing the next day's activities, as per usual.
Day 8 – Thursday, March 28, Maundy Thursday:
Early start to the day. Had to be off the ship by 8:30 instead of around 9-ish like we usually were. The city we docked at was called Ghent, but our destination was the town of Bruges (yes, for which the movie In Bruges is named for and takes place in). We started off with a 2 hour walking tour of the city, eventually arriving at the clock tower that would serve as our meeting point for getting back to the bus. There would be 2 pick-up times – 11:45 and 3:15. It was our intention to try to be back by 11:45, but not before we went up in the tower to see the entire city.
My heart sank a bit when I saw the line for entering the tower – only a maximum of 70 people could be in the tower at any one time for security purposes. Indeed, it took us the better part of half an hour just getting to the ticket stand before we could actually go up in the tower. Still, I tried to stay upbeat and hoped we'd be up and down in time.
Since the tower was over 600 years old, there wasn't any elevator – a total of 366 steps were the only way to reach the highest observable point in the tower, and there wasn't much room to maneuver. Any time someone was coming down, I'd shout, “down ladder!” to alert our group and anyone else coming up. Racing against the clock, I was doing my best to get to the top of the tower before 11:45 rolled around, all the while doing my best to take in as much of the tower as it had to offer. As “Wild Bill” Hickock once put it best, I “took my time in a hurry,” you might say.
In all, it took an exhausting 10 minutes before I at last reached the top of the tower and its viewing area which contained the carillon (the bells). Inside the panorama, as it was called, there were markings on the stone window sills that displayed the various distances to the cities surrounding Bruges – I chuckled at the distance to Paris, which was some 230 km in a rough south-easterly direction.
As I was admiring both the view of the city and the inside of the bell tower, I eventually asked:
“Dad, what time is it?”
(checks his watch)
“11:45.”
...SHIT.
Desperately, I tried to think of some way I could make lemonade from this lemon I now had – maybe I could catch up to the group, maybe I could get down from the tower in time before they left, maybe we'd run into the group somewhere along the way...
...But as the bells chimed while we were more than 3/4ths of the way down, I knew at that moment we were stuck until 3:15. With a sigh, I had little choice but to resign myself to our fate – the group could've been anywhere in the 15 minutes that elapsed, and just running into them somewhere in town would've been impossible.
Still disappointed that we didn't make the 11:45 deadline, I joined my dad and our friends at a small restaurant across the square from the clock tower. Seeing as we wouldn't be back to the ship until at least 5 PM at this point (it was an hour bus ride, on top of an extra 45 minutes of sightseeing once the group met up at the clock tower), we had to eat some lunch somewhere, and it turned out this was as good a place as any.
It was in this restaurant that I became acquainted with another of Belgium's claims-to-fame: beefsteak. With lots of gravy. And a basket of fries to go with it. I also had some greens to force down my throat – and a tomato. Now, while I've never liked tomatoes to begin with (mainly due to the texture), I couldn't tell you what the greens were, except that we pretty much all agreed they tasted like grass. With that out of the way, I moved on to the good stuff. I must say, gravy plus fries equals mass amounts of win, and the beefsteak was excellent as well.
Well, as long as we were stuck in Bruges, we figured we may as well load up on more chocolate. Because, well, let's be honest – you can never have too much chocolate, right? Unless you're allergic, I suppose...
As one final stop, we paid a visit to the Old Saint John's Hospital a few blocks from the clock tower (and we ran into a statue of Humphrey Bogart dressed in his suit from Casablanca as an aside) to see some more of Belgium's past. Old, indeed – the oldest known register dated from the 12th Century! As the exhibit reminded me, medical science was very primitive when hospitals were first created - originally, they had very little to do with physical healing of the body and more of spiritual healing of the soul. While I knew that hospitals in the early days were probably one of the last places you ever wanted to be, St. John's showed me just how much people were scared of these institutions. At one point during the tour, there was a display of medical equipment that the hospital and others like it used during the 1600s – the needles were bad enough to look at, but I think the mention of a drill they used to bore into you would be enough to make your skin crawl.
Of course, seeing as the hospital was initially intended for healing of the soul, there was plenty of artwork of the Christian faith – Jesus, naturally, but also St. Ursula, which the hospital was primarily dedicated to, and a statue of St. Augustine of Hippo, which I personally found quite interesting.
Before long, we were checking our watches to find that it was a quarter to 3, meaning we had to hurry up and finish looking at the rest of the hospital and its grounds; again, taking my time in a hurry, and doing my best to read up on as much as I could.
Once the bells chimed, though, we quickly made our exit and headed back to the clock tower for the trek back to the buses. While on the walk, I had a bit of an epiphany as to why things went the way they did. As patient as I've been with regards to my job hunt and not seeing any results, I had not quite let go of all my impatience with regards to other things, like the aforementioned time it took to get through the tower. Clearly, I feel this was God's way of showing me that while I'm patient, there's still room for improvement.
Getting back to our exit from the city, we were shown a few other sights around the city, mainly shops and so on. However, the last places we passed by were a park and a nunnery. The park was filled with swans – more than I'd ever seen at one time until that point. And the nunnery, with its rows of white buildings, was quiet and peaceful, disregarding our guide's chatter. It was once we got back to the buses that dad and I realized that, originally, trips to Bruges had a 45-minute walk in to the city, not just the 45-minutes it took to walk out, hence the need for a meeting point.
After getting back to the ship and experiencing the usual nightly routine, I found myself contemplating the day's events as I began to drift off to sleep. It appears that this trip may well be the reason I haven't found a job yet – God feels I need to improve myself a bit more before He puts me where I need to be, and this trip is doing a good job of showing my weakness.
...Huh. Is that snow outside my window? Maybe I'm just seeing things, but I could've sworn I saw a few flakes...
Whatever. Tired. Sleep now.
