.juell.stewart.012306.

+the day after amsterdam+ ...[january 23 2006]...
Technically, January 23 started off with a bang, as I was busy traipsing around the center of Amsterdam. The decision not to stay at a youth hostel was an intimidating one at first, but we ended up saving money and gaining stories. Just think of all the post-college anecdotes one can share with the simple phrase, "once, in my junior year of college, I went to Amsterdam for a day and staued awake for twenty four hours straight." I'm sure that bit of history will make me the Greatest American Hero to my children, and a living legend for generations after that. Twenty four hours, eighty five euros and one Red Light District after landing in The Netherlands, it was time to wave goodbye to this City of Dreams.
	After spending the very wee-est hours of the morning hanging around the town, Centraal Station finally opened at 5:00 AM. It was a good thing, too, because it was just above freezing outside, and there was an amusing (yet possibly actually insane) man standing outside of the station near us shouting various obscenities directed towards the security guards at the station for not opening the place earlier. It was a really hilarious sight, to be sure. Contrary to what we originally thought, a train station is apparently NOT a good place to seek refuge from the cold. But since the massive, cavernous building did shield us from biting cold winds and hilarious obscenity-shouters (the latter being a lot more harmless than the former), it was a good place to gather our thoughts, collect our train tickets and take a very brief-- but very refreshing-- fifteen minute nap on the floor. If sleeping on dirty train station floors is wrong, then I don't ever want to be right.
The journey from Centraal Station to the airport was quite a lackluster one. Our greatest discovery was that it was pretty much useless to buy train tickets, since nobody ever checked them. This is my lasting tip to anyone who wants to go to Amsterdam: unless it's tourist season, nobody will ever check your train tickets, so don't even bother throwing down three euros for them. I could be wrong about that, but since I'm always right, I doubt it. Instead, use thouse hard-earned euros for a souvenir snow globe, an ice cream cone or to give a crazy train station obscenity-shouter. Trust me, you'll thank me later.
	Forty-five minute plane rides are always a good time, but this one was especially satisfying because it afforded me the luxury of some much needed sleepy time. I assume that the flight was largely uneventful, because there were no reports of dancing bears or rabid flight attendants. It was a restful sleep (as I suppose most sleeps are) but we pretty much hit the ground running when we got back to Luton. Amazingly, nobody died or got lost in Amsterdam, so that was one awkward moment that we didn't have to endure with our professors.
Now that we were back in London, the first order of business was S-L-E-E-P. So that is what I did after a short tube trip back to the lovely Tavistock Hotel. But first, apparently, in my haste to find my room key approaching the hotel, I dropped my debit card on the ground. What a scary thought! However, two fine, strapping young men came to the rescue. Erik and Dave, my Knights in Shining Armour, came to my door with my debit card in hand, informing me that they thought that I might want to hang onto it. Here's a travel tip: BE CAREFUL with your money, credit cards, etc. Chances are you won't be lucky enough to be traveling with these fine gents, and, well, I'd hate to see your identity get stolen just because you couldn't wait to get into your hotel room or something silly like that.
	After lots and lots of sleep, the lovely Jessica R. Dunne and I headed out to seek adventure! Fame! Fortune! But we decided to settle on seeing Hyde Park and Notting Hill. I had some preconceived notions surrounding each of these places. There's a section of Chicago-- my hometown-- called Hyde Park. It's nearly as lovely in landscape and architecturally as it is diverse. Also, Notting Hill was one of my favorite movies when I was a young, impressionable Juell Stewart, and had no taste in movies or music. I was pleased to find that there were no cheesy lovers hanging about Notting Hill, but kind of disappointed by Hyde Park's...flatness. It was a cold and rainy day, and I get the feeling it would be gorgeous under any other conditions, but I was stricken thoroughly underwhelmed.
Notting Hill was more promising than Hyde Park. Hyde Park is beautiful, but it just doesn't do it for me. Perhaps I was in the wrong mood, or just in the wrong season, but I think that Chicago's Hyde Park wins over London's version any day. Notting Hill, though, is a beautiful residential community with rows and rows of pretty little rowhouses and neat parkways and uniform driveways. It's one of those neighborhoods that seems expensive, prim and proper, yet still has a lot of personality. It was the kind of place where you can easily develop a false sense of security, which always makes me uneasy for some reason. It's a painfully picturesque place that makes you want to move there, but then when you realize that those adorable dollhouses have very grownup pricetags, you suddenly become content with just taking pictures and watching bad romantic comedies and picturing yourself in Julia Roberts' shoes.
	Besides false security, another thing that makes me extremely uncomfortable is the notion of decadent capitalism. So what better place to visit than Harrod's, the self-proclaimed "world's most famous department store." Any place that has a reputation for shooing away shoppers for not looking appropriate enough to shop there is not the place for me. Although it has a reputation for being obscenely expensive, there were some reasonably priced things, ostensibly for the souvenir-hungry tourist who wants to buy something just to say that they went to Harrod's. In other words, the type of person I never want to be nor want to hang around. Many things in here were aimed at the obscenely rich and stupid, and it just kind of made me want to weep for humanity just stepping foot in such a decadent store. It's a good thing, then, that when trying to take a picture of a particularly ornately decorated display, I got accosted by a surly officer and promptly kicked out. Wow, I didn't know that it was against the law to take pictures of opulance. That's one tourist trap crossed off of my list.
Juell Stewart	ENG 240

+the day after amsterdam+

...[january 23 2006]...

