From: Rainer
Subject: Rainer's Europe Tour 1998 -- part 5
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 16:47:56 EDT

Dear Family and Friends,

Here's another installment.  Hope things are going well with you.

Cheers,
Rainer

Monday, 9/28

Since this was our first online access from a hotel, Monika wanted to
get up early to try and catch her on-line friends so I set the Eagle
alarm clock for 0600.  She got online, but found no one there.

Vera and I repacked to eliminate the extra stuff that had been acquired.
It had now been a week since we left Portland and it was getting harder
to stow 7 days laundry amongst the other stuff.

The breakfast was a great one.  The buffet was a welcome sight to the
normal petit dejouner consisting of a half a cup espresso and a
croissant.  Here we had cereal, potatoes, eggs, bacon, sausages,
pastries, fruit, breads, meats, cheeses, and most important, refillable
coffee!

After paying the bill, actually a pleasant surprise, the car got loaded
up and we followed the directions from the hotel on how to get back on
the freeway to Paris without going through all the shopping center
parking lots.  The traffic on the freeway was where we left it the night
before -- at a stand still.  There was plenty of time however, even if
we inched all the way to the train station.

We made it around the Peripherique Nord (Paris' version of I405) and
found the Hertz office to return the car.  The parking garage was teensy
and since I made a left turn across multiple lanes of Parisian traffic I
won the game of chicken with the guy trying to exit the garage.  While I
waited in line to return the car, Vera got walking directions to
the train station.  The big-wheeled luggage performed well on the
stone-paved sidewalks.  Gare du Nord was just around the corner.  We
found the Info booth and confirmed that we didn't need to do anything
but wait for the train.  The train arrived on time, we got our tickets
punched, and found our reserved seats in car 12.  Stashing the luggage
was a bit of a trick -- I didn't know that at the other end of the car
we boarded was a compartment just for stowing larger items.  It will
easier on the next train.

The train left on time and the smooth ride over the seamless rails was
unexpected.  We travelled along some of the freeways on the way to The
Hague.  Monika wondered how fast we were travelling since we were
passing all of the traffic on the road at quite a good clip.  Most of
the cars had to be driving 100 mph or more judging from our travels over
the weekend.  This train was really moving along.  Later when we left,
we overheard one of the train officials talking to another tourist that
the train travelled 190mph.

It was a lot like airplane travel.  A rail attendant served lunch and
complimentary beverages.  A pleasant, 3-tone, descending chime is
sounded each time the rail attendant has an announcement to make.  All
announcements were in 3 languages, starting with the language of the
country we were in (French, Dutch, and English).  The train trip from
Paris to The Hague lasted about three and a half hours making brief
stops in Brussels, Antwerp, and Rotterdam.

We got all our stuff off the train and setup for foot travel.  We find
the ATM machine and get a the maximum allowed withdrawal of 750 guilders.
In the excitement of getting off the train, looking at the new
surroundings, hearing the new language and seeing the new signs, I
forgot the conversion rate and had no idea how much money this was.  The
info booth told told Vera (we're in Holland now and she automatically
becomes the designated speaker and information gatherer) that we should
take a cab or tram 20 to get to the Hertz place.  With all this stuff to
carry the tram didn't seem a feasible thing to do.  So we find a cab,
but the cab driver doesn't want to take us.  He says it's just around
the corner.  I can understand that he's waiting for a larger fare than
just around the corner and then going to the end of the cab line again.
Since we didn't know any better, we figured that, like in Paris, we can
walk just around the corner to the Hertz place.  The big-wheeled luggage
performs fine again.  Monika, however, not having eaten much of the Dutch
meat/cheese plate lunch, is pooped and out of energy after just a
block or two.  Vera looks at the street map with it's microfont street
names that I can't read even in the sunlight without my reading glasses.
We agree that only one of us actually needs to walk all the way to the
Hertz office while the others remain here with the baggage.

So off I go, map in hand, although I can't read the street names, just
in case I get lost.  I head in the direction Vera pointed me in looking
around me and remembering landmarks because I have to find my way back
to here in the car.  I end up at a canal with footbridge over it.  Oh
oh.  Can't come back this way.  The footbridge is quite steep, and I
noticed that it has a rail going vertically up each side.  If you
haven't been to Holland, you may not know that there is almost as much
bicycle traffic as there is motor vehicle traffic.  The rail was to help
you get your bike up the steep steps -- just put the wheels in the rail
and push; the wheels wouldn't go bump, bump, bump up and down the steps.

Dutch street names are also very long, and for some reason harder to
remember than French street names.  The street signs are also hidden
much more cleverly than in France.  It's very difficult to find out the
name of the street you're on.  I was looking for Binkhortslaan and then
I was going to turn right.  After I crossed the footbridge I realized
that the info booth person was right.  We shouldn't have walked this.
But I was committed now and not about to turn back.  Binkhortslaan
appeared but I couldn't see any street numbers yet.  A couple of
blocks of park and bridges passed by before I found the first street
number.  It was 92.  I was looking for 381.  I walked a bit further
to find 94.  This was going to be a long walk!

Ten minutes turned into twenty, and the numbers were just creeping
past slowly.  I figured that I'd probably be walking for another
hour at his rate and was glad that we hadn't attempted it as a
full family group.  The longer I walked the more pissed I got at
the cab driver.  At one point I even imagined that Vera and Monika
may have hailed a cab since I'd been gone so long and that they
might even beat me to the rental office.  Then I noticed that
on the left side of the street, numbers were in the 280s while
on my side of the street they were only in the low 100's.  This bizarre
numbering scheme has been the cause of several confusing street
searches.  It's as if they number the house up one side of the
street and then back down the other.  But not always.  Weird.

So I finally found the place, got the car, found Vera and Monika, and
headed off to Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague, actually a beach
resort on the North Sea.  The City Hotel is a series of row houses
that have been modernized into rentable rooms.  Our room for the next
five nights is clean but small.  We have the most space in the room
when we each lie on our respective sleep surfaces.  I don't know
where that term came from -- but we've used that expression several
times since it was started in this room.

Somewhere in this journal there needs to be a digression about
bathrooms, and how different they are from those we know in the U.S.
But that'll be later.  Suffice it to say that the City Hotel bathrooms
are tres peculiar.

Since we were going to stay here for several days, this was a 
great time to unpack everything and take stock.  Also time to plan
a laundromat trip.  However, first things first -- we went to the
beach, just a few blocks walk from the hotel.  It was still sunny
and warm.  But you saw no one wearing shorts or T-shirts.  People
were walking around with coats and jackets and hats.  I felt out of
place walking barefoot on the beach.  

We ate dinner at at Tex/Mex restaurant.  Dutch Mexican food is not
something that would do well in Oregon.  Even though the salsa was
quite sweet and mild, the menu was welcomed after the more continental
fare that we'd been exposed to so far.  And, a couple of Dos Equis
where much better than the Heineken and Grolsch available so far.
After dinner we went back on the beach and took some sunset photos.
Then back to the room for the normal day's wrap ups -- showers,
stretching out, email, journal updates, and planning for the next day.