Day 9 – Friday, March 29, Good Friday:
Back in The Netherlands once again. Another early day, but at least this time, I was more ready and awake when the wake-up call came. Plans for the day: run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
The snow I thought I saw last night must have been forewarning for the trip to the coast we were taking today – we were told one of the stops we were visiting was always very windy, but the cold we were experiencing made me feel glad I'd decided to wear a long-sleeved shirt. Even with it tucked in so's no frosty air would rush up my back, in addition to my fleece and coat, it was still friggin' cold.
Our journey today took us to a little town called Weere (say “veer”). Aside from the giant church that dominated its skyline, there wasn't all that much else in the town – shops, homes, restaurants – pretty humdrum compared to the places we'd been thus far. The focus of the tour, I guess you could say, was the flood of 1953 that devastated a large region of The Netherlands – most people simply referred to it as “the disaster.” I'd say the deaths of 1,836 people, the destruction of 10,000 buildings, and 9% of the total Dutch farmland flooded would qualify as a disaster.
This was all recounted in the second half of our excursion to the Watersnoodmuseum, which was made from the 4 massive caissons that were originally used to plug one of the dikes destroyed in the flood. We decided we were going to do our own thing and not follow the guide this time – instead, we were just going to admire the museum as it came to us. Unfortunately, as we were on a tight schedule, we didn't really get the chance to examine and admire everything the museum had to offer, and wound up making passing glances at the later parts of the exhibition. It was all too soon that we found ourselves back on the bus headed back to the ship.
...I wasn't hallucinating, after all. It's really snowing.
Back on board, we had a lunch centered around, “A Taste of Deutschland.” Naturally, there was polka music playing as we served ourselves Dutch cheese, meat croquettes, and Rookwurst. I dunno what the difference between Rookwurst and Knockwurst is, unless the latter doesn't have cheese as the former does. Other than that, I took the time to update this journal again, seeing as it was another “day at sea” kind of day.
That reminds me, that's probably another thing that God's reminding me that I need to improve on – getting around to things that I say I'll do but wind up taking weeks or months to actually get around to it. Gives me more motivation to get back to writing more of my story for all y'all to enjoy.
Only significant thing about tonight's activities was the Captain's send-off party thing – The Netherlands part of the cruise doesn't end for another day, but I assume they did this because tomorrow would be crazy-busy for them and would be quite tiring for them.
Dinner went thusly: potato cake with salmon caviar on top (not bad, actually) and greens (blargh), risotto and shrimp with mushrooms (mushrooms, bleh, the rest, YUM), various steamed veggies (urgh) with pieces of baked potato (nice) and Filet Mignon (*insert drooling sound here*). Finishing off the night was a selection of Brie, Provolone, and Cambozola (Camembert and Gorgonzola) cheeses with crackers.
The rest of the night was mine to enjoy, which I did via playing some more Secret of Mana. Tomorrow would be another early day, though, so I had to go to bed equally early.
Day 10 – Saturday, March 30:
Right back where we started in Amsterdam. Today's weather: schizophrenic, alternating between being sunny and snowing.
The day started with a trip to the Keukenhoff Tulip Gardens. Problem was, it was still friggin' cold, so the few flowers that were out were mostly daffodils. Were the flowers in bloom, the experience would've been worlds better – I had a hard time remembering what it was until I had written journals for a few other days! There was a hothouse we also visited with other plants and flowers, but even then, not everything was in bloom. All in all, the potential for the experience being spectacular was undermined by the time of year it was, but there wasn't all that much you could do about that. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about the whole trip? Out of the 180 or so passengers from our ship, THREE wanted to stay behind. I mean, WTF? Granted, if the flowers were in bloom, that would at least make sense, but the grounds as they were? We were done in about an hour and a half. Sometimes, idiocy knows no bounds, it seems...
After we got back to the ship and had lunch, we went to visit a church that had been converted into a modern art museum. Bit of a misnomer, really – in my opinion, most “modern art” is neither “modern,” nor is it usually “art.” The church itself only had a few stained-glass windows in it, as well – there were some other things, like crypts and ornate woodwork, but it was really nothing to write home about. On the way to said museum, however, we wound up going through Amsterdam's Red-Light District.
...There are just some things that no man should ever see.
Or smell, for that matter. More smokers there than a Baltimore Bingo Hall. The museum was also more or less in the middle of the district. Ain't irony grand?
After we managed to get out of the racier side of Amsterdam, we stopped at a museum called Our Lord In The Attic, which was a Catholic Church constructed in the upper floors of a few houses. It was built at a time when practicing Catholicsm openly was frowned upon in Amsterdam – to say its creator was inventive was a gross understatement.
Once we had finished touring the museum, we explored Amsterdam a bit more, and found ourselves at a square we had visited the first time we arrived in-town. Last time, the place was empty – but today, it was home to a carnival, seeing as Easter was tomorrow. Yeah, I don't know, either. Still was an entertaining experience, though we didn't go on any of the rides or play the games that were there. Not that I'm complaining – rides were overpriced for what they were, and carnie games are rigged, as-is.
Seeing as it was our last night in The Netherlands, the dinner was our last farewell to the crew we had become so well-acquainted with. Gonna miss those guys – they did their best to be as accommodating as possible.
CONTINUED IN PT II
My inactivity the past week...
Posted 13 years agoBeing sick sucks.
Tuesday afternoon, at about 1:30-ish, I started to feel a little dizzy. I headed downstairs to lie down on the couch, with some water close at hand. After dad got home, I started feeling like I needed to sleep, or something...can't remember exactly. Thing is, it was barely an hour after he'd been home that I had an urge to race for a sink - ANY sink. I'm pretty sure it was the bathroom sink I headed to, but in any case, I had to empty my stomach of whatever it had inside. In fact, I may have done it twice.
