Further Along ...

I can't seem to turn the 'bold' off. I'll try at the end of the post. I am doing a terrible job of keeping this up to date. Perhaps I will have to compile my notes and journals and do this in retrospect.

When I last wrote I was in Switzerland. I spend last weekend in Brussels after a fairly long journey through the Alsace region of France and then through Luxembourg. Originally I was going to stop in Luxembourg City ... judging by my view and the weather at the time I passed through, I am quite glad I didn't. I had decided that I would stay in a hotel in Brussels because weekend rates are way cheaper than rates during the week. For example, the place I was supposed to stay had a price of 50 euro per night, and 60 on Sunday. The rates during the week are 250 euro. Did you notice that 'supposed to stay' in there?

Well that's a long story. When I first got to Brussels I discovered that I had left my directions on how to get to the hotel behind. Good job me. Then I spent a long time wandering around in the area I thought the hotel was in. The hotel, it turned out, was not actually in that area. I did manage to find an internet shop eventually. I popped in there and figured out the route by metro. I took the metro though if I had asked someone I probably could have walked. I discovered later in the weekend that it was a fairly direct and moderate walk ... whereas taking the metro involved 7 stops and transferring ... the Belgian underground system leaves something to be desired.

So the hotel, when I finally found it, had no record of my reservation. I have no idea whose fault that was: whether it was theirs or the site I made the reservation through. Either way I wasn't in the mood to care. I had been wandering around Brussels for an hour and a half and was getting a little worried I would either be on the street or paying a ton of money. When I left that hotel I discovered one of the hostels I looked up was across the street. They didn't have much left either. I decided to give a couple other hotels I saw a shot first. The first one was full as well but the fellow at the desk pointed me toward a hotel. This hotel, the Comfort Art Hotel Siru, did have a room. Thankfully. So I got checked in at about 5 after 10, Friday night. Flipped on the TV and flopped on the bed. I decided after a few minutes that I really had better eat. I was starving as, in another miscalculation of the day, there was no meal service on the train. I had eaten breakfast and a very small lunch (and a snack pack of all-bran buds) but after my stress that was hardly doing anything for me. So I wandered out to find a Pizza Hut, I didn't go there though. Next door was what I thought to be a kebap shop, which it was, but when I went in it turned out to have an Indian and Pakistani food buffet. Let me tell you, nothing will fix up an evening like an Indian and Pakistani food buffet. Thank you, Royal Fast Food of Brussels, Belgium: you saved my sanity in delicious style.

In Switzerland ...

My apologies for not posting anything in case anyone is trying to follow along. I spent 3 days in Vienna, which was enjoyable overall. The Vienna underground system is easy to understand and takes you to almost any site you would want to see. The weather was not so pleasant, plenty óf chill and wet snow. It is winter here, after all. I don`t know what my highlight of Vienna would be. Going to the KFC and discovering that they serve corn on the cob? Incidentally, I only ended up at the KFC because I couldn`t find the restaurant I was looking for. Much like I can`t seem to find the apostrophe on this keyboard.

I also picked up a cold in Vienna, something which was likely due to the lack of (and somewhat continuing lack of) sleep. The cold doesn`t seem too bad yet but if it were to get bad I`m not about to hang around Europe getting sick. It`s not like I can`t come back. Anyway, my original plan from Vienna was to go to Budapest. I decided against that, at least for now, and instead embarked on a long journey across Austria to Zurich, and then from Zurich to Bern. Bern is where I am now. Much of the train journey through Austria went through mountains, through areas with seeminggly impossible amounts of snow. Mountains are breathtaking by the way. Or if you prefer a less cliche description ... the mountains make me say, oh snap!

Here in Bern the weather has been much nicer. Still winter-like, of course, but I have seen blue sky. It occurred to me that, until I saw it Tuesday morning, I could not remember seeing blue sky since I left Canada. I might have but the memory of it is clouded by endless grey skies. I took a day trip to Geneva today and the sky was blue. I hope to provide some more details about Switzerland later. For now I`ll end this post. And I will keep trying to locate the apostrophe button.

