Kayaks and Waffles

Utrecht is a college town filled with many young bike riding university students. Keisha’s sister took us out for drinks with her friends in downtown Utrecht our second night. Despite being several years older, they put us to shame with their ability to rally. In Santa Barbara when you go out, a standard night begins around 8 and lasts until 2. Maybe if you go downtown the night shifts from 10 to 3. But in Utrecht, and apparently many other places in Europe, the goal is to dance until the sunrise.

And we did.

Keisha’s sisters friends kept buying us drinks, asking us ‘biertje?’ Another drink? “No, bekeov.” I would reply. No, last round.

We started at a nice bar then progressed our way to several dive clubs and danced the night away. We bike rode back, two to a bike. I fell asleep at 9 in the morning. Needless to say, we spent day 2 in Utrecht exacerbating our jetlag by sleeping all day. 

 

My friend Matt studied abroad in Utrecht for a year and gave me a long list of recommendations for restaurants, bars, and activities. Two of his suggestions particularly appealed to me: kayaking in the canals and visiting the Domtoren.

The Domtoren is what is left standing of an old Cathedral. It can be seen from very distant parts of Utrecht. It’s like a very nice Storke Tower. It’s very pretty, and I would have loved to see the view from the top. Unfortunately, our multiple failed attempts to climb the tower became a running joke and we were not able to climb the tower for various reasons.

We were however able to go kayaking, and that was my favorite part of our stay in Utrecht. We found the kayaking place and asked for two single kayaks.

“You pay when you get back,” the lady explained to us. We sat in the kayaks and they pushed the boats into the canal. “Do you know how to kayak?” the guy asked us, almost as an afterthought.

“Uh… kind of,” Keisha replied.

“Okay, have fun!” the guy said.

It was quite the difference between that and what I imagine the equivalent American process would be: waiver signing, leaving credit cards on file for collateral, mandatory life vests, instructions, etc. But in Utrecht they just put us in a boat and sent us on our way. We had a canal map and we picked one of three loops through the city. It was an hour and a half loop through the center and back around the outskirts.

At canal intersections and along the sides there were signs that were very similar to street signs, which I thought was interesting. We took pictures by a “15 Minute Parking” sign for boats. We had to parallel park our kayaks to get the picture, which tested our kayak skill level. 

 

We kayaked by the restaurant we had eaten at earlier, past residential homes, past Utrecht city buildings, and through a very pretty residential park before looping back around to the kayak rental place. It was very fun and was not very strenuous kayaking. It was very peaceful paddling down the calm canals.

We tried going to the Domtoren again and it was sold out for the day, so Keisha and I explored the church nearby. 

 

For dinner we went to Winkel van Sinkel, a café that was always packed. We managed to find a table outside and sat facing the street and the canal. We got wine and soup before biking back to Keisha’s sister’s house. There we planned out the next couple legs of our trip: Budapest and Rome.

It took a lot longer than I remembered because I used to just sort the list from lowest price to highest 

and just pick the cheapest hostel. While I saved money, this cheap strategy only paid off sometimes. Now I find that I’m significantly pickier. Does the hostel have wifi? Where is it located? What do the reviews say? What do the bad reviews say? I’m a lot more willing to spend a few more dollars to have a bed with sheets that are more likely to be washed.

It was significantly cheaper to fly to Budapest from Brussels. Keisha and I decided to spend a day in Brussels just checking out the city because why not. Keisha’s sister drove us to Rotterdam where we caught the train to Brussels. Small things like not having access to a printer to print tickets make traveling a little more complicated, but we were able to make it to Belgium with the help of a Dutch girl we met on the train who explained the transfers to us.

We checked into our hostel, dropped off our stuff, and headed out into the city. We started our day off with a cone of fries, or patat. (Traditionally Belgian!) In line we met some Americans who had graduated from the same high school as Keisha (different year). It’s a small world!

We wandered around Le Grand Place, Brussels's main square, exploring sights that struck our fancy and picking random directions to walk. We tried to make the day as Belgian as possible by eating Belgian chocolates and drinking Belgian beer.

We made sure to stop by Mannekin Pis. A statue that is quite famous for some reason. I had heard of it only because there is a chip chain by that name that Keisha and I frequented in Utrecht. The map the hostel gave us had a description of Mannekin Pis that went something like, “When you see it, your first reaction will be… that’s it? Mannekin Pis is small and absurd, much like Belgium.” It is a very small statue of a boy peeing. No joke. They dress him up in costume sometimes. We took a picture with Mannekin Pis and then proceeded to other areas of the city.

By my request, we went to see the European Union buildings. We did not get a chance to go inside, but we walked by the European Parliament and the European Commission. They were very cool, very modern, very, very large buildings. I am very interested in the European Union, so it was very cool to see the buildings. I think in an increasingly globalized world supranational organizations may become more important, and the EU is a very interesting example of that in action. While not a perfect institution from what I’ve heard, it does some very cool stuff, which we learned about at a small information center that provided information on all facets of the EU in each of the EU’s 24 official languages. 

 

The buildings were all closing at 5, so we continued exploring and walked toward an arch that looked cool before heading back to the square.

 

One of my favorite parts of Brussels was when we got the waffles. We found the touristy waffle stand we could find and ordered waffles with the toppings of our choice. I got bananas and nutella. They only give you two tiny forks to eat it with. So I just went for it and got Nutella everywhere. But it was quite delicious.

The waffle was a little bit of a sugar overload. But it was quite lovely to just sit in the square, resting our feet, eating a waffle, and people watching in the late Brussels evening. 