After that, I drank some water. Unfortunately, I discovered that my stomach was unable to handle ANYTHING, including plain 'ol H2O. I literally spent the next 24 hours unable to eat - I only tried drinking water after I was reasonably certain I was okay to do so, which turned out to be around 12 hours later. I'm still a little under the weather, but I am recovering.
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance!
molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able!
barrin84
strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.
Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:
I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
Tuesday afternoon, at about 1:30-ish, I started to feel a little dizzy. I headed downstairs to lie down on the couch, with some water close at hand. After dad got home, I started feeling like I needed to sleep, or something...can't remember exactly. Thing is, it was barely an hour after he'd been home that I had an urge to race for a sink - ANY sink. I'm pretty sure it was the bathroom sink I headed to, but in any case, I had to empty my stomach of whatever it had inside. In fact, I may have done it twice.
After that, I drank some water. Unfortunately, I discovered that my stomach was unable to handle ANYTHING, including plain 'ol H2O. I literally spent the next 24 hours unable to eat - I only tried drinking water after I was reasonably certain I was okay to do so, which turned out to be around 12 hours later. I'm still a little under the weather, but I am recovering.
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance!
molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able!
barrin84
strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
Good News, Everyone!
Posted 14 years agoI have made you read the title in Professor Frink's voice. XD
On a more serious note...
I'M DONE WITH COLLEGE!!! =D
Now begins the long task of looking for a new job. -_-;;;
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance!
molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able!
barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.
Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:
I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
On a more serious note...
I'M DONE WITH COLLEGE!!! =D
Now begins the long task of looking for a new job. -_-;;;
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance! molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able! barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
I'm Baaaaaack!
Posted 15 years agoSo, where did I poof off to? Well, to cut a long story short, until now, I haven't had internet at my new place at school. So, I haven't really been able to get on to this site.
But now that I've got an actual connection, hopefully things will change for the better.
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance!
molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able!
barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.
Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:
I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
But now that I've got an actual connection, hopefully things will change for the better.
People who I'm thankful I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance! molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able! barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
The hosers I'm thankful for
Posted 15 years agoHey, everybody!
Been a while, hasn't it? I figured I'd take a moment to thank a few people who I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance!
molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able!
barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.
Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:
I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
Been a while, hasn't it? I figured I'd take a moment to thank a few people who I've met over the years:
ginpu Ginny! She's the one who made my current avatar, and makes this great webcomic at www.ginpu.us. Check her out if you get the chance! molinaro Molin! This crimson kitty is responsible for the lovely miss Jackeline, whom you can read at www.blackjackeline.com. Also, stop by and say hi to him if you're able! barrin84 strawberryxvodka Barrin and Claudy! Had to mention them both, because they're married, and it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. X3 If you can spare the money, please commission them – they'd really appreciate it, and could use the money.Kat and Chad! Two fellow ASW-ians, and just two of many who join in on the ASW forums madness. I have to say, no matter where else I go on the internet, ASW always feels like home. =)
Kat maintains the Mill City Fiasco comic at www.millcityfiasco.com. WARNING: Severe lack of plot ahead. XD
Angel from dA! Creator of the Zelda Fan Comic, <i>Promises</i>, and is one of the best I've seen so far. I check in every day to ensure that I haven't missed anything, and eagerly await the arrival of each new comic. =)
Last, but certainly not least...
joseph1105 Dustin. Yes, I am using his actual name here. He was one of the first dA people I met (Kat and Chad notwithstanding), and runs a very-sporadically updated comic known as Dreadnight. It apparently has gotten a few continuity reboots, I've heard, but that's not an issue – when I first drew up the Imperial Universe, there were a LOT of things different back then as opposed to now. And now I submit a personal statement to you:I am willing to give you every chance I believe you are worth – why else would I not have stopped watching you months ago? Indeed, it is perhaps thanks to you I have made the amazing amount of growth I have.
A lot has happened in the last year – between the deaths of my grandma and my mom, my sister's marriage, moving to WSU, and several other events that I've come to forgive, let go of, and forget, it's a lot of growth I've gone through in such a short time. I do not ask any of the rest of you to do the same, but I have made my choice in the matter – no matter what, I still see ALL of you as friends, even if you do not.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” ~Psalm 103:12
This journal has also been posted here: warlordmike.deviantart.com
She's home.
Posted 16 years agoTo all,
As of 7:25 A.M this morning, Mom has gone to be with her Father in Heaven. ;_;
She did not suffer - her CO2 level was up over 100, and normally, it's around 30 or 40 - the advantage was it acted as a narcotic, and she just passed in her sleep.
I thank all of you who prayed for her for these past months, and she touched so many people in the intervening time. Her memorial is scheduled to be either next Saturday or the one after.
MARYLIN RUTH THOMPSON
JUNE 11, 1956 - JULY 31, 2009
I'll miss you, mom. T_T
As of 7:25 A.M this morning, Mom has gone to be with her Father in Heaven. ;_;
She did not suffer - her CO2 level was up over 100, and normally, it's around 30 or 40 - the advantage was it acted as a narcotic, and she just passed in her sleep.
I thank all of you who prayed for her for these past months, and she touched so many people in the intervening time. Her memorial is scheduled to be either next Saturday or the one after.
MARYLIN RUTH THOMPSON
JUNE 11, 1956 - JULY 31, 2009
I'll miss you, mom. T_T
Emergency Update
Posted 16 years agoEmergency update:
Mom had a fever last night, and dad says her breathing is shallow - we're heading over there ASAP.
I meant to tell him "Don't give up," but I didn't think to say it until after my talk with him on the phone. ='(
Once again, prayers and well-wishes would be greatly appreciated.
Mom had a fever last night, and dad says her breathing is shallow - we're heading over there ASAP.
