London Calling (but Berlin Called First)

This past week has been the longest week of my life! And not just because it was 10 days. Travel "break" is more like a marathon, and frankly, it takes a lot out of you. But man, was it fun!



Last Friday, the entire castle shipped out to a required excursion to Berlin. This was a lovely and extremely tiring haze of museums and walking tours. Some memorable highlights were being led around by our history professor and getting to spit on the site that Hitler was burned (thus officially making my history class the coolest there ever was), having a hotel room with only 2 beds (although they were pushed together I Love Lucy style for reasons I don't understand) AND OUR OWN SHOWER, finding a shop that was just like Beadles in Chelmsford but in an indie Berlin sort of way, getting really cheap ethnic food and delicious bubble tea, going to an "Authentic Irish Pub!" in Germany that turned out to include a live Irish band, and going to a bar with OSA.





MEGA highlights included going down a giant snow slide with the quad, on tubes, backwards. Yeehaw!

Lowlights included that time Z and I booked the flight for the wrong day without noticing, and had to sleep in the airport. Oops.

We made the best of our extra day by going back into the city and seeing Skyfall to get jazzed up for London (Berlin theaters are so much nicer than US theaters could ever hope to be), getting Orange Mochas (serious Zoolander flashbacks), and having an insanely long lunch that included pumpkin raviolis (!!!!!), free WiFi, and Irish cider. mmm. I loved Berlin more than I thought I was going to, the vibe was very chill and there seemed to be history everywhere you looked. Not to mention, the layout was very logical (coming from "our-streets-were-designed-by-cow-paths!" Boston makes this an exciting thing for me). Then, we headed back to the airport to wait, and wait, and wait.

Being abroad on election day is a strange feeling. We finally made it to London Stansted Airport, and on the bus on the way into the city, I spent the entire time refreshing the CNN homepage. Tragically, there were no updates of significance before I had to give up and crash back at the hostel. I woke up at 6 AM in a panic, refreshed the page again, saw the first headline - "Obama's Acceptance Speech" - and went back to sleep happy.

Wednesday, we headed off to the Warner Brothers Studio to visit the Harry Potter set!



We spent 3 and a half hours here, and we had to reflect on the fact that we had been to dozens of museums, but this was the only one we read every single plaque at. I'm a little afraid of what that says about us.



We got to see Dumbledore's office and the Weasley Burrow, sit in the flying car, walk across Hogwarts Bridge, see the Sorcerer's Stone and all the original costumes, and oh god you guys it was so amazing.



 

(Flawless concept art gallery. This stuff was museum quality)



 

(Scale model of Hogwarts. ahhhhhhh)

 



(Here I am on the Knight Bus reunited with my one true love, Butterbeer)



(Here I am at #4 Privet Drive, loving life and stuff)



(Here I am looking pensively off the Hogwarts Bridge, because any time they show it in the movies, someone is contemplating on it)

We even found this at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes



 

And I knew I needed it for the blog, haw haw.

 

We went into Leicester Square that night and decided to pop in to the theater and see a show! We got 10 pound tickets to a musical called Loserville, which was fun and hip and nerdy all rolled into one, and then got CHIPOTLE! (!!) With real guacamole and everything (a hot commodity in Europe). It tasted like home.

The next day, we woke up at the crack of dawn to wait in line for 2 of the 8 student tickets they release daily to Matilda the Musical. We made it in time, and scored 5 pound seats! Then we jetted off to the Zoo!



We saw penguins,



and giraffes,



And not-so-pygmy hippos (not pictured, because I was so mad that they were so gigantic). We did a quick trip through the Camden Market, which was overwhelmingly full of deals (I scored 2 dresses for 22 pounds after some impressive haggling on my part), and stopped by Primark, a 24-hour Black Friday wonderland. I ditched my horrible shedding blue Cookie Monster coat for a sherpa-lined bomber jacket, and all was right with the world.

