Today will be a short blog. I'm finally out of this terrible apt with its soda cracker bed mattress. I pack my things and I'm out of here, as soon as I shower. I was awakened by the morning exercise of the rabbits upstairs.
I find my way to the train station via subway. There is no one out this morning. I literally had a train car to myself on my way to Gare du Nord. I get to the station about two hours ahead of time... of course. I find a spot for expresso and a chocolate croissant. I look around, no tables, so I walk out to the train landing where people gather to wait to board their trains, no chairs. Not that the chairs are all taken, there just aren't any. So I find a corner spot near the train platform and sit on the floor and use my backpack as a back pillow. Ah relaxed...not for long, a peddler ...then another one 2 minutes later...hey I'm having breakfast.
Here are my likes and dislikes for Paris: Likes:great museums, good subway system, Montmartre at Night. Dislikes: bad attitudes/people, peddlers, other than tourist landmarks this place is the most graffiti filled and trashiest big city I've been to in the world, over priced cafe's, MY APT.
The train leaves on time. I'm in business class and in my train car are only four people, two of which get off in Antwerp. They start me off with breakfast within 5 minutes of departure. Strawberry/Peach crepes sprinkled with powdered sugar, fresh fruit yogurt, croissant with strawberry jam and a regular type US coffee with real cream. After, finishing that off I caught myself about a 30 minute nap. I woke observing the beautiful French countryside with its green field, small villages with their church steeples and tons of cows. We make into Belgium, but not much going on here.
We hit the Dutch border and I notice something that I missed when I was going to Paris from Amsterdam...windmills. There are actually working windmills along the way...the real traditional looking ones. Also as in France, I notice the number of cows, milking ones in this case. Several thousand I saw over the one hour ride in the countryside. Again, as was the case going to Paris, I notice the canals, hundreds of them. It kind of makes me think back when I was a kid and watching the Wonderful World of Disney movie, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. I can picture these long and sometimes narrow waterways being frozen in the winter and people skating on them. Of course, with all the cheese I see around Amsterdam, I understand all the milking cattle.
Okay we are arriving into Amsterdam Centraal train station. I know the route back to my home base at the Tulip of Amsterdam. Chris and David are waiting for me and tell me they already took the big heavy bag upstairs for me. Talk about customer service! I get to my old room at the top of the third floor and waiting again for me is a bottle of red wine, fruit and chocolate. Bon appetite.
Also realized that it has been 3 weeks on my trip, doesn't seem that long.
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