The Honest Truth

Alright, my internet minutes are running out, this is the first time I’ve had access that didn’t cost more than a meal in days, and I’m late for the beach.

Currently in LaRochelle, small town three hours outside of Paris where Ruth and I’ve stopped before going to the farm to WOOF our faces off.

Sascha is only here with her sister and it is a PARTY. Seriously, last night after dinner of mussels and oysters we drank at a war themed bar and Sascha’s sister Alexa (also here) came up with a fitting lyric: “WAR, what is it good for? Making a BAR.” Had to be there? Seriously though, we sat on old fighter plane seats and looked at picutres of our bartender posing with various soldiers. Only in LaRochelle.

After that we stumbled upon a jazz duo playing outside a restaurant and pulled up a seat. They were great, and all around us were tqbles of people and old white walls that go up forever. Ironically, Ruth and I had unsuccessfuly been looking for jazz shows in Paris for the past three nights and co,e up dry. Turns out all we had to do was get a little deep in the country.

Speaking of Paris, here is a poem to summarize the experience:

shitty room in Hotel Bastille

sinking bed, atleast kindof clean.

Now when writers talk of   ”getting rooms” in Paris.

I know what that means.

Buttery croissants, karafs of wine.

Rolling drum, feeling fine.

Museum lines: “Fuck it. Let’s go somewhere smaller.”

100 euros= 160 dollars.

Skinny women, fat beef.

Agressive men, skinny frites.

A sidewalk cafe,

A smell of piss

the homeless in bed,

We all get a whiff.

Au revoir Gay Paris,

and your crusty white bread

Be well ma cherie

we have left your town red.

We’re on a mission for spacecakes. A brownie, cooked with that wonderful substance that’s nice and legal in the Netherlands (sorry, mom, when in Rome?).

Andrea, a friend of mine from high school now living in Germany, and I decided to take a trip to Rotterdam, a city in the Netherlands with the second largest port in the world (next to Shanghai).

The streets are bustling with music, the sounds of people pouring out onto patios and the stares of men that burn holes in your back when you walk by. It feels sexy and aggressive.

Rotterdam’s a weird place. Very spread out, with a mix of industrial buildings and picturesque cobble stone streets. Ruth’s experience there was going to a party in a converted warehouse. The guidebook says there’s clubs in converted grain silos and pharmacies. This is fusion people.

During the day we took a water taxi from the port to Hotel New York, a beautiful hotel on the city’s waterfront. The history of the sight is it was the former headquarters of Holland-Amerika Lijn, an organization for Europeans in the late 17thto mid 18th century that ran boats out of Rotterdam’s for people emigrating to New York. The building was sold in 1984, but remained empty for ten years before the hotel was built.

Andrea and I walked inside the hotel, where posh looking Dutch people and foreigners read the New Yorker at big wooden tables while sipping beer, before settling on some chairs by the water. Then we walked over a bridge back to the city centre to find a hostel.

After going for dinner (and getting containers at a nearby icecream shop to package leftovers, a concept Europeans don’t understand) we were ready for dessert of the space variety.

The guy at the front desk of our hostel showed us where we could get spacecakes on the map after telling me I didn’t have to whisper the word because “that stuff is legal here.”

We missioned to the other end of Rotterdam, passing many “coffee shops” along the way where they sell truffles (magic mushrooms) and weed. When we got the intersection, we couldn’t find the place, the name of which the hostel man neglected to give us.

We stared around confusedly, looking for the place we imagined in our minds: a quaint diner with our waitress serving us brownies on a silver platter with a knowingwink. Apparently, this didn’t exist.

A man pointed us in the direction of a place called Reefer, two to three streets up. It was hard to miss, with the word lit up in yellow lights flickering like they could go out at any moment.

Inside were a couple men behind a smoky bar, and more men behind a door in another room with pool tables.

“Space cakes?” we asked innocently to one of the men behind the bar.

“No,” laughed the man. “We don’t sell space cakes, they’re illegal.”

He explained to us that when pot is in food, it falls under different laws because it isn’t considered a smoking product.

After a 40 minute walk, and the anticipation of being high, we hesitantly decided to settle for a joint. The guy brought out different sized baggies and we asked if there was anything pre-rolled.

He brought out a joint long as my hand and the thickness of two fingers at one end.

“Two?” he asked.

Andrea and I could only laugh.

“One’s fine,” I said.

We walked out of the shop with our fatty and set out to find a picturesque spot to smoke it. A carload of guys pulled up and mockingly asked us if we knew where to get pot, said something we couldn’t understand, and laughed at Andrea when she took their question sincerely.

This was only the beginning of harassment from men via car. In Rotterdam, a common passtime for men is piling in a car, cruising the streets, and yelling at girls from the window or following them menacingly with your eyes.

Our tactic was to ignore, but that was made hard when a guy jumped out of his car to get our attention by chasing us.

“Are there no girls in this fucking city?” yelled Andrea. “What the fuck is going on?”

I know why they call it RotterSLAM. Every guy wants to get SLAMMED.

Inside the bars people were fine. Apparently guys prefer yelling from their cars than over a drink. This was fine by me, and after smoking our joint in a park, Andrea and I found a cute spot called Hemingway’s, filled with regulars listening to some guy wailing a radiohead cover. It was preferable to the street.

On our way home, we were again followed for three streets by a car full of guys who went as far as to reverse and block us when we tried to cross the street to avoid them.  As we dashed into our hostel they made a sharp u-turn and just missed my leg.

Maybe it’s better we never found those space cakes. Walking the streets of Rotterslam is a trip in itself.

As promised, a recap on Alexi’s last night: Bought 10 beers for 9 euros and went to the park by the Maastricht river. Tons of little groups of people congregate on the grass. One man provided the entertainment by singing American music from his ipod so loudly it provoked a younger guy to bust out his lighter. Reminded me of being by the Ottawa river, just with more people and booze.

After downing some beers we had sushi. Yes! Sushi in Maastricht. The sashimi was really good. The maki, a little less so.

After sushi went to the apartment of Alex and Ruth’s Dutch friends. The two girls, Inika and Marie-Helene were preparing for the graduating art presentation at the college of design. They worked in a room with a door facing the patio where us non-students sat making a tower of empty beer bottles and drinking red wine. It was very romantic. A hot Maastricht night. Art students working on their projects, and us, enjoying the other worldliness of it all.

The next morning I went to Germany.An hour on the bus from Maas and I’m in a sweet little town called Aachen. Known for its churches, it’s big plaza in the centre, and being founded by Charlemagne, the King of Franks, in the 800s.

There are a couple of main differences between Aachen and Maastricht: In Germany, most people don’t speak English and things are cheaper.  Both towns have many churches, and big plazas where people sit for a long time consuming various things.

Upon arriving I walk till I find the nearest schnitzel and coffee and sit down to eat and people watch. I don’t go deep enough into the city because I’m STARVING and realize later there is better food at better prices a quick walk away. Caught in the tourist trap.

But, hey, fried meat is fried meet. The plaza is beautiful, and I take pictures of street performers with white faces who rather than being clown-like, are smoking cigarettes or napping.

People all over sit at the hundreds of chairs, smoking and drinking beer. There’s a beautiful church near a square with German flags.

I learnt that payphones are “old technology” and that Germans are friendlier than their reputation. After a lovely glass of wine on a street off the main plaza, I made my way back towards the train.

Tomorrow, my friend Andrea and I go to Rotterdam to SLAM out. Also, hopefully soon I can upload my own pictures, but since I forgot the chord, enjoy the freedom of the internet.