Matilda was beautiful, technically impressive, and really touching and nostalgic. Trunchbull was pitch perfect, the child actors were so impressive, and there were truly hilarious moments for adults and kids alike. The song "When I Grow Up" may or may not have brought a tear to my eye. Matilda has been one of my favorite books since I was a kid. She just really resonated with me (the reading and storytelling part, not the absentee parents part) and this rendition did the book so much justice. I just really like Roald Dahl.



(This doesn't do the set justice - it was scrabble pieces, and the ones on the floor lifted and turned into desks. Amazing).

We hit the Tower of London and the Natural History Museum the next morning. There was lots of pretty scenery to be seen,





And we got to see pretty jewels, and learn about executions and murder mysteries, which are my favorite things to learn about. The Natural History Museum was required for class, and we were painfully exhausted, so it called for a quick run-through. We did encounter this poor hygienically challenged T-Rex along the way:



(Their plight is a serious one).

We spent like 3 hours in a Starbucks desperately trying to recharge, then rallied for a pub crawl that night. In a very strange twist, we met 2 girls from B.U. who were friends with someone back at the Castle! Small world. Apparently, London's nightlife scene varies very drastically from quiet pubs to clubs made out of old horse barns whose private booths are stables equipped with mounted deer heads with signs hung over them that say things like "RED RUM". The crawl decided we should see the whole spectrum.

Z had one goal for this trip: London's first Warped Tour in 15 years. That hasn't really been my scene since my early teens, but I thought it might be fun for nostalgia's sake. And hey, it was! We jammed out to the Used, 3OH!3, New Found Glory, Family Force 5, and my old favorites Bowling for Soup (who have a really strong following across the pond). It was overcrowded and there wasn't enough food, but it definitely brought me back to the good old days of mosh pits and ugly black and neon clothing.

Our trip ended with an excruciatingly long second night in the airport, but we made it back super tired and in one piece! My legs are ready to formally secede from my torso, but I'm so glad I got the chance to explore such an amazing city.

Bonjour, Paris!

Paris. The city of love, the city of lights, the city I was most excited to see on this trip.



 

Arriving here on a budget-friendly 7 hour overnight bus might not have been the height of glamour, nor was getting lost in Parisian Chinatown finding my hostel, but by God, I made it. We went immediately from the hostel to Disneyland Paris, because who needs sleep when you can have roller coasters?



 

I promptly got these sweet Minnie ears (clearly hoping to distract from the most hopeless bags under my eyes I ever have sported), and we hit the town. Highlights of DLP were the fun Halloween decorations (Europe doesn't go hard during the 2nd most wonderful time of the year, but Disney sure does), some taste-of-home Ben & Jerry's sorbet, finding fun Disneyland Paris secrets (like the sleeping animatronic dragon under the castle!), the Phantom of the Opera-inspired Phantom Manor, the surprisingly intense Space Mountain 2, and the horrifyingly incomprehensible French Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

MEGA highlights included meeting the illustrious tri-lingual Jack Sparrow (I made my poor friends wait in line for like half an hour, BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT)



(I don't remember the last time a worse picture of me has been taken, but hey, we're all mermaids)

And the 20th Anniversary light show on Aurora's castle at the end of the day. I have never seen something so technologically impressive in my life. The story is that Peter Pan has lost his shadow, and he needs to chase it throughout various Disney movies. The entire castle was transformed into a movie screen/fireworks foreground/pyrotechnics hub. They made the facade into a waterfall, the city of Paris, and the jungle, among other things. All of my old (Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Jungle Book) and new (Ratatouille, Princess and the Frog, TANGLED!!) faves were represented. Tears may or may not have been had during the lantern scene and rendition of "I See the Light" with the famous kisses montage. I'll never tell.



(Here we are in front of the unlit castle, which was still pretty impressive. Being a giant is rough sometimes).

I caught some flack for deciding to take a day out of Paris to go to Disneyland, but honestly, it was a no brainer for me. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a big Disney/amusement park fan, and I've never really gotten a proper day at a Disney park. The girls and I have been planning this trip for about a year and, barring some mishaps with the Parisian Metro system (what is it with me and trains? Thanks for the help, kind French mother and flower vendor), it was essentially flawless. I never knew how easy it was for four 20 year olds to conquer Disneyland!

