L’Eggo (My Eggo) to Brussels

Lazy weekends are the best. This past weekend was incredibly laid back and, now that it’s raining and I’m sitting in a coffee shop with a cup of tea, I think it’s a good time to write about another chill weekend we had a few weeks ago in Brussels.

Brussels was actually the first place we bought tickets for when we moved over here because the tickets were just always cheap (this was pre-world events; now they are a bit cheaper). So, when we saw prices ‘rising’ to $35 round trip, we decided to pull the trigger and book. Four short months later and we were on our way.

Upon arriving in Brussels, being funneled through a non-functional metal detector (safety first), and stepping outside, we looked around to see about 500 people milling about, looking lost, and more or less causing chaos. It was around midnight and neither of us could really handle the slew of people knocking over barricades, stepping out in front of buses, or generally getting all up in our space. So, we hopped on the nearest bus and were on our way into the city. After walking from the bus stop at the train station to the AirBnB we stayed at, we were both worn out. Almost worn out enough to not let the incessant beeping of the smoke detector bother us. Fortunately, a couple hours and a few Xanex later (just kidding, we wouldn’t know how to get a Polish prescription for that even if we wanted to), and we were out. The next day, we let our kind hosts know that we had issues with the beeping and they assured us they would fix it later that day. And you know what? They did! We came back and the smoke detector was no longer affixed to the 12 foot ceiling. Problem solved. Safety not so much. In all likelihood, they just bashed it off the ceiling with a long broom like we were tempted to do at 3 A.M…

Either way, we left for the breakfast of champions – waffles covered in chocolate, vanilla ice cream, and cherries. After eating this giant meal in about 4 minutes, we were ready to continue on our way.

Unfortunately, our waitress expected us to be a bit more ‘European’ than that so we sat there complaining to each other about her tardiness in delivering the check for the next 20 minutes while receiving somewhat hostile looks from the men next to us who were enjoying their own exceptionally slow meal. And don’t get me wrong, we weren’t complaining because we didn’t have a wonderful time there or because we were generally unhappy; our complaints stemmed from the fact that we had a limited number of hours in Brussels and a lengthy list of Belgian delicacies to consume. No time could be wasted.

After we paid and aged roughly 3 years, we wandered to Manneken Pis, bought a million books from Waterstones, and took a stroll around the town square. Deeming ourselves hungry again, we went to find fries. Then chocolate. Then beer. Our afternoon was spent at Delirium (4000 beers!) before going out for some excellent Italian food. When in Brussels, right?

The next morning we rose not so early, were obviously ready to eat again, and decided to go to a lovely French cafe down the road. Unfortunately, their English was a little lacking. Not to worry though, our months in Poland and frequent cafe hopping had prepared us for this and we ordered like champions. The small amount of bread, delayed coffee for a quickly wilting Ry, and small cup of juice might signify otherwise but we’d like to believe we’ve improved over the months. After breakfast, we head to the airport and were back on our way to Poland, very full and very happy.

Sleeping in Train Stations

Have you ever been bored at work on a Wednesday so you look up YOLO trips to places nearby in Europe? Yeah, me neither because I’m sure I’d never, ever get bored at work. But if I did, that’s likely the start to how we wound up frantically searching for accommodations in Berlin for a weekend.

Our views towards traveling are definitely more towards the spontaneous side and so, after booking last-minute train tickets, we realized we should probably look into housing in Berlin. Little did we know, Berlin has begun cracking down on AirBnb accommodations and therefore, there’s a shortage of available accommodations. Not easily deterred (and already having invested in these ‘spendy’ train tickets) we persevered in searching for accommodations. 11 Airbnb rejection emails, 1 campsite email, and 5 hours of searching for hostels later, we were no longer going to be forced to sleep in the Berlin train station. Though, if I had to choose a train station to sleep in, a German one would be high up on my list due to their cleanliness.

The day of our departure, aka the next morning, we seamlessly navigated the public transportation like natural-born Europeans. We hopped on the tram to Central Station, immediately boarded our train, and were on our way to Berlin. Though our car was quite nice, the people directly behind us continued to shout Sieg Heil for about 3 hours, making it a bit of a noisy journey. Though our American instinct to involve ourselves in political affairs outside of our realm of responsibility was strong, we just kept to ourselves and nommed on the Subway we’d brought with us.