I meant to tell him "Don't give up," but I didn't think to say it until after my talk with him on the phone. ='(
Once again, prayers and well-wishes would be greatly appreciated.
Urgent: Mom's Condition
Posted 16 years agoTo all,
I have recieved an update from Dad.
The Oncologist has told him that if mom doesn't show some improvement by the end of this week, well...
...They're gonna stop. ;_;
More than ever, your prayers and well-wishes will be greatly appreciated.
I have recieved an update from Dad.
The Oncologist has told him that if mom doesn't show some improvement by the end of this week, well...
...They're gonna stop. ;_;
More than ever, your prayers and well-wishes will be greatly appreciated.
Update - keep the prayers and well-wishes coming
Posted 16 years agoWell, I have some good news and bad news in regards to my mom's condition.
The good news is that we have finally identified the culprit for certain. A hematologist came in this morning and delivered a proper diagnosis.
Unfortunately, this leads straight into the bad news, as he has determined the cause is Multiple Myeloma, which is blood cancer.
It IS still treatable, thankfully, as it isn't terminal. Keep sending those prayers and well-wishes to a swift recovery.
The good news is that we have finally identified the culprit for certain. A hematologist came in this morning and delivered a proper diagnosis.
Unfortunately, this leads straight into the bad news, as he has determined the cause is Multiple Myeloma, which is blood cancer.
It IS still treatable, thankfully, as it isn't terminal. Keep sending those prayers and well-wishes to a swift recovery.
Prayers and Well-Wishes
Posted 16 years agoHey, all.
My mom's going into surgery tonight @ 7PM - she's been really super-sick lately, and we don't know what's going on with her. We're hoping we'll know after the surgery.
Any prayers or well-wishes for a speedy recovery would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Warlord Mike
EDIT: Scratch that, she's in surgery now. Keep sending the prayers and well-wishes, though.
My mom's going into surgery tonight @ 7PM - she's been really super-sick lately, and we don't know what's going on with her. We're hoping we'll know after the surgery.
Any prayers or well-wishes for a speedy recovery would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Warlord Mike
EDIT: Scratch that, she's in surgery now. Keep sending the prayers and well-wishes, though.
I'm Baaaaack.
Posted 16 years agoSo, where have I been?
Truthfully, I was actually taking a little sabbatical in response to recent events, letting some people blow off some steam before coming back. During this time (and upon making a quick jaunt around dA and FA), I took the time to ponder a few things...
Is it right to make snap decisions about people based on what friends have said, especially if you haven't gotten the chance to really sit down and talk with them?
Who do you trust if you don't know which side of the story to believe, especially when we are unable to provide others with the proof (or un-skewed proof)?
Is it so hard to see past a person's failures, be they those of the friend or their own, and be willing to forgive them?
Have acts of revenge ever solved problems?
Did you ever go along with what the person said because "mob mentality" started setting in?
Doesn't EVERYBODY get cocky at some point in their life, regardless of whether or not it pertains to art?
Shouldn't we hold our judgment of people until AFTER we've really thoroughly looked them over - not just once or twice, but as many times as it takes?
When you decide to look someone over, do you only look at their art/stories/journals, or do you also read the comments everyone's made (if any) on those items?
What separates the difference between a fan, a yes-man, and a friend?
If we continue to live and dwell in the past, how can we ever hope to reach our future?
If we aren't willing to be open about ourselves, how can people know why we act the way we do?
What gives you the right to go criticizing someone you barely know, if only because their art or writing appears better than yours?
If people are doing the best they can with the time they have, shouldn't we encourage them to take their time, instead of rushing them? How has forcing matters ever solved anything?
Just when, if ever, is a hateful outburst justified?
Is there ANYTHING so harmful that it is unforgivable? Even though I know people wouldn't admit it openly, after an argument, don't you know that deep down, you still privately care for the person? Additionally...
...If someone is GENUINELY trying to apologize to you, how will you ever get that message if you have them blocked?
...Take one look at this journal, and you can see that we're all guilty of at least ONE thing here in some way - for some of us, it may be several or all topics. I myself admit to being guilty of all of them, in one way or another.
A wise friend once told me, "Forgiving is easy. Holding a grudge takes effort." Said friend's step-father held a grudge against his grandparents for seven years before finally relenting. Take that knowledge into account, and ask yourself:
How much effort do you think the step-dad had to use to hold that grudge for so long? Effort that could have been spent otherwise?
Was it even worth it in the end?
How much of his life do you think he missed by holding on to that grudge?
Are you willing to do the same?
In closing, I just wanted to check in and see how everyone's doing. If there's still hostilities present, I'll disappear for yet another week and check again. Lather, rinse, repeat. To all those involved (you know who you are), COMMENT in this Journal. When new comments come up, READ THEM.
And to the parties responsible for the recent events...I will always forgive you, no matter what happens, and I hope you will do the same - but I want to see you forgive each other as well. More than anything, I want to see your comments FIRST before the others put theirs up. There needs to be no more secrets amongst ourselves if we are to still be friends. And I do mean NONE.
Lastly, listen to this song.
It only takes about 5 minutes. But you need only listen – let the words sink in; dwell on them. Think about the meaning of this journal, and the senselessness of your hate.
I pray for each and every one of you in the hopes of a resolution.
EDIT:
Help out artists in need of monies! They're awesome, and could really do with commissions/donations...
strawberryxvodka barrin84 joseph1105 ginpu
Truthfully, I was actually taking a little sabbatical in response to recent events, letting some people blow off some steam before coming back. During this time (and upon making a quick jaunt around dA and FA), I took the time to ponder a few things...
Is it right to make snap decisions about people based on what friends have said, especially if you haven't gotten the chance to really sit down and talk with them?
Who do you trust if you don't know which side of the story to believe, especially when we are unable to provide others with the proof (or un-skewed proof)?
Is it so hard to see past a person's failures, be they those of the friend or their own, and be willing to forgive them?