We promptly collapsed, then woke up the next day to find some Parisian bargains. Shopping and a long, lingering lunch at a Parisian cafe was just what we needed to rejuvenate. As a bonus prize, we found a Starbucks serving PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES!! (This is important because pumpkin flavored things in Europe are elusive to the point of not existing anywhere, ever. They are missing out).



(My French name. My second barista got it right, and pronounced it "ah-knee," which is how I now demand everyone pronounce it).

That night, we saw the Eiffel Tower (!!!!) Our lovely hostel employee told us the best stop (not under the Tower, but nearby it), and the sight of it lit up against the night sky hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally had to catch my breath.



 

Also, it sparkles every half hour, if the sight of it alone doesn't do it for you. We had a lovely dinner at a French cafe down the street (I had the most amazing cheese plate...I will be dreaming about camembert forever....) then made our way up to the top. For October, it was unreasonably cold in Paris, and going to the top of an incredibly tall structure didn't help much.



The view, however, was breathtaking. It was like a dream.

The next day, we took a free guided walking tour through the city. Our tour guide was an incredibly friendly and informative expat from NYC with a master's in French history. So we pretty much hit the jackpot as far as free tours go.





 



 

(The Quad and honorary members

declared our eternal love on the Love Lock Bridge)

We learned, we ate.



 

(This is my standard order at every American restaurant, and god do the French do it better. I will be dreaming about this for the rest of my days)

And then we went to Shakespeare and Company! It's one of the most famous bookstores in Europe, started by the brassy Sylvia Beach in the roaring 20's. It's meant to be a haven for Americans in Paris and for starving artists looking for a place to stay. Her original location played home to Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein and Man Ray, and the new location on the Left Bank has housed Ginsberg and Burroughs, among others. It's absolutely trembling with history, and as a bunch of writing majors, we knew it was a must-visit.



I got a sweet cover of This Side of Paradise, with the signature stamp. I was a happy camper.

Sunday's schedule included a jaunt to the Louvre (of course!)



 

Where we saw the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, and some nice Egyptian art.



And a trip to Europe's largest flea market, which we only saw like 1/10th of because we obviously don't know how to read signs and the neighborhood we were in was, as I described it to my travel writing professor, "the Bronx with a spritz of cheap French Perfume." Still, we got some good deals. A couple of members of the group were tired and wanted to head back to the hostel and chill out, but Lexie, Lindsay and I were off in search of good crepes. We decided to take an impromptu jaunt to a different stop on the Metro that was allegedly Montmartre, and we were so glad we did.



 

We saw the Sacre Couer, we saw an amazing view of the city, and we finally saw honest-to-goodness Midnight in Paris Paris, the Amelie Paris I had been dreaming about, with the winding cobblestone streets and the cafe tables on sidewalks. As my mother had warned me, some parts of Paris are better than others. I blithely ignored her, of course, but I had been underwhelmed by a lot of the neighborhoods we were walking around. But this...this was Paris. It was an amazing way to end the weekend.

I set a very high bar for Paris, and while it wasn't a flawless trips, there are moments I will remember forever. I can't wait to go back and do it right!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's in her (industrial sized Swiss Army) bag?

I thought I'd give everyone a glimpse into the process of packing for my upcoming trip to Paris/Disneyland Paris.

Step 1 is to panic about how you will manage to appease the discerning French fashionistas while still fitting all of your belongings into a backpack. Oh, and you have to leave room for your purchases, too...

Step 2 is, rejoice! You're taking a bus and not RyanAir, so you can carry home all the bags you want. But still, better keep it to a backpack on the way there so you don't break your back/get mugged.

Step 3 is to try on a million different outfits and keep running back and forth to the full length mirror upstairs. What I wouldn't give to have one in the quad...

And step 4 is to lay it all out!