A quick 6 hours later and we were strolling into what can only be described as one of the lowest quality hostels I’ve ever encountered in my short 25 years. Though the staff seemed friendly, the room smelled like feet and one guy in our dorm must have had a foot fetish of sorts as he insisted on keeping the window firmly shut. While we were tired, we’d also failed to properly plan for the weekend and were therefore reduced to sitting on a decaying bench inside the hostel while we researched in the mostly-dark. There were lights, but you had to wave your arms frantically every 10 seconds for the motion detecting light to work. Exhausted, we went to bed knowing we would be waking up early the next morning to transfer to Hostel #2 (with our last-minute planning, there was not a hostel in all of Berlin that could house us for two nights).

The next morning, we rose with the sun – bright eyed and bushy tailed – and made our way to Hostel 2. The scatterbrained, part-time homeless, full-time stoner Video Rental Clerk who checked us in seemed highly confused about a variety of basic information we provided him. For instance, how long we were in Berlin, where we came from, why we switched hostels, and more. In the end, I believe he concluded we’d just arrived from America. Or the future. And yes, thank you Video Rental Clerk for that kind evaluation of my current state. I do appreciate that you basically said, ‘Wow girl, you look about as put together as someone who stepped off a 9 hour plane flight and showed up here early in the morning with severe jetlag.’

Our day consisted of an assortment of wandering the East Side Gallery, getting burgers from Burgermeister (highly recommend), and visiting Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was bombed during WWII. Afterwards, we took in the culture of Germany through the form of many a naked man lounging in Tiergarten public park (apparently in Germany skin cancer awareness is not a big thing, or weekend kindergarten field trips to the park [hopefully]). Needless to say, we looked past all these men and spied, and Snapchatted photos of, an assortment of French bulldogs.

At one point on our walk, we heard loud music. Thinking it was a concert, we tried to peer through the fence/bushes at the hubbub but couldn’t get a good look. Suddenly, we were at the Reichstag building. Sadly, we didn’t get to go inside the Reichstag because you have to make reservations in advance (trying 2 days before is advance, right?). Pausing for a moment to take in the view and gather ourselves in the German sunshine, we realized we were a stone’s throw away from a demonstration in the making. But, being the peaceful, non-trouble-making people that we are (perhaps hostel worker was rubbing off on us), we thought it would be best to take Gabe’s advice and get the heck outta Dodge.

Unfortunately, the route we took pinned us between the Reichstag building and the river and dead-ended into the Riot Squad who had blocked off the road. Looking behind us, a swarm of protesters was coming full force towards us.

What to do, what to do? We considered talking to the Riot Police but, not knowing what these people were protesting, didn’t want to seem like we were A) siding with the police or B) foreigners. Perhaps supporting INTERPOL would be worse, actually. We considered throwing ourselves onto passing tour boats but I was concerned for Ry as white men can’t jump. And lastly, we came up with the solution of making some smalltalk with a polite German family and figured if things got dicey, we’d just pretend to be their mute Aryan children.

As we waited for things to clear, with the group approaching the bridge from behind us, we noticed that the bridge began filling with protesters and bridge people began shouting at non-bridge people and vice versa. Though we gathered very little, in the short time that we resigned to the real possibility of being tear-gassed, we did deduce that bridge people did not like non-bridge people and non-bridge people did not like bridge people.

Then the bridge people came. Insults were hurled at both the bridge people and the Riot Squad who were protecting them. A couple rioters got carried off to the paddywagon. In all, we were stuck there nearly an hour. When bridge people had cleared, we were finally allowed to cross over the bridge, not in the wake of the bridge folk. Then we got stuck in ANOTHER blockade. We had to walk well out of our way, and just ended up walking the 2 miles back to our hostel, leaving behind us the din of angry protesters.

Upon arriving back at the hostel, we asked Video Rental Clerk for dinner recommendations. He promptly suggested a variety of great options which he qualified with, ‘I’ve never been but the people I send there always come back saying good things.’ At least they came back at all. Needless to say, we devised a new plan – we’d just try the restaurant that had declined to take our reservation for that night because they were booked (but yes, we – aka Ryan – are so good at planning that we attempted to make a reservation).