On The Move ...

I am now typing from Vienna; snowy, snowy Vienna. I arrived via a very nice train this afternoon, which was a little bit behind schedule due to the snow that seems to cover most of Austria. The parts that I saw anyway.

My time in Munich might best be left undiscussed. Being ignorant of this type of travel I was unaware of all the effects jet lag can have. I have actually yet to sleep properly since leaving Toronto. If you include my flight then I have been away 5 nights and have slept for, and this is a generous estimate, 20 hours. Most of that was broken sleep at best and the rest was a good 7 hours that I slept during the day Wednesday which did nothing to help me adjust to the time difference.

Anyway, on my last day in Munich I went on a fantastic walking tour, climbed 306 rickety and narrow wooden steps to take some panoramic shots of Munich, and went to dinner with one of my roommates and some people she had met. Still, things would be better with sleep. I'm not sure what my next move will be. First I will have to see what I can get out of Vienna. I'm a bit out of the way of the sites but so long as tomorrow's weather is decent I should get to see some things. Sunday I may make a big jump and take an overnight train to Amsterdam. In the past few years I have taken more overnight train trips than I have in rooms with complete strangers.

I should probably focus blog efforts of providing more details of things. I'm out of blogging practice, what can I say? I'll try to do better. Although in all honesty I hope to be too busy sleeping and having fun to write posts this long. (the reason I am writing this much is because I bought more internet time than I needed so I had to do something with it)

IN MUNICH

As facebook is not allowing me to sign in due to site maintenance I am just going to post here that I have arrived. Little in the way of hitches too ... aside from being incredibly tired and wondering why on earth I thought it was a good idea to do this. I have 11 minutes of internet time left. 0.50 euro for 20 minutes ... snazzy. You lose at least a minute while the computer boots up and then, if you're me anyway, the rest of the time is spend figuring out the subtle differences of the keyboard. The 'y' is in a completely different place. And don't even ask how you get the '@' symbol.

BLOG: THE RETURNING

I used to know this system so well--way back when I used it regularly--and now I am out of date. I have no idea if I will use it or not, I was too lazy to create a new one. The name of the blog means nothing. I used to place some meaning in the phrase 'majority rules' and indeed adding the 'z' in place of the 's' had a meaning to me, now not so much. I see the 'z' more as a product of the times. I began this blog in 2003 and it was all the rage back then to use a 'z' in place of the appropriate letter. It seems silly now but who am I to argue with literary hipsters?

The first thing this blog is likely to follow is my journey to Europe. Saying 'Europe' is vague of course. Europe is a big place and I am seeing only a small part of it. Nevertheless it is my first journey off of this continent so it should prove to be interesting. By 'interesting' I might mean terrifying, or insane, or ridiculous, or life-affirming. Who knows? I don't even really know what I am expecting to gain from this. I can think of at least one thing I am hoping not to gain: a penchant for beginning every sentence I speak with the phrase 'when I was in Europe', or something similar to that.

Any end results of this trip (aside from the loss of savings which is easily predicted in advance) will not be known until: surprise, surprise ... the end of the trip. I think for now I should shut off my laptop and start getting organized.

That's It.

No more archives. That's four and a half years of this blog being active all saved into word files and stowed away for some form of possible future project. It is unlikely that there will be any new posts in the near future but I intend to keep the blog active just in case.

If you missed the last entry I made on December 25th (at around 1am) entitled 'Singin' Songs of Joy and Peace', I will send it along if requested. It isn't interesting at all, it's just me thinking about my future and about how Christmas seems to have gone for me the past few years. I will continue to maintain my paper journal of course but there is no longer a point to this (not that there ever was) and it has long been time to end with this particular venue. If you were a regular reader then I thank you for your time and your comments.

Dane