The thoughts & opinions of Sassarella, the Queen of Sass as she cavorts in 's Gravenhage & beyond. Brought to you by CES's (Chief Executive Slaves) of Big Skanky Ho Inc.
Apparently, Koln is really famous for a great big cathedral called the Dom.
So, as you can imagine, it was a bit of an anticlimax to walk out of the train station and find myself right in front of it. So, I had a look at it, wandered around a little bit and now I'm pretty well done. There's a museum here, but it's already closed and probably other exciting things that are equally already closed. So I'm at this Internet cafe, victim to a great big bout of bad planning.
On the other hand, the Dom certainly is a great big monster of a Gothic cathedral, all spires and buttresses and gargoyles. It kind of looks like someone went a little apeshit with the gothicness and maybe that someone needed a little happiness and sunshine in their lives. Still, the fact that it's surrounded by a totally modern train station and pedestrian bridge kind of detracts from the gothic splendour of it all, so I guess it all evens out. It must be pretty damn scary at night.
As an update to my last Amsterdam entry, upon leaving the internet cafe, I decided to go see a movie, namely Donnie Darko (which was really really bizarre. It's about how this kid seems to be going crazy, but then takes a bit of a left turn into the space-time continuum). So after I bought my ticket, I went to go get a drink (since movie water is crazy expensive) and on my way back, who should I run into but Stephen Malkmus, former lead singer of Pavement, now solo artist.
Maybe if I wasn't in a hurry to get to my movie, I would have found something better to say then 'hey.' But probably not. As it turned out, he said 'hey' back and we both kept walking.
Yesterday, I went shopping for backpacking-around-eastern-europe supplies and ran into a homeless British guy. I had just missed my tram, so I sat and chatted with him for a while. It turns out he's from Oxford. So I said:
'Where the university is?'
And he said: 'mumble, smrf, grouaerir, ahbgirj, Oxford has like four streets with the shopping and that, mrph, mumble, grmt, then the university and then the estates. mumble mhrjgind fhjgign. The most estates in England!'
After some mutual back and forth mumbling, we managed to establish that he meant council flats, which are pretty well the British equivalent of the projects. Good to know. So, if you're ever in Oxford, go to the university and then go the hell home.
Hopefully I will do better in Munich. posted by Alleen at 5:41:27 PM
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Love, exciting and new...
So, I'm sitting here in the easyEverything internet cafe (neither easy nor everything), minding my own business, writing various e-mails and love notes to the people I care about (that's right folks, if you didn't get an e-mail, I don't care about you), when a security guard taps me on the shoulder and says:
"Excuse me, miss. Do you have your bag with you?"
Me, all confident:
"Of course, I do. It's right under my-- oh my god! My bag's missing!"
Him, all studly:
"Heh heh. Don't worry miss, we took it this time. But just so you know, pickpockets and thieves are running around here. Just keep your eyes open."
Me, trying to recover from a mild heart attack:
"Gosh, thanks, buddy. Lesson learned!"
Him, accompanied by the wink and the gun:
"Just watch out next time. Heh heh."
If he hadn't been cute, I'd be totally mad.
Anyway. I'm back here tomorrow to check out a reading by Xaviera Hollander, the infamous "Happy Hooker" at the American Bookstore, and then Friday, I'm out of here. I'll post my planned itinerary tomorrow or the day after, so you can all follow my adventures on a map. It seems I have to carry around a letter that says I work for the Yugoslavia Tribunal with me so that my railpass is valid (I don't understand either, but hey, when in Rome...), so I've decided to skip the former Yugoslavia and leave it for another occasion. On the plus side, so far, it looks like Amsterdam to Koln to Munich to Salzburg to Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest to (possibly) Bucharest and Sofia. If I get far enough fast enough, I can go on to Greece, take a boat to Italy and then go back through Switzerland. But I think that might be a bit much for two weeks. Maybe next time.