#1 - Outfit for the bus/Disneyland Paris. Red jeans from Amsterdam and a Mickey Mouse raglan. Comfy enough to sleep in for 7 hours on a bus? Well...is anything that comfy?
#2 - Ann Taylor blouse for my diva outfit change post-Disneyland.
#3 - Blazer. My best accessorizing friend/what will probably serve as my coat for most of the weekend.
#4 - Natural Soul boots. The greatest investment of this trip. I can walk for days in these suckers (and I have).
#5 - PJs. Kind of need these.
#6 - Dresses from AE, the Gap, and Italy, and fun necklaces. Grandma's elephant is a personal favorite, and it's probably the one piece of jewelry that I get complimented on the most.
#7 - Brita water bottle with built-in filter. If you are ever travelling for a long period of time, you owe it to yourself to invest in this. Suddenly, every bathroom has drinkable water. Like magic. (This is extra important because Europe only believes in water in a conceptual way. There is no such thing as free water, anywhere. I think everybody here is dehydrated all the time.)
#8 - Socks n' tights. Bonus fleece-lined leggings: they look like tights, but they're super warm.
#9 - Big purse (camera bag/day bag) and little purse (wallet storage/night bag)
#10 - Banana. (Did I mention the 7 hour bus ride?)
#11 - Makeup bag. I am going to the city of judgmental citizens, oui?
#12 - Flats for nighttime outings
#13 - Diesel Swiss Army backpack courtesy of my mother. This thing fits all of this stuff plus my big honking DSLR into one compartment. C'est magnifique!

Our bus leaves at midnight tomorrow, so wish me luck. Bon voyage!

Welcome to Toverland

(All images borrowed, because who wants to lug a DSLR around Toverland?!)

This weekend, I opted to "SAC it" (what Kasteel students affectionately dub sleeping in the castle). It's a lovely refuge for when you feel so overwhelmed with travelling plans you could explode. For me, this is all the time. So a weekend at the castle was just what the doctor ordered.

Andrew, Caitlyn, David, Sam and I decided to hit what was touted as "Holland's #1 Day Trip Destination!" - the illustrious Toverland. What could very easily be described as a children's theme park turned out to be a wonderful journey into the culture of the Netherlands (and a fun day, to boot).

In the Netherlands, Halloween traditions only started seeping in around the mid-1990's, and they were very heavily borrowed from America. And apparently, every Dutch citizen has major Halloween fever, because Toverland was packed on this (granted, unusually warm) October day for the Halloween festivities. At one point, at least 3/4 of the park gathered around to watch a man in a vampire costume stalk around and occasionally stop to glare menacingly at a passerby. This is entertainment.

The park included "the tallest, fastest wooden roller coaster in the Benelux!" (Des)Troy



We were unfazed looking at this coaster from the ground, but speaking as a serious coaster junkie, this thing packed a punch. It was a steel/wooden hybrid with an alarmingly steep drop and a top speed that didn't let up for the entirety of the ride. We hit this twice, and would have kept riding it all night if we didn't have a bus to catch.

And this crazy contraption



Booster Bike, the strangest roller coaster ever imagined by anyone. Only the Dutch would insist that their amusement park rides include bikes. The method of securing you into this ride can only be likened to placing a clip on top of a potato chip bag to seal in the freshness. It was an experience. A bonus treat was the Backstroke, a flume ride that inexplicably turned around and went down the hill backwards.

Apparently new to the sensation of actors dressed in spooky costumes meandering around amusement parks, the Dutch children (and adults) were having a serious breakdown when they found bloody ghosts and skeletal Trojan soldiers in their gift shops and fun houses. Equally new to me was the fact that the actors could touch you (!) and the way they interacted with children. A ghoul wielding a chainsaw with the chain pulled out let a child rev it up for him, then turned and pretended to hold it up to his neck. Chalk that up on the list of most frightening things I have ever seen, ever. Other fun cultural differences included giant bonfires in the middle of the park, rafts that children could take out on shallow man-made ponds (?), and amusement park pizza places that have their own basil growing next to the cash registers (!!), the latter being the most exciting, of course.