Technically, January 23 started off with a bang, as I was busy traipsing around the center of Amsterdam. The decision not to stay at a youth hostel was an intimidating one at first, but we ended up saving money and gaining stories. Just think of all the post-college anecdotes one can share with the simple phrase, "once, in my junior year of college, I went to Amsterdam for a day and staued awake for twenty four hours straight." I'm sure that bit of history will make me the Greatest American Hero to my children, and a living legend for generations after that. Twenty four hours, eighty five euros and one Red Light District after landing in The Netherlands, it was time to wave goodbye to this City of Dreams.

After spending the very wee-est hours of the morning hanging around the town, Centraal Station finally opened at 5:00 AM. It was a good thing, too, because it was just above freezing outside, and there was an amusing (yet possibly actually insane) man standing outside of the station near us shouting various obscenities directed towards the security guards at the station for not opening the place earlier. It was a really hilarious sight, to be sure. Contrary to what we originally thought, a train station is apparently NOT a good place to seek refuge from the cold. But since the massive, cavernous building did shield us from biting cold winds and hilarious obscenity-shouters (the latter being a lot more harmless than the former), it was a good place to gather our thoughts, collect our train tickets and take a very brief-- but very refreshing-- fifteen minute nap on the floor. If sleeping on dirty train station floors is wrong, then I don't ever want to be right.

The journey from Centraal Station to the airport was quite a lackluster one. Our greatest discovery was that it was pretty much useless to buy train tickets, since nobody ever checked them. This is my lasting tip to anyone who wants to go to Amsterdam: unless it's tourist season, nobody will ever check your train tickets, so don't even bother throwing down three euros for them. I could be wrong about that, but since I'm always right, I doubt it. Instead, use thouse hard-earned euros for a souvenir snow globe, an ice cream cone or to give a crazy train station obscenity-shouter. Trust me, you'll thank me later.

Forty-five minute plane rides are always a good time, but this one was especially satisfying because it afforded me the luxury of some much needed sleepy time. I assume that the flight was largely uneventful, because there were no reports of dancing bears or rabid flight attendants. It was a restful sleep (as I suppose most sleeps are) but we pretty much hit the ground running when we got back to Luton. Amazingly, nobody died or got lost in Amsterdam, so that was one awkward moment that we didn't have to endure with our professors.

Now that we were back in London, the first order of business was S-L-E-E-P. So that is what I did after a short tube trip back to the lovely Tavistock Hotel. But first, apparently, in my haste to find my room key approaching the hotel, I dropped my debit card on the ground. What a scary thought! However, two fine, strapping young men came to the rescue. Erik and Dave, my Knights in Shining Armour, came to my door with my debit card in hand, informing me that they thought that I might want to hang onto it. Here's a travel tip: BE CAREFUL with your money, credit cards, etc. Chances are you won't be lucky enough to be traveling with these fine gents, and, well, I'd hate to see your identity get stolen just because you couldn't wait to get into your hotel room or something silly like that.

After lots and lots of sleep, the lovely Jessica R. Dunne and I headed out to seek adventure! Fame! Fortune! But we decided to settle on seeing Hyde Park and Notting Hill. I had some preconceived notions surrounding each of these places. There's a section of Chicago-- my hometown-- called Hyde Park. It's nearly as lovely in landscape and architecturally as it is diverse. Also, Notting Hill was one of my favorite movies when I was a young, impressionable Juell Stewart, and had no taste in movies or music. I was pleased to find that there were no cheesy lovers hanging about Notting Hill, but kind of disappointed by Hyde Park's...flatness. It was a cold and rainy day, and I get the feeling it would be gorgeous under any other conditions, but I was stricken thoroughly underwhelmed.

Notting Hill was more promising than Hyde Park. Hyde Park is beautiful, but it just doesn't do it for me. Perhaps I was in the wrong mood, or just in the wrong season, but I think that Chicago's Hyde Park wins over London's version any day. Notting Hill, though, is a beautiful residential community with rows and rows of pretty little rowhouses and neat parkways and uniform driveways. It's one of those neighborhoods that seems expensive, prim and proper, yet still has a lot of personality. It was the kind of place where you can easily develop a false sense of security, which always makes me uneasy for some reason. It's a painfully picturesque place that makes you want to move there, but then when you realize that those adorable dollhouses have very grownup pricetags, you suddenly become content with just taking pictures and watching bad romantic comedies and picturing yourself in Julia Roberts' shoes.

Besides false security, another thing that makes me extremely uncomfortable is the notion of decadent capitalism. So what better place to visit than Harrod's, the self-proclaimed "world's most famous department store." Any place that has a reputation for shooing away shoppers for not looking appropriate enough to shop there is not the place for me. Although it has a reputation for being obscenely expensive, there were some reasonably priced things, ostensibly for the souvenir-hungry tourist who wants to buy something just to say that they went to Harrod's. In other words, the type of person I never want to be nor want to hang around. Many things in here were aimed at the obscenely rich and stupid, and it just kind of made me want to weep for humanity just stepping foot in such a decadent store. It's a good thing, then, that when trying to take a picture of a particularly ornately decorated display, I got accosted by a surly officer and promptly kicked out. Wow, I didn't know that it was against the law to take pictures of opulance. That's one tourist trap crossed off of my list.

Juell Stewart

ENG 240