First of all, let me just express the edited version of my feelings towards this brand new laptop: I’m going to kill it. If I were home, I would have already reformatted it and sold it on eBay to buy a Sony Viao like I should have done in the first place.
The entire entry to follow, which, prior to my computer crashing for the THIRD TIME since I’ve had it for just over a month, consisted of over 8 pages, is all retyped today, less than 24 hours later. Words cannot express my anger here. I have no idea how I keep getting whatever virus it is that causes my laptop to turn off and not turn back on, with the only remedy being to reinstall Windows. I wasn’t even surfing the internet! I wish I had been downloading porn or something to make me at least aware of why this keeps happening, but I wasn’t.
Autosave in Word works great when your computer will START UP again, but without it… well, just make sure you hit “Ctrl + S” to save your documents every ten seconds or so. For now, I have just learned that I cannot trust this computer for one minute, and am continually backing everything up until I get home and can sell this… well, I won’t say the names I have for it now.
Luckily, I have a lot of experiences with computers, and am able to salvage files when my computer crashes for the most part. In fact, the only thing I lost this go around was this document. Go figure. Here’s my advice for the day: BACK EVERYTHING UP OFTEN.
Yesterday, prior to writing this blog, I spent several hours sorting through the 800 plus pictures I took of Belgium during this past weekend’s trip, as well as several more re-doing an intern listing for the Trier Center for American Studies, the department I am interning with this semester. I had already done this list, but due to my computer’s LAST dying incident, I could not for the life of me find the original Word document with the list to edit, so I just had to start over… much as I am doing now. Ever heard the expression “spinning your wheels?” That’s me.
ANYWAY.
I have just recalled that I offered to post links for pictures of England last week, which I will list at the end of this entry alongside those photos from Belgium.
So: as I mentioned last week, I decided at the last minute to join a group of two Americans, a Brit, and an Italian on a road trip to Belgium for a “Weekend by the Sea.” I must say, it being my first European road trip, I made the right decision; it was a blast!
Because I am shaking in anger that I must retype this entire journey, I’m going to just give the abridged version; my mind can only focus on throwing this laptop in a lake, causing the details of our trip to escape me.
I digress.
We left Trier around noon in a Hertz rental car which, although it cost around 150 Euros for the 4 day trip, is not too expensive considering it was split 5 ways between us all. Hertz only in the last two weeks has even opened up renting cars to those under 25; I tried renting one for my trip to Milan next week, but they would not even consider it. Now, they just add a 20 Euro per day surcharge or something to rent between ages 21 and 25. However they can make a dollar, I suppose.
The car itself was a little Hyundai hatchback, just large enough to fit the three ladies’ and the two of us lads’ luggage and not want to kill ourselves… well, not right away, anyway. The trip to Nieuwpoort, the town on the North Sea in Belgium where our apartment was reserved for the weekend, took roughly 4 hours and some change, including the several stops to let the ladies smoke. Once again, here’s that lovely smoking habit that I won’t miss.
After hitting traffic on the outskirts of Brussels, we realized we were going to miss the 5pm deadline to pick up the keys from the rental office and needed to call the rental agent. This, luckily, was somewhat less of a problem being that the British girl speaks both German and French, so all we had to do was figure out the area code for Belgium in the car. Here, the Italian girl came to the rescue with her smartphone.
The call to the rental agent was somewhat funny; although our Brit speaks French, it is not as fluent as she would like it to be, and after her saying the French equivalent of “there are cars on the road” [literally—not moving, just cars exist on the road], the agent asked her if she would like to switch to German, which she speaks better. We all found this highly amusing, especially considering we were sure the agent also spoke English but preferred to bask in the amusement of our trying to fluently speak in other languages.
[Saving every paragraph now]
In any event, we finally arrived at our apartment [which we fancied calling cabin] just after 6pm, and the day was yet young. The apartment was a quaint loft-style abode with a strangely steep Spanish tiled roof reaching almost to the ground. The Italian naturally had to sit on it and have her picture taken first thing.
We paid roughly the same for the apartment rental as the car for the same time, which again was made quite cheap by there being five of us. So, we made off to get groceries for the weekend… far cheaper than eating out every night. That didn’t take too terribly long, and after we bought everything under the sun and had unpacked it, we made off to watch all of our first sunset over the North Sea.
Our apartment was only about a 15 minute walk from the beach, and we got to walk along a river-turned-intercostal waterway complete with a lovely boardwalk and marinas all the way to the beach. Because of our northern latitude, the sun literally did not set before 9:40pm any day we were there, so we had plenty of time between our 6pm arrival and the sunset to enjoy.