My favorite moment of the night was my encounter with a little Dutch boy wearing a red Scream mask. I gave him an exaggerated gasp when he turned around, and he lost his mind. He tugged on his mother's coat and pointed at me, then jumped back again. I tried to look even more scared for his benefit. He turned the mask around to the back of his head (presumably so I would be perma-scared), and then, when he thought he might have broken me, he took off the mask and pointed at his face, assuring me it was only him under there. It was among the most adorable things that have ever happened to me.

Naturally, with the good comes the bad, and as we headed off to go home later that night, our bus never came. We figured out that you have to call Dutch buses to come for you on off-peak hours (naturally?) and we had missed our window of opportunity. Thankfully, we made it home safely with the help of a taxi driver from Indonesia with a fondness for American music (the highlight of the ride was the great "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred).

It is fascinating to see what traditions are adopted by other cultures to appropriate their own, personalized version of Halloween. No matter how many tiny Justin Biebers we saw, Toverland remained stubbornly, incredibly Dutch, and we loved it for that.

"This is problem for you": Adventures in Italian train strikes.

Cinque Terre is actually the most beautiful, romantic place I’ve ever been to in my life. You couldn’t dream up a place this pretty. I was actively planning my future honeymoon the entire time I was there. I was absolutely in my element. Coming here with no expectations, I fell in love with this place.

If you’ve ever read the children’s book series Strega Nona, I’m 99% sure she lives in Manarola (the 5th town comprising Cinque Terre where our hostel was located).

(Pictured: Strega Nona’s street. IT EVEN SMELLED LIKE SOUP!)

Z and I landed at Pisa Aerporto and enlisted the help of some friendly employees and locals to find our way to Manarola. Except for the last of 3 transfers, where the train ticket was decidedly unhelpful and we threw caution to the wind and hopped a train we were pretty sure was the right one. If you asked me to get on a train and cross my fingers 2 weeks ago, I would have told you you were crazy. This is growing up and becoming a seasoned traveller, guys. We decided that travelling is 30% planning, 60% intuition, and 10% blind luck.

We met friendly couples from Ohio and California who were adopting the same “here goes nothing!” attitude and stood with them in front of the train door, shrugging haplessly at every person who came up and asked us if this was the train going to Cinque Terre. Fortunately, we were dropped off at a picturesque train station in Manarola, and we were absolutely blown away.

Everything was the bluest blue, forever ruining the questionable navy of the Atlantic for me. Between the mountains, the rocks, and the Mediterranean, the entire area was a postcard waiting to happen. We trekked up to the hostel, situated behind the giant church, with our giant bags on our backs. Cinque Terre is a hiking destination, but no one warned us that we would need to hike just to get up the street. It was a system of impossibly steep hills, and I think I got an amazing calf workout just walking back and forth through the town. Which is nice, because I ate roughly half my body weight in food.

We were starving upon arrival, so we hit a charming little cafe outside of the train station. They were selling bruschetta for 6 euro and, expecting Olive Garden-esque tiny toast rounds, we were a little bummed out. But for authentic Italian bruschetta, we were willing to pay the price. I ordered pesto, Z ordered peppers, and we got a Margherita pizza to split. Then, it came to the table.

And it was the size of our heads. The waitress was laughing at us because she couldn’t fit the pizza next to our ginormous tomatoey treats. I think there was an entire garden on there. And I’m pleased to tell you, we finished all of it. It was shockingly fresh. I’ve never tasted anything like it in my life.

The view from our hostel, which was at the very top of the complex series of hills, was breathtaking.

The cornerstone of that church apparently dates back to 1338, making this the oldest part of Cinque Terre. We traipsed down to the “beach” (a series of rocks) in our swimsuits and shorts. In October.

(Cute couples EVERYWHERE. Z and I started to joke that it was our honeymoon because the ratio of couples to non-couples was like 99:1. It’s where adventurers go to swim in the Mediterranean and rock jump and hike and be adorable.)

