Vorchia and Rusty in Holland

[Vorchia]

Hi everyone,

A while ago Rusty planned a trip to Europe, incluing my country and the plan was to hang out together and go do fun things.

(No I'm not being a bad daughter, my parents are just going on with stuff too and didn't want me to cancel this. If you stop going ón the world collapses or something, increasing entropy of the universe and such. )

I picked up Rusty at the airport on Fridayafternoon. Going to the airport to WAIT for someone to arrive was new for me. I usually go to airports to catch a flight. Not this time. I walked around at the shopping plaza a bit because I was too early. The airport has lots of shops. Eventually Rusty's plane came in. I managed to miss her at first because I didn't expect really short rather blonde hair hidden under a handkerchief... She had at one point mentioned she wanted to dye it so I was looking for blue hair... After a while I noticed this girl with hair of a rather natural color and by then I had also just writtin her name on a sheet of paper, which she recognised despite my wonderfully illegible writing. "You're Vorch!" she said. Brilliant observation. Next time I have to pick up someone from the Dinotopia fandom I'll just have to bring my model Azzy to be more recognisable. (I'm not sure if I would dare to do that...)
Az has been telling me to make Rusty try liquorice. Rusty does not like liquorice but does rather like other sweet sugary foods my country has to offer. There's a trainstation right under the airport and as I had come by train we had to leave by train. Rusty's international train card had never come in and the ticket machine wouldn't take her creditcard. They're sure very foreigner friendly there... The machine did like my bank pass so that fixed the problem. We talked a bit on the train trip home and Rusty showed off her collection of Dinosaurs, which she had taken along all the way from the States. There were many, they were cute, they were mostly the small type JP dinosaurs so you know what I'm talking about. I told her about Azzy and Hawkeye, which comprise 50% of my dinosaur collection. I was too busy admiring the dinosaurs to see if there were any stares but there were probably plenty, it being in a rather busy train. The dinosaurs got to travel for free by the way! I also got to see some London pictures. We managed to get safely to the town where I live, where I promptly managed to get more or less lost because I couldn't find the youth hostel where Rusty was staying in the dark. The world looks different when shrouded in darkness and I have no sense of direction, ok? We did find the youth hostel reasonably fast where Rusty then went to eat because she had booked all in and I went home. We were both rather tired and intended to go to Amsterdam on Saturday. We're just back from Amsterdam now, Rusty is at the hostel writing letters and I'm at home. (I couldn't really offer Rusty to stay at my place because of the whole mess with my stephdad and the radioactive treatments that, if things hadn't gone wrong would have made him radioactive right nów and well... I'd rather not try inviting guests over then try to explain to them about the radioactivity.)

The Amsterdam trip was interesting. Right now I'm tired and want to sleep though.... I'll post about that later.

BDSP Vorchia

[Vorchia]

This is Rusty and, no, I never got the chance to dye my hair...yet!

LOL...too bad the dinos had to ride in my hiking pack and not in my carry-on...would have been easier!

Vorchia is such a good hostess...don't know about her driving...alright for Europe and WAY better than most Americans!

[Vorchia]