Upon arriving at the beach, the girls could not resist the urge to head straight for the water. Keep in mind, here, that the temperature outside was somewhere in the lower 60s (Fahrenheit) not counting the steady blowing wind chill. But, I sometimes forget that I am lucky in my close proximity to the beach on Tybee Island, Georgia; next to me, the next closest person to the beach was the British girl, and even she had an hour drive. The two Americans live in Salt Lake City and Minneapolis, and the Italian lives in Milan, so a jaunt to the beach isn’t exactly easy for any of us save me.
After getting thoroughly soaked, two of the girls didn’t even make it for the sunset; they walked their popsicle selves back to the apartment while the remaining three of us stayed for the beautiful sunset. Naturally, I took a multitude of pictures to document the occasion, and I think it was moving for us all. Sunsets have a habit of doing that to people.
Once back to the apartment, the Italian girl elected herself to cook an Italian dish for us all. Win! It was quite delicious, and after partaking in it we moved on to activities coinciding with a group of college students renting a cabin for the weekend at the beach. Let’s just say for the sake of political correctness that the makers of any given college-centered film would be proud of us.
The next morning, having awoken surprisingly early (i.e., before ten), we noticed the weather outside was surprisingly warm compared to the day before, and after making delicious omelets (I haven’t had breakfast since I arrived in Europe… it was a treat) we made for the beach. Oh, it was nice! Again, I probably wasn’t as surprised with my enjoyment of it as the other four were, but I must say that I was equally exuberant at the chance to enjoy the beach for the day.
Towards the evening, we decided to go back to clean up and head to the nearby city of Brugge, Belgium, for a light dinner. Naturally, due to being an imbecile, I had not worn sunscreen, so I was a nice shade of pain… but hey, that’s what happens when you play with the largest bit of fire in our solar system.
Brugge is only a 30 minute drive from Nieuwpoort, so it was a relatively painless journey in our little cramped Hyundai. We realized, as before, that passing people on the interstate was a fruitless endeavor even more than before, though; as it was Saturday, many were trekking into the city for the night life, and what with the only power we could muster from the Hyundai derived from turning off the AC, it was easier just to… well, not pass people.
After arriving and eating in a quaint, delicious, and somewhat expensive little sidewalk café, we had to play on our childhoods and visit the fair that was happening in the city center right across the street from where we were. Being twelve again, we all opted to go on the scariest ride around. This ride, called the Virus, was one of those kamikaze-styled basket-on-an-extremely-long-arm deals where, at the top, you could see the entire city… and probably the entire country. Of course, being upside down at the top didn’t exactly make this easy, but we rode it all the same. It was well worth the 6 Euros a head we paid to get on.
After the girls rode another ride, we decided to head back to Nieuwport, being that we planned to return to Brugge the next day (Sunday). So, we returned well after dark and played it easy for the night; the previous evening counted for at least two.
As soon as breakfast was over the next morning, we made for Brugge again. It really is a beautiful city; I wouldn’t go so far as to say magnificent, but it did hold that typical European old and historical feel to it, all the while containing Venice-like canals throughout much of the city. The city itself smelled of nothing but Belgian waffles and chocolate, something I had always heard of but never actually tried within the boundaries of Belgium. It’s rather difficult to do that when you’ve never been to Belgium…
Most of the day, the girls shopped (surprise) and the American dude and myself wandered about the city acting as though we worked for some travel magazine with the number of photos we each took. We, naturally, partook in a Belgian waffle and some chocolate, and eventually met back up with the girls for a light lunch at a Belgian café before deciding to return back to Nieuwpoort by mid-afternoon.
As soon as we returned, two of the girls decided to stay in our humble abode to rest for a while, leaving three of us to make a special trip to Dunkerque, France, to see the historic WWII site. Apparently, this [former] city was the site of the largest retreat by Allied forces in the entire second world war. It was only a 20 minute drive, so we made it in no time.
Now, I can officially say I’ve been to France. The city itself was actually a bit depressing as one would expect of a city with such a history; due to heavy destruction in the war, all of the buildings reflected a typical shoddy building style of the 1960s and 70s.
Upon reaching the beach (the site of the actual retreat), we felt quite an eerie feeling of desertion; it being a Sunday afternoon with unbelievable constant wind (a typical Spring day on the North Sea, apparently), there was hardly a soul to be seen. The beach, in fact, hade no one else on it save the three of us. It was quite odd, standing on a site where only just over a half a century ago thousands upon thousands of Allied soldiers were scrambling to board waiting vessels near the beach to escape German forces. Silence is the best way to describe our reactions, for lack of a better word.
But, having fulfilled our history for the day, we made back for Nieuwpoort. To top the travel off, we had to listen to the French radio on the way back, finding some odd music sounding like a mix of oldies and Latin music. While this occurred, the British girl made continual mockeries of the Flemish language we kept seeing and hearing; Flemish is literally an odd combination of German and Dutch (not Deutsch—that’s German). The language tends to add random letters into otherwise German or English words to spice things up a bit, hence Nieuwpoort instead of Newport. The Brit, in typical sardonic humor, made her opinion of this uselessness quite clear. Quite entertaining.
