We arrived in Haarlem on the train after two easy train connections. On the way in, James and I talked quite a bit about what we wanted to do in Haarlem. Once we got their though, things didn’t work out so smoothly. It was probably for the best, but it was too bad we didn’t get to do what we wanted.
First, we set out for an internet connection. James didn’t have our couchsurfing contacts phone number on his laptop or written down anywhere. That meant it was still in his couchsurfing.com email and we had to log on to figure anything out. We found an internet shop pretty quickly. It was right next to some erotic sex shop and a coffeeshop/marijuana bar two doors down. Walking into the internet spot, I could smell pot smoke wafting down the street. The internet shop guy spoke English, and just happened to be selling T-Mobile prepaid wireless phone SIM cards. James picked one of those up and we had a mobile phone connection anyway. We paid 1 Euro for 20 minutes of internet connection time and found the necessary info.
After we made contact with Gertrud in Hoofddorp and knew what bus to take, we decided we’d store our luggage in the stations lockers and stroll around Haarlem for a few hours. After fooling around with the stupid locker for half and hour, we couldn’t get the locker to work. The lockers seemed to be a great self-serve system. But, unfortunately, it was also very strange - the locker payment machine only took specific cards. No mastercard or visa (and there was one more it didn’t take which I can’t remember). The sticker on the machine said that you could use a debit card with a PIN number, but both of our debit cards are either visa or mastercard … we think the only cards you can use in the lockers are only available in Europe, or in the Netherlands specifically. What good is that to bone-head tourists like us? We don’t have bank accounts in Europe with a European-system debit card!
Needless to say, lugging our bags around Haarlem was something we really didn’t want to do. So, we found out the bus schedules, found the bus departure point and decided to kill some time in a pub across the street. I had a bottled Duvel beer and James ordered a dark beer, which we never learned the name of. We enjoyed the beers and get back to the bus station with 5 minutes to spare.
Then James decided he really needed to use the bathroom and took off to the train station. Apparently, to use the bathroom cost .5 Euro and even after he paid he had to wait on some old man to finish his business. The ordeal took James longer than he realized, and he came running back to the bus stop JUST after the bus took off to leave. I kinda stood there in disbelief that we missed our bus, and that James thought it was a good idea to run off when the bus was sitting in the station awaiting its impending departure time. I think he learned his lesson. We had to wait for another 1/2 hour, and we did so right at the bus stop. We weren’t going to miss another one.
We made our bus connections and finally got to Hoofddorp and found Gertrude’s house. She was watching out the door for us as we arrived. We chatted briefly, it was good to meet her finally, and we got directions to the local eateries. We wandered to the general area and ended up at this place called Le Paddock, I think. It ended up to be pretty decent. Although, I had a strange salad - thinly sliced pork over lettuce with an “exiting Coca cola dressing.” I really had no idea what they meant by that dressing, but hoped it would be good and that it maybe was just a strange translation. Nope. It was coca cola … on my salad. I didn’t remember it was coca cola dressing when I first started eating the salad. After I finished the pork on top, I was eating the lettuce, and commented that the whole salad tasted like pork, even though the pork was on top. I was just about to think maybe they put some drippings or something from cooking the pork on the salad, then James tried it and said “isn’t this the coca cola dressing?” Yes. And it took on the taste of pork. It was really pretty gross. I ate it all anyway, and enjoyed more the tomato soup with cheese that I had as well. I don’t know what James ate … but he did have this Heineken dark beer that was way to sweet.
We make it back to Gertrude’s, I take a shower, hop in bed and I sleep better than I ever imagined I would. The really interesting thing about Gertrude’s house is she is a Feng Shui master and practices healing arts, Reiki, etc. She’s got her whole house dialed-in. And, I could totally feel it. Her house is buzzing with good energy and it is simply relaxing just to walk into it. It is good to be here.