On the train to dinner, we were talked at by an old, hat-clad German man who sat directly across from us. The type of man who furiously shakes his fist at flocks of pigeons. Once again, using our expert German, what we gathered from this old man was that he did not like beards or Muslim kindergarteners. Fortunately, a teenage German couple sitting next to us was able to help deflect some of the awkwardness by speaking with him.We fake-laughed and politely smiled and nodded – agreeing to what, we don’t really know – throughout this uncomfortable encounter, quietly fearing he would ask us a question and realize after 10 minutes that we had no idea what he was saying. As our stop approached, we bid our new German friend auf Wiedersehen and strolled off looking so convincingly German it’s not even funny.

After gawking at a couple that looked like they were about to leave for at least 12 minutes, we luckily snagged a table at Dicke Wirtin – no reservation required. Our youthful exuberance for going out quickly diminished as we ate, conservatively, 9 pounds of food and imbibed an amount of beer. So instead, we returned to the hostel for an early night.

The next morn (American Mother’s Day), we went to get Ryan a cinnamon roll. In the spirit of motherhood, we stumbled across this picturesque display of love in the form of some nice (dead) flowers taped to a storefront. From there, we journeyed to Brandenburg Gate and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, since the rioters had thrown our plans all outta whack the day prior. After scoping Checkpoint Charlie, standing in line for Ryan to eat a Doner Kebab, and consuming some obligatory Eis, we strolled around Tempelhofer Feld – essentially an abandoned airport whose field was turned into a public park. As our trip wound to a close, we picked up foodstuffs (including a much-heralded Berliner) for the train, which we ate in the presence of Bier, the scruffy dog who we shared a compartment with.

 

In the spirit of Berlin, a group of Polish Riot Police were controlling some kind of situation at the Warsaw train station. Tschüss for now Riot Police. I’m sure we’ll meet again soon after I finish this delicious Berliner.

Feelin’ Fancy

I hopped off the plane at L.A.X.
With a bundle of Polish paperwork and my cardigan
Welcome to the land of fame excess (whoa),
Are they gonna let me in (to Poland)?

Jumped in the bus,
Here I am for the first time
Look to my right and I see the consulate sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous (can’t name a single Polish celebrity)

Credit: Party in the U.S.A. (Miley Cyrus, Hollywood)

Now we know how Miley felt arriving in L.A. There is really nothing better than walking in to a hotel and feeling like you are the fanciest person in the world. This doesn’t happen for Ry and me often because of our low budgets for the majority of our trips, but when we had to go to Los Angeles to finalize our visas for Poland, I’m pretty sure Iggy Azalea was blasting as we strutted in to our super posh Beverley Hills hotel. Straight off a bus because we were too cheap to pay for a $60 cab in L.A and in to free happy hour because, as we discovered, that’s what they do at fancy places.

We’d planned three nights in L.A. to ensure we had plenty of time if there were visa complications, but also made sure our trip aligned with New Year’s Eve so we could party it up in Los Angeles before catching an 8:00 AM flight home the next morning (we do not recommend flying home this early). After the visa took all of 40 minutes of the first day – including the time it took for Ryan to run to an ATM because we had to pay in cash and the time it took the poor clerk woman to sort through the giant pile of papers we gave her, unsure of what she needed and what we needed for HR at work – we had a full day and a half of ‘work’ to explore the city. Our only concern while leaving the visa office was that they were going to mail our passports with the visas inside to us in about a week. When we asked if they would provide tracking info, she said no. When we asked if she would be informing us when they were mailed, she said no. So, we embraced her YOLO spirit and went out to have adventures rather than worry.

First stop: breakfast. Because we were feeling particularly healthy that day (as we generally are) we went and ate loaded fries and chicken and waffles at 10:30 AM. Please stop judging now. And may I just say, we fully agree after that meal that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I would never skip it again if it always tasted like that. Breakfast definitely set us up for an excellent afternoon exploring the Getty. This museum, though a bit of trek for us from our hotel (given that our limo driver was occupied), was definitely worth the trip. The art exhibits are extensive, but the gardens outside the museum with great views of the city really make it worth the trip to the museum.