Upon our return, we still had a good two hours of daylight before the sun set. Being me, I couldn’t resist going to see the sunset just one more time; we had to leave the next morning, after all, and I wouldn’t get to see the beach for a long time! Well, this technically isn’t true; in exactly a week and a day from today (Wednesday the 25th), I will be staying at a hotel on the beach in Nice, France. But I digress. Again.
I wondered about casually towards the ocean, taking pictures here and there to document the natural beauty that is native to any waterscape (to me). The beach was absolutely frigid, reflecting the what I have found to be bipolar weather that exists throughout Europe in that the day before was borderline hot, but I feel it was worth the cold to see the sun set. Sunsets have a habit of making [at least] me feel extraordinarily small; they’re always a good scene to put a good perspective on life. Look at me getting all thoughtful.
Anyway, after returning to the apartment for our last night, we decided it would be ridiculous to try to repack the leftover groceries and booze we had bought two days previously; the girls had bought numerous souvenirs in Brugge, and the car was only so big. So, being the economical people that we are, we did our very best to destroy our remaining stocks. And that we did; needless to say, this night ended similarly to the first night. College is great, and strip poker tends to end poorly. Those are words you should remember for future reference from the wise old Sam.
Unfortunately, we needed to be back in Trier by around noon the next day for all of us to go to class. We did manage to drag ourselves up around 8am to clean the apartment, per the terms of our rental, and were on the road less than an hour later than we should have been; not too shabby!
When running late already, though, fate tends to take a stance that ‘if you’re already late, may as well be really late.’ So that’s what we did… accidently. Rather than go around Brussels again as we had on the way to Nieuwpoort, we somehow managed to go IN to Brussels. No big deal, right?
Wrong. Brussels, in all its beauty and seamless mix of historical buildings with modern high-rises, does not believe in road signs. At all. As in, ever.
Still, it gave us all a chance to see a good deal of the city from the car. The girls, being far less laid-back than I am as I discovered, were not quite so amused. I, though, loved the detour; at one point, as the other American dude went in to ask for directions, I got out of the car and walked up to a river not far from where we parked. On one side of the river, I could see Brugge-like old and distinguished buildings. On the other, modern high-rises fitting of the capital of the European Union.
It being the capital of the EU, though, I would think the traffic would be better. Aside from the total lack of road signs, there were several roads where our British girl may have felt she was back in England and started driving down the left side of the road rather than the right; there were several streets wide enough to have three lanes in them without any lines painted on them… at all. It rather surprised us all; this is something I would expect in an undeveloped country, not the capital of the European Union!
So, we got to see a brief bit of Brussels, and then were on our way back to Trier. This time, due to our detour, we took another way home. I’m so glad we did! The scenery here was beautiful… I felt as though I was on the set of the Sound of Music in Austria with all the rolling hills and gorgeous countryside. Who would have thought that the seemingly tiny countries of Belgium and Luxembourg could be so beautiful!
Needless to say, I ended up missing most of my classes. I did make my last Business English Presentations class, where I sat listening to our eccentric professor literally telling us to bring rum during our upcoming presentations to bribe our classmates (audience) to ask us questions at the end. Without questions being asked, we cannot pass the presentation. And, the professor just coming back from Haiti for a conference, rum was on her mind. As it should be.
All that being said, I think I have finally caught up to where I was yesterday just as my computer died. [Insert profanity here.] I’m realizing my grammar is likely highly off today, being that I am trying to rush through this by quickly typing so that I may go to work on the presentations I was supposed to be working on all day today. I figure, though, that remembering the events of my European adventures are more important than silly presentations, though.
Hopefully this recount is a good as what I had before. Unlike any English teacher who will drill it into your head that revisions are key to a good piece of writing, I feel that spontaneous recounting of the subject you’re writing on results in the best writing. That is probably why many English teachers of late do not get along with me…
Speaking of spontaneity, I’m supposed to be working on a creativity and its influence by spontaneity for my Differential Psychology seminar. I guess I better pack up the laptop and head to Uni or the highly expensive Starbucks equivalent with internet her in Trier; I have no internet in my room, again, after having lost my internet USB stick. No matter; it was out of credit anyway.
Here are the links to several Facebook albums referencing some of my recent trips, for those of you bored enough to care:
England:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1983230431126.2117733.1554191092&l=edbf17846c
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1983050946639.2117712.1554191092&l=66e0fab3d1
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1983023985965.2117711.1554191092&l=0df5aefb81
Belgium:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1994497952807.2118267.1554191092&l=ce860dcf33
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