We got gelato,

(This is actually me with sorbet, but rest assured I also tried 4 flavors of gelato. We ate a lot this weekend.)

Visited the love lock bridge (I had a minor mental breakdown from how cute this was. I’ve always wanted to visit the one in Paris, and this one was a completely welcome surprise)

And watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

We ended the night with a glass of local wine on the patio of our hostel with a lovely stray cat who we dubbed Ingrid. It was actually the perfect day, easily the best I’ve had while I’ve been here.

We set the alarm for 8 AM on Saturday in the hopes of taking the “easy” (read: not at a 90 degree angle to the ground) hiking trail around to the other towns. To our chagrin, it was closed, so we headed up to the information center to find alternatives. Little did we know, this would be the least of our problems.

A tiny sign in Times New Roman delivered the bad news.

!!! ATTENTION: TREIN ITALIA WILL BE ON STRIKE FROM 9 PM SATURDAY UNTIL 9 PM SUNDAY. NO TRAINS WILL RUN DURING THIS TIME !!!

We figured this had to be a mistake. This area of Italy is literally only reachable by train. How could we have been through 3 train stations and not have heard a word about this until now?

Easily, apparently, according to the woman at the information desk who had a painfully calm attitude about the whole ordeal. She didn’t understand the gravity of our situation until we repeated for the 3rd time that our flight was at 5:30 PM on Sunday.

“Oh…” she said. “This is problem for you.”

She eventually gave us a dubious time of “5:30…15:30…I mean, 17:30” for a train out of La Spezia and into Pisa. Z and I dealt with this major setback like champions, booking a hotel of questionable quality whose display picture was a dingy bed with a bold stamp over it proclaiming “LITERALLY 1 MINUTE FROM THE AIRPORT!” This was all the convincing we needed. Our hostel in Cinque Terre refused us a refund (although they were very aware that there was a train strike and neglected to tell us, despite the fact that we were checking out on Sunday at 10 with literally no way to get anywhere else in Italy. Can you tell I’m still burned by it?) But we decided to make the best of it.

We spent the rest of the day dipping our feet in the Mediterranean (rock jumping and swimming were sadly not an option, as the water was too rough),

And walking around the amazing trails

(This is my favorite picture ever).

And generally lamenting having to leave.

(I was crying on the inside).

We made our way to Pisa Aerporto and the hotel was, as promised, one minute away. Under the highway overpass. The doors were barred shut, the lobby was locked, and the hotel owner wanted nothing to do with us until he was done with his phone call…so he left us outside in the cold with our giant bags. Now that’s service.

At least we were in a private room with one of roughly 3 full length mirrors I’ve seen in all of Europe.

(It was a little squiggly).

The owner lead us to the room, and Z asked him about the sign in his lobby referencing luggage storage. He paused, then said, “Leave your bags in your room and your room unlocked. Leave a note with time you be back. I take into back office.”

Needless to say, our bags never left our sight. It was one of the more frightening places I’ve ever stayed (when one of us went to the bathroom, we locked the other one into the room). We abandoned all hopes of late-night pasta and barricaded ourselves in our twin room to watch Italian Teen Wolf and wonder what in the world was happening outside of our boarded-up windows.

Outer Pisa was even a bit disconcerting in the day time. We did manage to find some delicious pastries, and eventually made our way into the nicer part of town, where we scored fresh pasta with pesto sauce for a paltry 6 euro. Everything we ate was amazing, but we were pleasantly surprised by the abundance of inexpensive fresh fruit juice in every flavor imaginable. ACE was a personal favorite (stands for vitamins A, C, and E, I later learned), which was a mixture of orange, carrot, and lime juice. I will be dreaming about it forever. We found some cute shops, an adorable flea market, and had a grand old time. Hey, worse things have happened than a day in Pisa, and since we kept our wits about us (and put on our best “seasoned traveler” hats) we lived to tell the tale without any major mental breakdowns! Italy, you were great, and I hope you got all the rights you wanted from your strike…but next time, make it on a Tuesday, would you?