Yes I let her do a post on my account because she lost the information of her account...
My driving is kind of interesting as I don't drive much, in fact the most recent times I drove was in a relatively new car (my stephdad's) and it was weeks (months?) ago. Rusty wanted to go see a little bird park so I had to ask mom if I could borrow her car knowing the newer car would be used by the family today. Mom's car is an ancient monster, something like the first amphibians you know? Slow, not very large and NOT very bright? The problem with that car is that it takes a fine tuning of choker, transmission and a tiny amount of gas. AKA Its a major pain to get it going, also because its so incredibly OLD. Of course with all the problem getting the car going I got nervous with the whole driving things and made many more little mistakes like trying to get away while standing still in a gear thats not usually used for such. Yeah my driving has seen better days. But we suvived!
We did somehow end up at the parrot park where we were followed around by a tame deer that walks around freely there. The deer could be petted and kept trying to see if we wouldn't feed it. It would not let little bridges stop it from following and at one point we just went across some water using stepping stones to see if Bambi (its real name, yes) would do that too. Bambi however didn't want to loose her deerly dignity trying those stones and simply took the bridge.
There were many parrots and other tropical birds as well as some reptiles and mammals. Rusty was talking about wanting to start her own bird park in Montana, she did know many parrot names and even pointed out and identified the lineage of a few hybrid parrots.
We had arrived there at opening time so we were the first ones in, afster about an hour we did finally find other people in the park at shihc point Bambi was distracted by a little girl holding edible goods. I can tell you its rather odd to be followed around by a deer for an hour while walking around a really quiet park!!
At the park we did take a picture of Azzy and Hawkeye sitting in a cute little hollow branch, they look very happy together in their little treehouse. We should get Rusty to post that picture sometime.
The car had the grace to start normally (after a little prayer to the God of rusty old automobiles). We proceeded to a cheap restaurant for lunch (where the car gave up on being nice and would not start again so we had to be saved by a butler who knew how to convince the stupid primordial beast to get its engine going). Then we proceeded on to a little Natural History musuem. However I also needed gas rather badly and couldn't find myself a PETROL station while the little pointer just sank, sank and sank... When we finally found one it wouldn't work because it was SUNDAY.... So then I just hit the highway hoping I would be able to find myself petrol on a highwaystation on the way to the musuem. I did! Then I promptly forgot the darn lid of the petrol tank. Rusty reminded me just in time so I could pull to the side again to run back to get the LID... Yes it was an interesting ride. Heaven knows this is exactly why I hate driving... I have nothing with cars! I just want to go from A to B with as little trouble as possible! When we got to the museum they lived up to the ancientness expected in natural history museums by being unable to take CARDS... AKA, we had to get into the car again and get to a cash dispenser. Thankfully we managed to do this without getting too lost and could have a look at the musuem. It was tiny but it was cute. It did have the obligatory raptors and T-rex skull as well as a nice collection of fossils and rocks they even had a mosasaur. (Yes mosasaurs are the national treasure/fossil of the Netherlands!). They also had a few picture prames with a collection of Dinosaur stamps including the James Gurney stamps!!
After the museum we went back to my town and went over to my place where mom invited Rusty over for dinner. During dinner my parents and little brother heard Rusty out, my brother especially seemed to want to knbow just about everything ranging from school to new years eve celebrations in the US. After dinner we played memory with my little sister, it involved a lot of giggling. Jasmijn can communicate quite convincingly and would sing random lines from English songs she hears on the radio while going progressively more hyper... It was a very amusing experience. Rusty now knows my crazy siblings... We're still at my place now, Rusty is emailing home on the other computer.
She did learn a few words of Dutch already.

[Vorchia]