Have acts of revenge ever solved problems?
Did you ever go along with what the person said because "mob mentality" started setting in?
Doesn't EVERYBODY get cocky at some point in their life, regardless of whether or not it pertains to art?
Shouldn't we hold our judgment of people until AFTER we've really thoroughly looked them over - not just once or twice, but as many times as it takes?
When you decide to look someone over, do you only look at their art/stories/journals, or do you also read the comments everyone's made (if any) on those items?
What separates the difference between a fan, a yes-man, and a friend?
If we continue to live and dwell in the past, how can we ever hope to reach our future?
If we aren't willing to be open about ourselves, how can people know why we act the way we do?
What gives you the right to go criticizing someone you barely know, if only because their art or writing appears better than yours?
If people are doing the best they can with the time they have, shouldn't we encourage them to take their time, instead of rushing them? How has forcing matters ever solved anything?
Just when, if ever, is a hateful outburst justified?
Is there ANYTHING so harmful that it is unforgivable? Even though I know people wouldn't admit it openly, after an argument, don't you know that deep down, you still privately care for the person? Additionally...
...If someone is GENUINELY trying to apologize to you, how will you ever get that message if you have them blocked?
...Take one look at this journal, and you can see that we're all guilty of at least ONE thing here in some way - for some of us, it may be several or all topics. I myself admit to being guilty of all of them, in one way or another.
A wise friend once told me, "Forgiving is easy. Holding a grudge takes effort." Said friend's step-father held a grudge against his grandparents for seven years before finally relenting. Take that knowledge into account, and ask yourself:
How much effort do you think the step-dad had to use to hold that grudge for so long? Effort that could have been spent otherwise?
Was it even worth it in the end?
How much of his life do you think he missed by holding on to that grudge?
Are you willing to do the same?
In closing, I just wanted to check in and see how everyone's doing. If there's still hostilities present, I'll disappear for yet another week and check again. Lather, rinse, repeat. To all those involved (you know who you are), COMMENT in this Journal. When new comments come up, READ THEM.
And to the parties responsible for the recent events...I will always forgive you, no matter what happens, and I hope you will do the same - but I want to see you forgive each other as well. More than anything, I want to see your comments FIRST before the others put theirs up. There needs to be no more secrets amongst ourselves if we are to still be friends. And I do mean NONE.
Lastly, listen to this song.
It only takes about 5 minutes. But you need only listen – let the words sink in; dwell on them. Think about the meaning of this journal, and the senselessness of your hate.
I pray for each and every one of you in the hopes of a resolution.
EDIT:
Help out artists in need of monies! They're awesome, and could really do with commissions/donations...
strawberryxvodka barrin84 joseph1105 ginpuRipping off the mask
Posted 16 years ago“We're only human.”
That's a phrase you've heard often, haven't you?
The last week has been...interesting to say the least. It got me thinking.
Every day, we all put on masks to look appealing to the rest of the world, never knowing who we really are on the inside, or keeping it well-concealed.
Some of us are hypocrites, blasting other people for their views when we in fact are no different from them.
Others try to find escape from the world's problems, losing ourselves in fantasy realms where we can do no wrong.
Some attempt to blame others for their problems, when in fact they themselves ARE the problem.
Others procrastinate when they should be doing work that has to be done, be it homework or otherwise.
Some of us argue over the smallest of things when there are far more important matters at hand.
Others try to get everyone's attention, because they need an outlet to feel good.
Some are so blinded by their own convictions that they never see the consequences of their actions until it's too late.
And still others just can't seem to find an answer for the problems.
We all make mistakes, it's true. But the difference lies in knowing the problem, and actually doing something about it. So, allow me to address us all:
HYPOCRITES! It's time you stopped and gave yourselves a good self-examination. You are becoming the very people you are so profoundly against!
ESCAPISTS! Retreating into your private pleasure palaces is only a temporary solution. The time has come for you to get outside, grab life by the balls, and face the world!
BLAMERS! The “poor old me” act isn't going to work anymore. You know damn well that you're the cause of the problem, so do what needs to be done to fix it!
PROCRASTINATORS! Whatever you're doing, stop it, NOW. Get your priorities straight, and do the job you're supposed to!
SQUABBLERS! A tiny little detail or verbal jab is nothing to start a fight over. You should know better than to go on vendettas because of something someone said!
ATTENTION-WHORES! Get off your soapboxes and duct-tape your mouths shut. You are NOT the center of the Universe, and you need to treat people as more than just peons subservient to you!
BLIND ONES! You need to open your eyes and ears to those closest to you. If you continue the way you are, you'll lose more than just friends!
UNANSWERED! If you think there isn't an answer, you're wrong. Look harder – there is ALWAYS an answer to the situation!
I know, you probably look at this and say “Well, HE'S certainly being hypocritical...” Maybe I am, but at least it gets the point across. It's time we ripped off the masks that hide our true faces. We need to acknowledge our flaws, and do what must be done to put an end to our practices.
That's a phrase you've heard often, haven't you?
The last week has been...interesting to say the least. It got me thinking.
Every day, we all put on masks to look appealing to the rest of the world, never knowing who we really are on the inside, or keeping it well-concealed.
Some of us are hypocrites, blasting other people for their views when we in fact are no different from them.
Others try to find escape from the world's problems, losing ourselves in fantasy realms where we can do no wrong.
Some attempt to blame others for their problems, when in fact they themselves ARE the problem.
Others procrastinate when they should be doing work that has to be done, be it homework or otherwise.
Some of us argue over the smallest of things when there are far more important matters at hand.
Others try to get everyone's attention, because they need an outlet to feel good.
Some are so blinded by their own convictions that they never see the consequences of their actions until it's too late.
And still others just can't seem to find an answer for the problems.