An Amsterdam Reflection

            Tonight, Rembrandt is green. The gaudy neon light from “SMOKEY’S” casts an eerie alien glow over the statue of the somber Dutch artist. In his namesake square, musicians playing melancholy 90’s ballads and larger than life interpretations of inebriated cartoon characters battle for your attention. The dewy grass and granite benches serve as a makeshift concert hall with better acoustics than any given American club, and the audience leans in and hangs on every note. There is hardly any chatter, only the palpable feeling of rapt attention.

In the hour and a half I’ve been here, I haven’t heard a single song that wasn’t in English. While the canals and narrow staircases serve as a constant reminder that you aren’t in Kansas anymore, Amsterdam’s culture appears to be in danger of slipping away. From the McDonalds dotted along every street to the signs touting “English subtitles!” outside of the movie theaters, it’s hard to ignore how much America has outright invaded this city.

            The talent du jour has peppery gray hair that whips around his face in the harsh wind. He plays with eyes shut, head bowed, completely immersed in the music. As he wraps up another soft rock hit, a gaggle of 20-somethings rushes up to him. They shove a member of their party forward, who whispers something in his ear after throwing back an exaggerated glare at the group. He nods; they clap and giggle. He dedicates the next song to Alicia (this elicits a squeal from a tall blonde wearing a headband adorned with two bouncing plastic penises). It’s her hen night, says the musician. I recognize the opening chords to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, and lean back on my bench, inhaling the smoky-sweet scent that wafts through Amsterdam.

            The girls keep their arms around each other and sway to the beat, belting out the lines they know, and grumbling when they don’t. As the musician hits the chorus, a man emerges from Smokey’s carrying a water bottle with a fabric flower inside of it. He stumbles to the middle of the pavilion and splays out on the ground, enduring the harsh stony stare of Rembrandt. The new centerpiece extracts a hat and places it on the ground, ready to ask the pre-assembled audience for their patronage. He then takes the makeshift flower vase and balances it on his head. He isn’t in it for comedy, far from it. His intent expression informs the crowd that this is his modern performance art. He lies still, awaiting the judgment of these critics and philosophers who have so freely given their approval to the musicians of the Square.

            A quick burst of light illuminates the square. Alicia has taken a photo of the vase-balancer. He leaps up and races towards her, hat extended, demanding she pay her dues. She shrugs and makes an exaggerated empty-pockets gesture. Apparently the last of her euros tipped the guitar player, still faithfully strumming amidst the chaos.

            The performance artist isn’t satisfied with Alicia’s excuses, and raises his voice. She recoils, and a few people make motions to rise from their benches. The musician hits an odd note and stops abruptly. A bouncer from a nearby club materializes in the square and pulls the penniless artist aside.

            They have an animated discussion involving a lot of exaggerated hand gestures. It culminates in the vase-balancer screaming, “If you don’t speak English then don’t TALK to me!”

            I feel a pit in my stomach. It’s the distinctively unpleasant feeling of being ashamed of one’s own country when abroad. I flash back to the co-eds in Ohio State sweatshirts discussing last night’s club at Anne Frank’s house; the Hawaiian-shirt clad couple snapping pictures in the red light district. Perhaps the man was from Texas? I remember hearing a twang in his voice. I briefly wonder if I can play it off as if I am from Canada. My horrified expression must betray me, as the man next to me leans over and makes a comment in Dutch that sounds sarcastic.

            “Spreekt u Engels?” I have butchered the simple Dutch phrase, I gather from his smirk.

            “Sorry,” he laughs. “I said, I wonder why they haven’t jailed him already. That crazy guy comes around here all the time.”

            “Oh, God,” I breathe a sigh of relief. “I thought it was another American tourist giving all of us a bad name.”

            The man gives me a world-weary smile. “Americans don’t need him to do that,” he says. “You already have it.”