and the grand european tour encore, this time i go on my own, without knowing a soul...


up up and away.... the first lap of the journey

after packing to my favourite music of the season, bishop allen "but i know he means... if you feel like dancing, dance with me" and lingering msn goodbyes we drive to the airport and find the airline queue easily, for these departures and arrivals have now become routine. i didn't get a window seat, but when the man at the window left for the toilet my irish neighbour and i eagerly overtook his vacant seat, pressing our faces agains the small pane to see the lights of the city beneaht a perfectly clear sky. we traced the coastline marking our final farewells to north america. i am delighted when the window seat passenger offers me his seat, he relishing the extra aisle space on the crammed seats of a cheap flight, i adoring how i could lean agains the window and carve out my own space in a miserably un-private setting.

four flight transfers gave me ample time to read Ayn Rand's very engrossing Atlas Shrugged. i love Rand's striking characterization and clear writing.


Helsinki (helsingfors)

finally i arrive in helsinki, unprepared and without an address! (i will never do that again. i thought i was more prudent than that, but i get lazier every time.) ever frustrated at the layouts of medieval cities, i wandered east, west, south, south-east, back and again before finding the hostel. i was grateful for the late sunset as 8pm faded into 10pm and i felt no qualms wandering unknown streets. (item: i have never seen a city so clean, so tramp-free, so .... non-sketchy. strong social-safety net, i suppose.)

i am struck by how Finland closely finland resembles Canada - a pine grove we hiked through was 'the haunted wood,' glittering lakes fringed with long thrushes could easily be the 'lake of shining waters.' it's also very flat, which looks just like ontario or PEI to me. i laugh at myself for having gone halfway across the globe to a place that looks 'just like home.'

i was hopelessly bewildered by the street signs in finnish and swedish, and didn't pick up a word except 'yes, no, and thank you.' i was also bewildered by why the signs all had different animals on them, and how they were held by turtles

the helsinki harbour amazes me with its plethora of all kinds of ship - tiny little wooden boats to the zoo, sailboats that looked like a piece out of LMM's victorian days, and large cruise liners that could very well be a city in itself, or a skyscraper turned sideways.

=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Suomenlinna.jpg/798px-Suomenlinna.jpg>Suomenlinna was one of my favourite places and i went there again and again, to lie on the rock beach, to explore the old fortresses and feel like i'm in a page of lord of the rings. my friend and i painted daydreams about living there - for people really reside on the chain of islands, amidst a historical sea-fortress from the 12th century.

Magnum 'Strawberry White' ice cream is the most delicious things i ever tasted. like a hagen daaz with white chocolate coating and strawberry ice cream inside!

i was elated to learn that helsinki's night-of-the-arts occurred during my stay - i had loved paris' nuit blanche, an all night wander the streets everything's open museums are free night. but alas - it fell on the night after we were all too tired to do much. the next day i tried to take a train trip to neighbouring Turku with a friend, but couldn't afford the double price because student discounts only applied to Finnish students.

the wheels of the bus go round and round and round... the second lap of the journey

i flew to london and took the bus to amsterdam. word of advice from a seasoned traveller should you ever take a long bus trip: put your hand luggage on the seat next to you! i didn't and someone chose to sit next to me, even though there were plenty of other empty seats. i was miserable because i couldn't stretch out over the two seats and sleep.

we crossed the border at Dover - the white cliffs of dover i had always longed to see ever since banished King Lear roamed them in storm and insanity.

the tunnel under the english channel was very interesting - the bus boarded a train which took us through the tunnel. talk about boxes in boxes! i'm glad i'm not space-claustrophobic.

i had a most interesting conversation with the american girl in front of me, re: her efforts (and hence her reason in europe) to help victims of the sex trade in Muldova. her stories were quite awe-striking (i coined that phrase - it's awe-inspiring except it's not inspiring, just awful, but fills you with a sort of sinking appreciation for how good you have it.) i learned a lot, and i hope she publishes her findings.

i like bus rides better than plane rides because you meet people. and see places. we went through lille, antwerp, rotterdam and den haag. i worked the designs for a building in lille last year. i have romantic notions of antwerp based on a ww2 book i read in my bookworm past. rotterdam and den haag have always been in magazines i perused at school. it was good to at least have 'been there.'

Amsterdam

there are many ways to explore a city. you can get yourself a guidebook or a map of attractions, you can research (aka google) all the things you want to see, or you can let your instincts guide you and form raw perceptions of a place. given 3 days (and sheer laziness to plan aforehand!), i took the last route and decided to 'get to know the city' for myself.

i don't know how well i got acquainted with amsterdam, but i liked it instinctively. one of my first thoughts was 'i wouldn't mind living here!' it looks like a city that has been lived in... it's so full of signs of human inhabitation - streetsigns and stairs and balconys and shutters and canopies and potted plants and bikes and boats... what bliss it would be to have a canal at your doorstep! it's densely populated but 'human' in scale... the dimensions of the streets and buildings are 'just right,' not 'too big' or 'too small.'

it rained and poured and had ... hardly a diamond sunburst before it rained some more on my second day. i found myself retracing my footsteps on my first day - it was hard to go very far without being stranded by storm!

the dutch family i stayed with took me on a trip to the lake the day after. i liked that most of my short trip - the countryside is beautiful with gleaming lakes and canals plentiful. we reached marken via a land-bridge with water on both sides, reminiscent of a drive i had in PEI national park two years ago. we had dinner on the opposite side of the lake, and at twilight the water met the sky in one unforgettable hue of dream-blue, one could not tell where the water ended and the sky began. it was such a beautiful image.

ps. the dutch make good peanut butter
pps. put chocolate sprinkles on your breakfast toast and yogourt kids! you won't regret it.

the third lap of the journey

i took what the bus company told me was the last seat on the bus to vienna. i was clever enough to hog the seat beside me with luggage and sweaters. i HAD IT TO MYSELF the whole umpteenth hours of the trip! the bus didn't seem very full. it was uneventful, but i gratefully slept a lot. and arrived in Wien (Vienna), was chagrined to have to wait half a day before the previous tenant returned his keys so i could move into my very sweet dorm room in a sadly sketchy area, and sleep some more. and that's what i've been doing a lot of since: sleeping, after a month of gallivanting. what did i say, i like to hibernate.