After the museum, we returned to the hotel to get cleaned up and enjoy a free cocktail. Out front, they had a sign welcoming, by name, the various dogs of the guests who were staying there. That’s how fancy it was. Trick’s on them though – dogs can’t read. From there, we embarked on what was to become the longest Uber ride of Ry’s short life.

We were headed to SpaceX, where Ryan’s friend was waiting to give us a private tour. Because our fancy vibe was really just a ploy to elicit less judgement from the hotel people, we decided to call an Uber. And not just your regular Uber, but an Uber Share. Los Angeles is a very spread out city to begin with, and opting to share a car with a couple strangers was one of the more unfortunate decisions we’ve made while traveling, but our limo was just not available (though the concierge did ask if we’d ordered one as we left the hotel). At the hotel, we were the first passengers to hop in Abed’s car. After about five minutes of peaceful driving, he stopped off in a neighborhood where we picked up Passenger #3, a polite, 20-something girl. The driver punched in her destination as well and we were off. Estimated arrival time: 35 minutes. Ugh. No sweat though, we’d be there in no time. Little did I know Ry failed to use the restroom prior to leaving the hotel…

Fast forward half an hour. We were nearing Passenger #3’s stop when the driver received another request on his phone. From the right lane on a 6-lane road, we suddenly whipped the SUV 180 degrees and began heading away from our destination. Safety first, kids. We back-tracked some 15 minutes to pick up Passenger #4. While we made room for her in the backseat, Ry whispered to me that his bladder was nearing its maximum capacity. Apparently the free coffee and drinks had caught up to him. New estimated arrival time: 30 minutes. I sensed Ryan was unamused by this update.

Abed dropped Passenger #3 off at her stop, which was just blocks from where we popped a U-ey earlier. From there, the Uber navigated through miles of traffic, in the fast lane from LA to Tokyo, before finally rounding the corner for SpaceX, well over an hour since we left the hotel. Ry’s mind was elsewhere at this point, as he stared out the window longingly, hoping for this ride to be over. A cruel irony awaited us, however; when we left the car and Ry sped ahead to find a toilet, we happened upon a long queue of 30 or so people waiting to go through security. Needless to say, Ry wasn’t the most animated when making introductions to his friend who came down to meet us at the entrance. Once through security he left our tour guide and me in the dust as he scurried down the long hallway hunting for a bathroom, like a food-deprived lab rat to cheese. Like a racehorse on crack. Overall, he gave the experience a 1.5/10; the relief on his face when he emerged from the restroom was not unlike that of a man who just received negative test results for a terminal disease.

Though much of the tour is classified, we can definitely say SpaceX was an out of this world experience. When we got back to the hotel and ordered a pizza to the room (once again exemplifying our fanciness to all the hotel staff), I noticed a list of all the items they could provide for me, including but not limited to: a comb, because Ry somehow thought that would work in my Kesha-like mane; a humidifier, because fancy people use those a lot; and a sewing kit, which I think was just to identify those guests who were posing as rich people but were really too poor to hire a personal tailor.

Credit: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (20th Century Fox)

The next morning, we got up bright and early to walk from Santa Monica pier to Venice beach. We felt very Californian in our attempt at getting exercise so early in the day (or really at any point in the day). The weather was infinitely better than back home and it was made even sunnier in our minds by the fact that most people were at work and we were working from the beach. In December. The day passed really quickly but one part seemed to take forever – or at least an hour and a half – and that was when we tried to find Kogi BBQ Taco Truck. ‘Tis famous’ according to Ryan. It’s now infamous in my mind because, after walking a very long way to locate it, it turns out it wasn’t there that day. So we went back to the beach and ate delicious sandwiches instead because if there’s one thing Ry likes more than water features, it’s sandwiches.

We spent the night riding roller coasters, going out to bars, and partaking in fancy happy hour at our hotel one last time. It’s safe to say we became Californian very quickly. And, as the sun set on another trip (and another year), we reflected on how it was probably the best business trip we’d ever been on. Given that there was very little business and mostly just trip.