We all make mistakes, it's true. But the difference lies in knowing the problem, and actually doing something about it. So, allow me to address us all:
HYPOCRITES! It's time you stopped and gave yourselves a good self-examination. You are becoming the very people you are so profoundly against!
ESCAPISTS! Retreating into your private pleasure palaces is only a temporary solution. The time has come for you to get outside, grab life by the balls, and face the world!
BLAMERS! The “poor old me” act isn't going to work anymore. You know damn well that you're the cause of the problem, so do what needs to be done to fix it!
PROCRASTINATORS! Whatever you're doing, stop it, NOW. Get your priorities straight, and do the job you're supposed to!
SQUABBLERS! A tiny little detail or verbal jab is nothing to start a fight over. You should know better than to go on vendettas because of something someone said!
ATTENTION-WHORES! Get off your soapboxes and duct-tape your mouths shut. You are NOT the center of the Universe, and you need to treat people as more than just peons subservient to you!
BLIND ONES! You need to open your eyes and ears to those closest to you. If you continue the way you are, you'll lose more than just friends!
UNANSWERED! If you think there isn't an answer, you're wrong. Look harder – there is ALWAYS an answer to the situation!
I know, you probably look at this and say “Well, HE'S certainly being hypocritical...” Maybe I am, but at least it gets the point across. It's time we ripped off the masks that hide our true faces. We need to acknowledge our flaws, and do what must be done to put an end to our practices.
Recovering! Also, turn ons/offs
Posted 16 years agoHeya, people!
Well, I'm slowly recovering from the surgery - about 60% of my jaw is still numb, and I can only eat soft foods (ice cream, scrambled eggs, etc.).
Anyway, I decided to steal the fetish meme from Ginny so you could see what turns me on and what absolutely repulses me. Though I try to be as chaste as possible, think of this as a sort of "Shout it Out!" session. I also added a few fetishes that I'd think would be included in this mix, or got more specific on a few.
Please excuse the text, but I feel compelled to offer explanations when I feel I must. ^_^;
[KEY]:
(+++) DO WANT!
(++) Oh yeah.
(+) Sure, why not?
(~) Eh, whatever.
(-) I'd rather not.
(--) ...Why?
(---) BEGONE, FOUL SPAWN!
(?) Buh? (never heard of it)
(??) Confused/needs explanation
Anal on Males (--) Not an experience I would enjoy, to be certain...
Anal on Females (+)
Herms (+)
Breasts (++) ...Hey, I'm a guy, and I'm straight, what do you expect? ^_^;
Breast Expansion (+++) Tends to be one of my big weaknesses, though I know I oughtn't. ^_^;;;;
Weight Gain (~) It needs to be done right for it to work.
Bondage (-) If it's indicated as consensual, though, then (+)
Clothing (+) Walk down the runway, and show us what you got, people! ^_^
Leather (+)
Stockings (+)
Shoe/Boots (++) Did you know that the Shoe is the most widely recognized Sex Symbol?
Suit and Tie (+) Strapping young lads/lasses. ^_^
Muscle, Male (+) As long as it's not excessive.
Muscle, Female (+++) Another of my big weaknesses, sadly... ^^;;
Muscle, Herm (+)
Cub (+) No sex plz kthnxbai.
Baby/Diaper (+) As long as there's no potty/poo, they can be rather cute, I've found. ^_^
Transformation (~) Depends on the TF.
Transgender, M->F (++) Tends to be pretty hot when it's all said and done, I've found... ^^;
Transgender, F->M (~)
Transgender, M/F -> Herm (++) Again, tends to be pretty hot at the end, I've noticed... ^^;
Transgender, Herm -> M/F (~) Again, depends on the circumstances.
Macro/Micro (++) I've fantasized about being a protector giant on more than one occasion. ^_^
Impregnation (~) If it's quite clearly rough, though, it gets knocked down to (-).
Pregnancy (+)
Lactation (~) Just don't have it spraying everywhere.
Anal Vore (---) Stuff comes OUT of there, NOT goes in.
Soul Vore (-) Weird, but it doesn't faze me that much.
Cock Vore (---) Again...why, people?
Standard Soft Vore (~) If the person's just swallowed, it's alright, but there's other stuff I'd rather see.
Standard Hard Vore (---) No digestion, ripping of limbs, etc.
Paw/Foot (~) Never quite understood this one...
Incest (---) There's a good reason why relatives aren't supposed to have sex with each other.
Yuri (F/F) (~) It can be kinda hot, but I'm pretty against same-sex things.
Yaoi (M/M) (--) I still can't figure out WHY this seems so popular...
Hetero (M/F) (+++)
Bi (~) Not entirely sure here...
Girly Boys (--) Dudes, seriously...DRESS LIKE THE MEN YOU ARE.
EDIT: Butch Girls (~) I'm not sure I've ever seen these...unless I'm either not paying attention, or not looking hard enough.
Mind Control (---) I am EXTREMELY against controlling a person's free will.
Possession (--) Unless person is willing, then it depends.
Bimboization (---) Why being relegated to people with IQs of zero is attractive, I'll never know.
Rape (---) It's illegal in real life, and rightly should be.
Uniform (++) Sir, yes sir!
Orgy (~)
Subbing/Doming (-) If consensual (like bondage), then it's (+)
Biting (+) Love bites can be rather cute (head noms especially ^w^)
Cheesecake (+) Again, I'm only human. Doesn't make me any less guilty, though... ^_^;
Solo Masturbation; Male (~)
Solo Masturbation; Female (~)
Solo Masturbation; Herm (~)
Scat (---) ...Seriously, HOW is poop ATTRACTIVE? Blegh! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Inflation (+) Though it has to be done right. No popping plz kthxbai.
Fat/Pudge (+) Again, needs to be done right, though.
Tech (+++) At last, the Aludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is finished! =P
Watersports (---) Again...WHY, people?
