Touch Down
After longer travel than I'm willing to admit I have finally made it to Europe once again. I flew from Portland to LA, had an unreasonably long layover, and then flew from LA to Paris. After this 10 hour flight, on which I managed to get a window seat (score!), I was picked up in Paris by my good friend from Thailand, Gaston. He drove 5 hours down to Paris from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and we then spent a wonderful 1 hour in Paris before driving the entire way back together.
This is Gaston being gorgeous as he fills up on gas and the only notable landmark we saw in Paris (Notre Dame). We grabbed food and hung out more for a break from cars and planes than any real interest in the city. Yeah we skipped the Eiffel Tower but I'm not overly upset by it.
Immediately a few things struck me. Firstly travel is so amazingly different when you have a car and second Parisians are literally the worst drivers. They are aggressive and fast and do not give any notice when changing lanes. Once we hit Belgium and then even more so in the Netherlands the drivers got way more calm and normal. We drove for 5 hours and after having only got 3 hours on the plane and it being about 5am Portland time when we left Paris I managed to stay up the entire drive minus one hour to keep Gaston company. We had a chill night in and I passed out. Thankfully for me it has always been easier to transition west rather than east and I can say confidently that this time I completely transitioned without any jetlag and slept through my first night and woke up the next morning.
Today, my first official day in Rotterdam (an hour south of Amsterdam for anyone with a geographical mind) we had a good day sight seeing. We took some fun pictures at a bridge that had a great view of the city skyline and then walked around and shopped a bit. Gaston bought a few things but I managed to keep myself. Mostly because I have absolutely no room for it. Oh yeah I totally forgot to add that I'm going 6 weeks with nothing but a carry on. This is for a few reasons I'll go into in a second. This is a picture from the bridge of me that Gaston took with his wonderful and beautiful iPhone 10 or whatever. He is also a wonderful photographer and friend. The other photos are some macaroons we got, some really cool architecturally strange cube houses in Rotterdam, Gaston's AMAZING new apartment that I helped him pick, and some of just Rotterdam.
So anyway I'm traveling light. Really light. I have 1 backpack, 2 shorts, 4 shirts, a few dresses, 2 swimsuits, 1 towel, toiletries, and a few other random things. I also have 1 pair of pants and 2 long sleeve items because my mom was a good influence on me, however I am traveling with only one pair of flip flops, my till I die Olukai's which have been with me literally around the globe. I could literally hear my mother's distress as I made that decision but I'm confident in the ideas that A. They won't break and B. I wouldn't wear any other shoes even if I brought them.
The other thing I did today was that Gaston let me drive his Ford Fiesta stick shift around Rotterdam city because we are leaving tomorrow on a little road trip and I need to be able to help drive. I learned in my sophomore year of high school from a friend and really haven't tried since but thankfully it's a bit like riding a bike but I actually picked it up instantly and only killed the engine once about 15 minutes in. I honestly killed it and I'm pretty impressed especially because I actually drove better than I did back in sophomore year, and I also had to deal with some of the Dutch driving stuff like how they don't have stop signs and go by a right of way system where weird signs indicate who has the right of way or if it's an "equal intersection" along with the fact that the roads are tiny and I had no clue where I was going and I didn't get to start in a parking lot because they don't have minimum parking requirements like they do in the US. So that was awesome and kinda scary but I never got in an accident so go team. But I did have to get out and make Gaston parallel park for me haha.
Later we went to a touristy spot called Kinderdijk and saw some beyond picturesque windmills. It was fun and we didn't have to pay parking because it's Sunday and that made it even better.
Tomorrow we'll be heading south again to Germany around Stuttgart area (southwest) to pick up our other friends from Thailand and then head south again to Italy. I'm pretty excited for that one, we're going to be staying 5 days at Lake Garda which is about an hour from Venice, Milan, and Verona which is going to make for some wonderful day trips.
And lastly, to not forget my obsession with airplane food here is the meal I was served on AirFrance. I missed the second breakfast meal because I was asleep and I also turned down a chocolate ice cream bar because I thought it was another wet towel and I've never had more immediate and deep regret... But this flight was pretty cool. Lots of good movies and free alcohol throughout the entire flight. My seat also wasn't uncomfortable and what I got to see of first class looked absolutely lush. Some day I'll ride first class, even if not regularly then just for the hell of it.
