European Vacation, Stop 3: London

I can't believe it's taken me this long to update about London. It's been about a month and a half now since we've been home. I've been to London twice before, but I never enjoyed the way I did this time having Emma and Tim and tour guides. Bill and I did touristy things on Friday while they were working, including the London Eye, which we have tons of pictures from. The best parts of the trip, however, were spent walking around seeing the special things that are so close to Emma and Tim's apartment. 

Juliet, Naked

Juliet, Naked: A Novel by Nick Hornby

My rating: 4 of 5 stars I liked this book a lot. It was a fun, fast read and I would definitely recommend it. It's an intercontinental story about music, relationships, and reassessing your life as you suddenly realize that you're getting older and you just never stopped living like you did in your twenties.  

I think it's been a few weeks so let's see what I can remember. It was great that the main character was a woman. She had this great dry sense of humor and a tough exterior but underneath she was realizing that her life had passed by her since she'd spent the last fifteen years with someone whom she wasn't in love with and who wasn't in love with her. They were more like best friends who just stayed together but she wanted to get married and have a baby and she was already around forty-years-old. Duncan, her boyfriend, was more obsessed with a rock star who'd disappeared years earlier than he was interested in Annie. Through this obsession, the reader gets to learn about all that's lacking in their relationship and also about the old rock star. The rock star, Tucker, has his own chapters so you also get to see the difference in his legend and his actual life, which is pretty sad. Duncan also realizes that his life has passed him by but it feels like a failure for him because he's living in the past and hasn't done anything of significance to justify it. For Annie, whose life has also passed her by, it seems like a blessing because she's not living in the past and there's nothing there for her to hold onto. She can do whatever she wants in the future.  

The pros were that Annie was a great lead character who wants to stop wasting her life. Her sessions wth her hilariously uptight therapist were great. During their talks, he tried to talk some sense into her since even though she was taking more control over her life, she wasn't very sensible and I agree with him that what she tried to do in the end could have been very bad for her and brought her to a new, uncontrollable situation in which she would have been stuck. The character of Annie's boss who seemed to be an aging character from Quadrophenia was very funny and helped to express the fact that things change and it's hard for people to give up on their heyday and the excitement of their youth. I also really liked Tucker and the relationship he had with his six-year-old son Jackson. It helped to describe how Tucker had finally grown up in his late fifties and how all of the mistakes he'd made and people he'd hurt didn't matter so much because they were in the past. He was incapable of making up for failed fatherhood with his other kids because he wasn't a part of their lives. All he could do was take care of Jackson and secure his future. And being of that age, it's all he really had the time to do if he was going to do it right. Everyone wanted something from him, including Annie, but all he cared about was Jackson and he always put him first.  

The cons were that I felt that the thoughts and dialogue of the Americans didn't seem authentically American. Also, the female POV wasn't always totally believable. Also, the sex scene seemed very strange and unrealistic. I also didn't like the fact that Annie thought that she always needed a man to define her life. If she wasn't going to waste her time with Duncan anymore, then maybe Tucker could bring her a better life. I would've been happier if she had been a stronger person who defined herself by her job and her hobbies, rather than being willing to move to another country and just live whatever life a man whom she barely knows is living. View all my reviews >>

Happy Thanksgiving from Lucy the Cat!

European Vacation, Stop 2: Amsterdam

After our much too short visit with Milena in Munich, Bill and I headed to Amsterdam on the overnight train. The overnight train turned out to be misleading. We spent hundreds of dollars reserving our tickets but in the end it turned out that we didn't have actual tickets at all and had to pay an extra 40 euro each to have beds on the train. That was the cheapest option which meant we were sleeping in a tiny room with six beds. There was a homeless man wandering up and down the hall, peeking his head into the cabins until he decided that he'd booked the same room as us. He was more homeless-looking (mostly because of the ratty hat he was wearing) than homeless smelling. He turned out to be extremely friendly so we learned that was "traveling" which I think means that he was back-packing through Europe with very little money like a 20-year-old, even though he was sixty. After a fairly uncomfortable sleep, including a successful trip to the bathroom in which I had to climb down a wobbly ladder in complete darkness making sure to not step on anyone's heads, I got out of bed determined to spend the remainder of the trip in the hallway.  It was a narrow hallway and stern-looking train conductor types as well as fellow patrons passed by as I backed up against the wall only to still be in the way. It was worth it though to watch the sun come up over the Dutch landscape, which I hadn't seen in three years. I got Bill up and made him stand in the hallway with me because I knew he wasn't happy up there in the top bunk. It was nice and then our favorite bunkmate came out in order to enjoy the sunrise with us while he carved an apple with a knife, a knife that I can only assume spent the night with us and traveled with our ratty-hatted wanderer for fruit carving and general protection purposes.

We finally arrived in Amsterdam and the nice man at the hotel near Dam Square let us check in as soon as we got there at around 9:30 in the morning. 

After a nap and shower, we were off to explore. Bill was more interested in seeing the city than spending hours in museums so I walked him around in an attempt to show him the different neighborhoods. One stop was at the Oude Kerk. It was partly closed off but they were having a fun art exhibit of photographs taken during short-lived hippie eras in Eastern Europe. 

This is the Spui.

And Spuistraat.

We walked down Kalverstraat, the very crowded shopping street.

We arrived at Dam Square, where the carnival happened to be going on, and got some pofrijes. It's hard to tell from the picture but they are waffles with chocolate and whipped cream.

That night we had tickets to see Camera Obscura at the Paradiso (I know!). It was so great. They sounded amazing. The Paradiso is an old church that's been converted into a club. It has two floors but the room where they played isn't very big, especially compared with the Bell House, where I saw them earlier in the year. They sounded so much better this time and I was right in front. 

The next day we rented bikes! We rode around the city and went to Foam, the Fotografiemuseum. 

I don't have any pictures of the museum but here are some others from that day.

The Westerkerk-This lovely old church is right down the street from where I used to live. The bells ring every hour and they are the ones that Anne Frank heard, during her time in hiding. Rembrandt van Rijn died a pauper and is buried here in an unmarked grave.

We had lunch at Cafe Roem on the Prinsengracht.

Then, went to the Museumplein.

Rembrandtplein

That night we finally got to meet up with Eleni for dinner.

The last day in Amsterdam.

After breakfast, we wandered around in the rain, shopping and stopping at cafes for coffee, until it was time to head to Schipol and fly to London. It was a nice conclusion to our time in Amsterdam.