Glasses (+) Hey, I've got some, myself! And I look damn good in them, I might add. =P
EDIT: Tentacles...
As limbs (~) Depends on if they're arm/leg replacements, or extras in addition to arms/legs.
As torture (---) Again, seeing anyone suffer is a SERIOUS turn-off for me.
Oviposition (++) Again, another weakness. ^_^;
EDIT: Masochism (-) Why having pain inflicted on you would be considered a turn on, I don't know.
Sadism (---) Seeing someone in pain or inflicted pain is NOT something I would EVER take pleasure in, unless the person was an ass who deserved to die...but Akasi most certainly would.
Multiple...
Breasts (+++) Yet again, another weakness. ^^;;;;
Arms (+) It'd be interesting to think what you could do with 'em.
Legs (~) Don't know how useful they'd be, but whatever.
Penises (-) Limit 3, and even then, that's pushing it.
Other (~) Depends on what said "other" is. ⌐_⌐
Partial Nudity (++) TAKE IT ALL OFF! ^///^;;;;;
Gore/guro (---) What's so sexy about mutilation? Seriously, people...
Snuff (---) Same as above, but with death.
Hyper Males (--) Having an oversized cock is a bit much, amirite?
Hyper Females (+++) Once again, a weakness. HOWEVER, said victim ought to still be mobile.
Hyper Herms (~) Depends.
EDIT: Zoophilia (--) No. Just...no.
Necrophilia (---) The dead are attractive...HOW?
Electricity (+) "Pikachu! Use ThunderShock!"
She-males (+) Can be pretty hot, admittedly... ^_^;
Cross-dressing...
Boys (--) Again, dudes, WEAR THE CLOTHES LIKE THE MEN YOU ARE.
Girls (~) It kinda makes me a bit jealous that girls can wear just about anything and not look wrong wearing it.
Skunk spray (??)
Oral (+++) Yet again, another weakness. ^^;;
Asphyxiation (---) Remind me what's sexy about strangling the life out of someone, again?
Wet-look (++) Makes for some very, VERY humorous scenes if done right. ^w^
Mud/Quicksand etc (?) Never seen it to my knowledge...
Sinking (?) See Mud/Quicksand.
Spooge (~) Just keep it at a minimum, folks.
Body Paint (+) The designs can be pretty interesting sometimes.
EDIT: Plants (~) Depends.
Tickling (+) As long as it's not torture, sure.
Well, I'm slowly recovering from the surgery - about 60% of my jaw is still numb, and I can only eat soft foods (ice cream, scrambled eggs, etc.).
Anyway, I decided to steal the fetish meme from
Ginny so you could see what turns me on and what absolutely repulses me. Though I try to be as chaste as possible, think of this as a sort of "Shout it Out!" session. I also added a few fetishes that I'd think would be included in this mix, or got more specific on a few.Please excuse the text, but I feel compelled to offer explanations when I feel I must. ^_^;
[KEY]:
(+++) DO WANT!
(++) Oh yeah.
(+) Sure, why not?
(~) Eh, whatever.
(-) I'd rather not.
(--) ...Why?
(---) BEGONE, FOUL SPAWN!
(?) Buh? (never heard of it)
(??) Confused/needs explanation
Anal on Males (--) Not an experience I would enjoy, to be certain...
Anal on Females (+)
Herms (+)
Breasts (++) ...Hey, I'm a guy, and I'm straight, what do you expect? ^_^;
Breast Expansion (+++) Tends to be one of my big weaknesses, though I know I oughtn't. ^_^;;;;
Weight Gain (~) It needs to be done right for it to work.
Bondage (-) If it's indicated as consensual, though, then (+)
Clothing (+) Walk down the runway, and show us what you got, people! ^_^
Leather (+)
Stockings (+)
Shoe/Boots (++) Did you know that the Shoe is the most widely recognized Sex Symbol?
Suit and Tie (+) Strapping young lads/lasses. ^_^
Muscle, Male (+) As long as it's not excessive.
Muscle, Female (+++) Another of my big weaknesses, sadly... ^^;;
Muscle, Herm (+)
Cub (+) No sex plz kthnxbai.
Baby/Diaper (+) As long as there's no potty/poo, they can be rather cute, I've found. ^_^
Transformation (~) Depends on the TF.
Transgender, M->F (++) Tends to be pretty hot when it's all said and done, I've found... ^^;
Transgender, F->M (~)
Transgender, M/F -> Herm (++) Again, tends to be pretty hot at the end, I've noticed... ^^;
Transgender, Herm -> M/F (~) Again, depends on the circumstances.
Macro/Micro (++) I've fantasized about being a protector giant on more than one occasion. ^_^
Impregnation (~) If it's quite clearly rough, though, it gets knocked down to (-).
Pregnancy (+)
Lactation (~) Just don't have it spraying everywhere.
Anal Vore (---) Stuff comes OUT of there, NOT goes in.
Soul Vore (-) Weird, but it doesn't faze me that much.
Cock Vore (---) Again...why, people?
Standard Soft Vore (~) If the person's just swallowed, it's alright, but there's other stuff I'd rather see.
Standard Hard Vore (---) No digestion, ripping of limbs, etc.
Paw/Foot (~) Never quite understood this one...
Incest (---) There's a good reason why relatives aren't supposed to have sex with each other.
Yuri (F/F) (~) It can be kinda hot, but I'm pretty against same-sex things.
Yaoi (M/M) (--) I still can't figure out WHY this seems so popular...
Hetero (M/F) (+++)
Bi (~) Not entirely sure here...
Girly Boys (--) Dudes, seriously...DRESS LIKE THE MEN YOU ARE.
EDIT: Butch Girls (~) I'm not sure I've ever seen these...unless I'm either not paying attention, or not looking hard enough.
Mind Control (---) I am EXTREMELY against controlling a person's free will.
