(no subject)

[sanura]

Yesterday was definitely just a travel day, though we did get to walk about a bit in the morning before our 2:30 train. We had breakfast across the street from our hostel at the basically perfect medieval restaurant, related namewise to Augustiner Brau. Oh, yes, meat for breakfast. I was good for the day after that, no food refill needed.

It was a day of moderate musical win; we walked to the Marienplatz again just to fill the time before the train and fill the bottles with the good spring water from the fountain in the middle of the Viktualienmarkt. I sat and watched the luggage and serenely sketched the Altes Rathaus and the dragon climbing the Neues while the boys went looking for the fountain. They also found the Peterskirche, which you can go up in. They have pictures; it wasn't as intense as the Duomo, but still pretty. I had people almost assume I was a tourist attraction and come look at my drawings, and one lady assumed it was Hausaufgaben. It was lovely, and I had Toby in my headphones when the fairly good trio of strings a couple blocks away played pop opera greatest hits.

When we walked back to the station we went past that trio, which was at that point playing the Habanera, but before the end of the line we passed a bunch of Mongolians throatsinging and playing two-stringed instruments with modern bows. I gave them all my change.

It's a good thing I was full of breakfast, because we were on the train practically all day. The first leg, they gaves us reservations for a car that wasn't running that day, so we sat on the floor for an hour and a half before the transfer in Mannheim. Which was kind of fun. Then on the next train there were two tiny 3-year-old black girls in our seats, so we decided not to kick them out. We sat on the floor of the dining car instead. We talked to a set of jewish Bros from Miami who were slightly interesting until we realized they were dumb.

At another transfer our seats freed up, so we sat and talked to the friendly Americans next to us who drew us a map of the good things to do in Amsterdam for non-partiers.

Celina and Stephanie met us at the station with two friends, Linda and Vaas, which was a lovely change from the three of us schlepping dolefully to find a hostel. They took us, mostly sitting on the backs of their bikes, to Lugosi's, basically a vampire bar, and talked and listened in a social way I haven't done since a cast party. The multilingualism is an added element here; Dutch certainly is a slight mental jerk away from German.

Stephanie volunteered her new place, which has three couches, for us to crash at. Parker and Steph traded off playing the guitar and singing till about 2 in the morning. It was such a return to perfect familiarity that Parker kept forgetting we were still in a faraway land. We fixed that, though.

We woke up mercifully late and Celina brought us bread for breakfast while Stephanie made us cheese sandwiches. It's been odd catching up; we're all entirely different people from the kids we knew each other as 10 years ago. They're very Dutch now, with English hesitations and everything. They had to be somewhere at 1:30 so the three of us explored central Haarlem. There's an amazing cathedral, with the best Baroque organ ever (Mozart played it, it's very important, all that). We go to go in and tourist around just as that evening's concert player was practicing. The tower also has a carillon, so that was fun, too.

We met up with the girls outside the church after their appointment and were led to a bike rental place. Dutch bikes are so much better than my cheap Walmart bike; they're like tanks, behemoths of momentum that you hardly have to pedal. So easy and effortless to ride and coast and so easy to carry other people and stuff on.

We bought a picnic at the market and rode a lovely ride to a tiny lake that's better and less touristy than the beach. I can't even explain how idyllic it was; we swam to the other side of the lake and back, and picnicked, and did gymnastics, and were generally peaceful and content.

I dunno how we'll beat that, but tonight we may go with the girls to a friend's to watch a movie, and then bike to Amsterdam tomorrow.