The square at night

We walked back to the hostel. The only other person in our four person dorm room was already asleep, so we quietly, using the light of our phones, packed up our bags. We had to leave the hostel at 5:30 to catch a tram to the central train station where we would catch a bus to the airport. We climbed into bed around 12:30, hoping to fall asleep quickly so we could maximize our sleep before our travels the next day. Still jet lagged, it had been taking us awhile for us to fall asleep. I was just drifting off when...

I've stayed at a lot of hostels. They ranged from don't touch the sheets dirty to pleasantly tidy, dilapidated to brand new, two person bedrooms to twenty person dorm rooms, utilitarian to full service, I even once stayed at a bar pretending to be a hostel.

You get all kinds of temporary roommates in these places. Those who seem to sleep for twenty hours a day, those that want to strike up a conversation, those that maybe could learn some basic hygiene.

But never, never have I had a night like this one.

It was Keisha's first stay in a hostel, so I wanted to ensure that it went smoothly. I wanted to show her, "See, hostels are great! They're cheap, you meet cool people, they're convenient." I was gloriously unsuccessful in showing her the appeal at not only this hostel, but future hostels as well. 

It all began around one in the morning when we heard some fumbling around outside of our room. It sounded like the person was struggling immensely with the electronic key. Eventually the sound faded away.

"I was worried for a second that person outside was our last roommate," I whispered to Keisha. As if on cue, the door slammed open and in stumbled a bearded beer bellied boy. He sized up the room, determined that the bed above the sleeping roommate was the only free one, and took a running start to launch himself up on the top bunk.

Like a stampeding bull, he collided with the ladder to the bunk and shook the whole bed violently as he attempted to make the treacherous four foot climb. With each step up the ladder the bunk bed teetered back and forth dangerously ca chunk a chunk a chunk.

He flopped with a victorious sigh on top of the sheetless bed and pulled out his smartphone with the volume on full blast and started texting in a very methodical fashion. “click…click… click…” the typing would have been bearable had it not been for his absurd rattling breath.

Keisha sent me a message on Viber. “This person is breathing like a serial killer.” He breathed with deep, rattling inhalations that reverberated around the small hostel dorm room.

He took a short break from vacuuming oxygen to gargle then chug a whole bottle of water. He then seemed to realize that his phone volume was on, so he graciously turned down the volume

boop boop boop boop. With a sigh of relief, I started to fall asleep despite the violent breathing, until he decided that his phone was too quiet and for some reason decided to turn it back up so he could hear himself playing a game on his phone boop boop boop boop he turned the volume up.

Eventually though, he fell into an almost lullaby like rhythm *gasp* ding! *gasp* ding! *gasp*

So up until this point, the story is believable. Noisyboy Murderbreath had already won the award for most obnoxious hostel mate and I was content to take a couple hour loss on my sleep.  However, it did indeed get worse. I only wish to do this story justice. Keisha and I realized immediately that this would be very hard to explain without sounding petty. “Oh, I’ve had hostelmates who snored before.” People would tell us. Keisha and I would look at each other and smile knowingly. 

I was awoken around two in the morning by what sounded like someone starting a diesel lawnmower leaf blower combination. My other hostelmates stirred, trying through the sleepy confusion to place the noise. It was coming from Snorlax McSnorepants, who had passed out fully clothed clutching his phone.

“Is this real life?” Keisha messaged me.

“Take a video, no one’s going to believe us,” I messaged her back.

To say Snorlax was snoring would be a great insult to his nasal cavity’s impressive ability to expel air out violently. 

It was the most absurdly earth-shaking, eardrum bursting snore I have ever heard. It was so loud it rattled through your bones like the bass at a UCSB Extravaganza concert. I couldn’t even be mad. I was just impressed that kind of sound could come out of a human being.

Keisha and I started giggling.

“Are you kidding me?” she shouted. Snorlax did not stir.

The guy under Snorlax had finally had enough, he stood up and stared at Snorlax. He shook the bunk a little. Snorlax rolled over, took a deep gasping breath, and fell silent. We all sighed in relief.

The reprieve from listening to Snorlax drown in his own snot was short lived, however. By the time his bunkmate had settled in his spot again, Snorlax was back at it, snoring as if he was trying to awake those sleeping in Paris.

The snoring echoed around the walls of our tiny hostel room.

We started laughing. Even at that point it was funny. I wanted to sleep so badly, but his snoring was just so unbelievable it was comical.

Snorlax’s bunkmate was trying to decide was his next move could be. He tried pushing on the slats under the bed, but soon realized that the slats were too thick to budge. He then desperately resorted to wedging his toes between the slats to try to kick Snorlax from under the mattress. It was to no avail, 

Snorlax would not stop snoring.

Snorlax was out cold.

Snorlax’s jackhammer snoring went on for the next two and a half hours.

We contemplated various options including teaming up to drag him out of the room, leaving for the airport seven hours early, or just cutting our losses. We ended up doing the latter. While still hopeful the snores would stop, we had given up on quieting the snore beast. The snores did not cease. We were left to lie awake listening to the raucous one man band all night until we finally reached a reasonable time to leave for the airport.

I have never heard snoring like that in my entire life. Keisha and Nick both snore, but in a very gentle, soothing kind of way. When Nick complained about our hostelmate in Paris snoring loudly, Keisha and I looked at each other, threw our heads back, and laughed. “Oh if only you knew.”

“At least it wasn’t bedbugs,” I told Keisha as we scrambled to get our stuff the next morning and head to Brussels airport. “That’s the one thing I think I couldn’t handle.”