Possession (--) Unless person is willing, then it depends.
Bimboization (---) Why being relegated to people with IQs of zero is attractive, I'll never know.
Rape (---) It's illegal in real life, and rightly should be.
Uniform (++) Sir, yes sir!
Orgy (~)
Subbing/Doming (-) If consensual (like bondage), then it's (+)
Biting (+) Love bites can be rather cute (head noms especially ^w^)
Cheesecake (+) Again, I'm only human. Doesn't make me any less guilty, though... ^_^;
Solo Masturbation; Male (~)
Solo Masturbation; Female (~)
Solo Masturbation; Herm (~)
Scat (---) ...Seriously, HOW is poop ATTRACTIVE? Blegh! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Inflation (+) Though it has to be done right. No popping plz kthxbai.
Fat/Pudge (+) Again, needs to be done right, though.
Tech (+++) At last, the Aludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is finished! =P
Watersports (---) Again...WHY, people?
Glasses (+) Hey, I've got some, myself! And I look damn good in them, I might add. =P
EDIT: Tentacles...
As limbs (~) Depends on if they're arm/leg replacements, or extras in addition to arms/legs.
As torture (---) Again, seeing anyone suffer is a SERIOUS turn-off for me.
Oviposition (++) Again, another weakness. ^_^;
EDIT: Masochism (-) Why having pain inflicted on you would be considered a turn on, I don't know.
Sadism (---) Seeing someone in pain or inflicted pain is NOT something I would EVER take pleasure in, unless the person was an ass who deserved to die...but Akasi most certainly would.
Multiple...
Breasts (+++) Yet again, another weakness. ^^;;;;
Arms (+) It'd be interesting to think what you could do with 'em.
Legs (~) Don't know how useful they'd be, but whatever.
Penises (-) Limit 3, and even then, that's pushing it.
Other (~) Depends on what said "other" is. ⌐_⌐
Partial Nudity (++) TAKE IT ALL OFF! ^///^;;;;;
Gore/guro (---) What's so sexy about mutilation? Seriously, people...
Snuff (---) Same as above, but with death.
Hyper Males (--) Having an oversized cock is a bit much, amirite?
Hyper Females (+++) Once again, a weakness. HOWEVER, said victim ought to still be mobile.
Hyper Herms (~) Depends.
EDIT: Zoophilia (--) No. Just...no.
Necrophilia (---) The dead are attractive...HOW?
Electricity (+) "Pikachu! Use ThunderShock!"
She-males (+) Can be pretty hot, admittedly... ^_^;
Cross-dressing...
Boys (--) Again, dudes, WEAR THE CLOTHES LIKE THE MEN YOU ARE.
Girls (~) It kinda makes me a bit jealous that girls can wear just about anything and not look wrong wearing it.
Skunk spray (??)
Oral (+++) Yet again, another weakness. ^^;;
Asphyxiation (---) Remind me what's sexy about strangling the life out of someone, again?
Wet-look (++) Makes for some very, VERY humorous scenes if done right. ^w^
Mud/Quicksand etc (?) Never seen it to my knowledge...
Sinking (?) See Mud/Quicksand.
Spooge (~) Just keep it at a minimum, folks.
Body Paint (+) The designs can be pretty interesting sometimes.
EDIT: Plants (~) Depends.
Tickling (+) As long as it's not torture, sure.
Surgery next week
Posted 16 years ago*glances this way and that*
Listen, people, try and keep it under your collective hats, but I'm gonna have jaw surgery next week. It starts at 5:30-ish AM, PST, and goes for about an hour. However, I'm gonna be spending the following week (and a few after that, I'm sure) recovering from the surgery.
So, what's wrong? Well, my mandible (the part of your jaw that attaches to your head (aka, lower jaw)) formed a bit weird, you see. It turns out, the left side of the mandible actually extends a little bit farther forward than the right. I have an under bite to begin with, but the jaw's also off-center, so that will be corrected as well.
The most serious thing that could happen during this surgery is that there is a 1%-2% chance that I'll suffer from permanent numbness in my jaw. I dunno what that would translate to, but it can't be good. The good news is that the REALLY serious stuff is so low, it barely even registers on the radar. So no, I won't be dead, but I'll be out of commission for a little bit.
Just kinda wanted to give you guys a bit of a heads-up is all.
Listen, people, try and keep it under your collective hats, but I'm gonna have jaw surgery next week. It starts at 5:30-ish AM, PST, and goes for about an hour. However, I'm gonna be spending the following week (and a few after that, I'm sure) recovering from the surgery.
So, what's wrong? Well, my mandible (the part of your jaw that attaches to your head (aka, lower jaw)) formed a bit weird, you see. It turns out, the left side of the mandible actually extends a little bit farther forward than the right. I have an under bite to begin with, but the jaw's also off-center, so that will be corrected as well.
The most serious thing that could happen during this surgery is that there is a 1%-2% chance that I'll suffer from permanent numbness in my jaw. I dunno what that would translate to, but it can't be good. The good news is that the REALLY serious stuff is so low, it barely even registers on the radar. So no, I won't be dead, but I'll be out of commission for a little bit.
Just kinda wanted to give you guys a bit of a heads-up is all.
Uploading my stuff here
Posted 16 years agoTo all,
As of tonight, I shall be uploading all my stories thus far to FA every other day. It's gonna start off somewhat slow, but it WILL speed up as the days pass. I'll submit my stuff somewhat late (around 6-10ish, PCT), but it'll actually be of better quality than I first had it.
Salutations and regards,
WarlordMike
As of tonight, I shall be uploading all my stories thus far to FA every other day. It's gonna start off somewhat slow, but it WILL speed up as the days pass. I'll submit my stuff somewhat late (around 6-10ish, PCT), but it'll actually be of better quality than I first had it.
Salutations and regards,
WarlordMike