I promised I'd also write about the Amsterdam trip. I hope anyone is actually reading this?? I'm starting to feel like I'm talking to myself here.
We went to Amsterdam by train, which according to Rusty was amazingly cheap and much better then that in the US. Take that United States of America!
In the train our conversation quickly went rather weird about the same way conversations tend to get really weird really fast in chats. The people next to us kept staring at us as we were insane. (Brilliant observation there.)
I forgot to bring an umbrella so entirely in accordance with Murphy's Law it rained in Amsterdam. It tends not to rain when one DID bring an umbrella. In Amsterdam we went to the tourist office and from there by tram to Anne Frank's house. Rusty couldn't find her bus ticket (which is also for the tram) but the kind driver let her in for free. At the Anne Frank house there was a nice queue and when we did get in the place was amazingly small. I would have gone crazy within a week if I had to hide there without ever going out! Rusty had never read the book, in the shop they sold about 30 different versions of Anne Frank's diary (poor girl, everyone's reading it).
After that we went to try and walk to the Rijksmuseum, the other obligatory tourist attraction of Amsterdam (we didn't go to the red light district). On the way to the musuem we found the homo monument. Yes Amsterdam has a monument dedicated to all the homosexual people who have ever been persecuted or oppressed. There were flowers at the monument too as well as stand with souvenirs.
On we went in what I thought to be the general dirction of the musuem but was in fact about 90 degrees in the wrong direction. I shoudl ahve just more or less followed the canal... So we went back and as we did not run into a place where we could get Rusty a new bus ticket we walked all the way to the Rijksmuseum. Did this give us an oppertunity at looking at all the nice typical houses and canals the city is famous for.
The Rijksmuseum is a musuem with old art, mostly from the golden age. The most famous painting of the Netherlands, De Nachtwacht (Nightwatch) is there for instance. They also had a lot of very nice silver that I think would have Azzy glued to the glass had she been there. The paintings were beautiful too. There was also a rack with old guns where I couldn't resist the temptation of looking down the firing end of a rifle. I just had to, ok?
After that we went to the tram again to get back in the general direction of the royal palaca so Rusty could see that too. Its not open for visitors and was being renovated so there wasn't that much to see sadly... Rusty did manage to find her bus ticket again, it had been hiding in a pocket that had been searched a few times already.
Then we walked into a street with a lot of shops and a bunch of coffeeshops. We walked around there, found a place to eat walked around some more and went to the trainstation. We did not get mugged, didn't see anyone who was seriously scary, didn't get harassed, assaulted or anything else whatsoever. So yes it has hereby been proven you can walk around in Amsterdam safely.
The shops in the area were interesting too, shops with supplies for growing and consuming weed, cafetarias, bookshops and some other random stuff. We were just looking at a antique bookshop window when I spotted an anatomical drawing of the lower abdomen of a human, I saw a bladder and some ofther anatomical shapes to I happily cried out 'Look an anatomy book!'. Then I realised it was a pop up anatomical picture and that the pop up part was an anatomical drawing of an erect penis... Oops!
It was getting later and I thought maybe we could still catch an evening ride on a boat that tours the canals. So I decided to quickly try to cross a rather large street. I started runbning but halfway I tripped and skidded on the asphalt on my knees and hands. I got up, realised I was halfway a road and that the traffic was about to get going again, got adrenaline, ran the last part and practically fainted with pain in my hands wen we reached the safety at the other end of the road. It hurt a lot but amazingly enough my hands were red but not bruised. Neither were my knees. We think I must have somehow slipped on the waterlayer on the asphalt, effectively aquaplanning. Very weird. My legs wouldn't obey me muchly and my head, hands and knees hurt so we decided to just go for the trains. I must have looked pretty drunk because the first minutes my limbs didn't really want to receive the impulses I was trying to send trough my motorneurons. I am so chaotic at times... We were very close by the trainstation where we had to wait for a train. In the meantime we ate desert in the shape of little strawberry cakes that is rather typical of The Netherlands and they had toppled over a bit when I had my enounter with the road but were still very tasty. The ride back home was uneventful.
We didn't do the coffeeshops or the red light district and Rusty didn't drink Amstel beer, which is the typical beer type of Amsterdam. I did buy coffee at every occasion when we bought drinks so my coffee addiction is now confirmed...
In the bus we listened to some music Rusty had on an I-pod (?) and I got to hear the Jedi Song. I keep thinking they're singing about an 'Iranian guy' but its probably the name of some Star Wars location.

Rusty has been infected with the Within Temptation bug. Within Temptation is a Dutch band Tamith really likes, Tamith introduced Azzy and me to it and I now introduced Rusty to it and she now wants to buy the CD too.

[Vorchia]

Today is Monday, meaning all museums in The Netherlands are closed and most shops don't open until 13:00. This meant there was little else for me and Rusty to do but go shopping. I introduced her to baklava, which she really likes. Thats not Dutch food, its Turkish but well, Turkish baklava is absolutely great. We both wondered what would happen if we could get some baklava to Azzy, it being pure 300% sugar.
We went to the bookshops were we had fun looking around and getting her something to read for on the train to Germany tomorrow. She pointed out a few good books that I should read later and bought a copy of 'The Undutchables' which is a humorous book about Holland and its inhabitants. I bought a book about keeping dinosaurs as pets. So today wasn't very eventful but it was fun anyway. She found some really brightly colored sparkly Christmascards which had Dutch text on it to send to her friends at home.
We also managed to fix the money problem by finding a cash dispenser that woudl actually take the stupid debet card. A lesson has been learned: Dutch shops and ticket vending machines don't accept debet cards, cash or a creditcard are a necessity to get around in the Netherlands...
Tomorrowmorning Rusty will take the train to Germany and I will take the train back to school for radiation physics class. I would dearly love to travel around a bit but well, I have school.

[Azonthus]

Wow, it sounds like you two had a lot of fun! I'll be sure to bring plenty of Euros with me when I come to visit! And who knew you could hydroplane on water when just falling? Good thing you didn't get hurt, Vorch!

I demand pictures

[Vorchia]

There aren't that many... Rusty forgot to take her camera with her to Amsterdam, which was the main sightl.... Rusty will get home on Christmasday so after that you can annoy her through AIM or something about pictures.