Solo Travels...Part Uno.

I have recently unearthed the journal I kept during my 2007 solo trip to Western Europe (UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland) and it is pretty funny to look back on. I learned a lot on that trip...not only about traveling alone but about my patience, my ridiculous sense of paranoia, and how to appreciate a good beer. The excerpt below is word for word how I wrote it on my trip. I don't really know why I kept a journal other than the fact that I was traveling alone and needed someone to talk to. Maybe that makes me schizophrenic, but in the end I'm glad I did it.

Let's get to it.

September 11, 2007: Train from Paris to Amsterdam.  (My current thoughts are in italics)

I am currently sitting on a train from Paris to Amsterdam. I woke up at 7am this morning to pack and get my train at 8:15. Freaking 8.50 Euros to get to the station (geez I'm cheap). I would have walked had I not been so freaking far away or lost on my way in (Story of my life on this trip...I was constantly lost and I have an AMAZING sense of direction. What's up with that?). Anyways, I got to the station and the window was closed so I was freaking a little bit but the dude came at 8:40 finally. I got the 8:58 to Paris (from Bayeux) and then decided I would walk to Paris Nord from Lazarne, the end point of my train. The metro map made it look like I would have to change trains like 3 times and my street map made the stations look decently close together so walking it was. So of course things are a hell of a lot more confusing in real life than on a map but I managed to find Rue de Lafayette by accident thank God. Then I followed that for a good 45 minutes. Not Kidding. I really should have taken the metro. My feet are killing me. And along the way some woman asked me if I spoke English and I stupidly said yes. Then she flashes a postcard at me with some sob story about Bosnia written all over it. I was in a hurry and not the mood to be scammed so I said NO and she begged some more and I left. Simple. But there were probably some pickpockets lurking nearby to knife me or something (I was overly paranoid the entire trip...Mom you should be proud). Not 30 seconds later another woman asks me if I speak English and I say NON as French-ly as possible. I get to the station around 12 (my train got in at 11:05 so I'd been doing a lot of walking).
The line at the ticket counter was so long that I thought I'd miss my 12:55 train. Thankfully I got through the line around 12:20. However, the woman at the counter scared the crap out of me when she said the train was fully booked until the night. (Please excuse the language I'm about to use in the next little bit...I was totally confused and completely pissed at my situation. You live, you learn kiddos). And now an interjection about that disaster: Apparently my Eurail pass is for 15 days...which I thought meant 15 days of travel, but NO!! It means 15 consecutive days (how was I not aware of this?!? I mean I must have looked at my Eurail pass a million times. It is incredibly obvious that it is 15 consecutive days. Oh the youth these days...). All I can say is FUCK. I don't want to get it validated until after my long stay in Amsterdam otherwise I will use up 5 days of travel AND have to pay for tickets in Switzerland and Germany (the Eurail pass is a complicated beast but I still recommend them!). Fucking hell. So instead of using the Eurail pass and starting the 15 day clock, I had to fork over 100Euro for a damn STANDBY ticket. So now since I wasn't given a seat number for this 5 hour journey I am SITTING IN THE LUGGAGE COMPARTMENT of the train. There are a few fold down seats in here and they are right in the doorway. These are like the seat you might find on a bus or subway. And I get to enjoy this for 5 long hours. I am sharing my compartment with a rather large French speaking girl. She as that f-ing annoying frog ringtone that was all the rage 3 years ago in Australia (Haha wow. I still really hate that ringtone. What an annoying frog). Also she has a HUGE bag of food with her. WTF. And she threw her pack on top of mine. Ugggg, blast!!! Ok now she just moved (what a riveting play by play. You're welcome). I wonder if she is going to find a seat. Yes she did. Fuck it I'm going to look for one before I go crazy. (Can you feel the anger and frustration? This is the stuff Rick Steves never talks about). 

*** (Yes, I added in little "time has passed" stars in my journal)

Ok wow that failed miserably. So I had been eyeing this open seat for an hour - the guy who had been sitting there appeared to have found another place to sit. The seat is in one of those 4 person things with the table in the middle. Anyways he was gone basically from Paris to Brussels. Where the F he went I don't know but he came back and I had to move. Now there is even more luggage crammed in the with me from 20 Japanese businessmen who just got on. Wow the next few hours are going to suck.

*** (More time passing stars!!)

So as if sitting in steerage could not get any better, the 20 Japanese businessmen decided that they should come get their 40 Samsonite bags 20 minutes before their stop (if this has ever happened to you on a train, bus, or metro I'm sure you can relate. It annoys me to no end when people freak out about exiting the vehicle so they HOVER by the door for 20 minutes or slowly creep closer and closer to make sure they don't miss the stop). WTF?! I couldn't move an inch and I was blocking the door. Don't they realize that this luggage compartment is MY SEAT?! I decided to just say fuck you  Japanese businessmen (again, sorry about so much use of the F-word...it tends to happen when you are treated poorly whilst taking up residence on the floor of a dirty train) and not move an inch until we had come to a full stop (Normally I'm the "grin and bear it" type so I'll politely make room for others). It was apparent that I was going to have to get off the train so they could get by. So TEN MINUTES before their stop one of the assholes taps me on the shoulder and motions me to stand up. I glare at him with the meanest F-YOU look I can muster. By this point I've been sitting in FREAKING STEERAGE for 4 hours. I don't budge. What a jerk. I was happy when they got the hell off.

I did eventually make it to Amsterdam without biting anyone's head off. The story ends there because I was so excited to have my personal space back that I neglected to write for the next day or so. If this incident has taught me one thing it is this: RESERVE YOUR TRAINS IN ADVANCE OR PREPARE YOURSELF TO JOIN THE LUGGAGE. Oh and if a Japanese businessman is rude to you, simply ignore and prosper. 


Ciao for now!

Heating Paranoia

I am just gonna throw this out there. I am completely terrified that our boiler will not last the winter. We got it "fixed" less than a month ago for a very hefty price and we refilled the oil tank. It has been working well since its surgery, but I am worried that it is sucking up the oil faster then we think. I was told by the heating guy that it burns a gallon of oil an hour.
Let's put that in perspective.
Our oil tank fits about 250 gallons of oil. That is 250 hours. That is just over 10 days of heat if we have the thing running constantly. Oh and a gallon of oil is about $3.50. That is just about $900 to fill the sucker up. If the winter is another 2 months (at a minimum) that is just about 60 days. SO that would mean 6 full refills of oil, or $900x6 or $5,400. And that doesn't even include the money we put into actually fixing the darn thing in the first place.
So basically, to avoid this horrible and expensive dilemma, we keep the thermostat on 64. On really cold days the system goes on and off quite a lot, but at least it isn't running constantly.

Now the scary part...

I went down to the oil tank yesterday and tapped on it, and I swear it sounded HOLLOW. Seriously I will CRY if we are already out of oil. If that is the case, we are in for a really cold winter. Oh yes, and the little gauge thingy to tell us how much oil is in the tank is totally busted. Those things happen after 90 years. And lucky for us, the company that made the tank probably went out of business 50 years ago. Wahhhh. That's me crying.

Needless to say, the system is getting TRASHED this summer.

Oh the joys of homeownership....

Brrrr....

Am I a crazy cat lady or what?!?!!?!

Yahoo TV FAIL

Thanks for lifting my spirits and sending them CRASHING down, YahooTV. I was super pumped to watch a whole show about Cat Ladies and it turns out you are just LYING. Some horrible show called "The Locator" is on. Who cares?!!? Give me my Secret Lives of Women. Isn't this false advertising?? Grrrr.

We are mad. 

I iz mad. Feed me people foodz.