Vincent

Ever since the end of their time in Paris, there was a growing empathy with Vincent Van Gogh.  Kate had begun noticing sunflowers around back then and then their apartment in Amsterdam turned out to be close to the Van Gogh musuem.

When they arrived at Citadines in Berlin their room contained two Van Gogh paintings...

Particularly going through the possibility of nowhere to stay in Berlin, Kate would remember how Van Gogh tried to express something which no-one really wanted to know in his lifetime and yet he was lauded as a genius after his death.  They both could relate to that sense of knowing you must do something and sticking to it despite what the world says.

Sometime between Christmas and New Year in this apartment, as they sat down to eat, the song on the radio brought a tear to Dave's eye:

"And now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now"

Welcome To Berlin - Citadines

When Dave & Kate arrived at Citadines in the Kurfürstendamm area to check in the manager happened to be behind the desk and saw they had booked through a last minute website.  She revealed to them her amazement that she had only just put the offer up that morning when 5 mins later their booking came through.

The offer was so good and all the staff so welcoming it was 4 nights later before they could leave.  Each morning they went down to the lobby to check the internet and each time they saw the offer still on they booked again.  The woman behind the desk was amused by this and they joked about how they were the guests who wouldn't leave.

When the offer ran out and the time came to go, it was the first time Dave & Kate had felt a tinge of sadness at leaving a hotel.  The staff were the friendliest so far, they had Kaisers supermarket across the road and could go down to the lobby to make themselves a free cup of tea or coffee whenever they felt like it.  All of this felt like a real treat.  The Buddha also appeared 3 times within the area.

Before they departed they had a few things they had to do.  First of all, there was no longer any room for Jesus at the Inn and so he had travelled with them from Amsterdam to Hamburg and was now shipped off from Berlin via DHL to Edinburgh where he would eventually be told he didn't look like himself.  Secondly, Dave & Kate felt the time had come to finally abandon their backpacks and buy some suitcases.  They had spotted some in a luggage shop near Zoo Station.

Spending money on new suitcases at this time when they were almost out of cash seemed totally illogical and yet they had to do it.  They may be going back to Edinburgh with the cases but at that time they knew they couldn't go any further forward with the old backpacks, which increasingly represented a weight on their backs.  Why carry a load on your shoulders when you can let the earth take the weight?

The Rasta turtle from World Cafe in Hamburg seemed to think so, showing up next door to Citadines...

And funnily enough, the perfect place to dump their shells was round the corner from Citadines.  Kate had spotted this big charity bin that the backpacks could fit inside.  They zipped them up into their black body bags and disposed of them there.

Hamburg or Berlin?

During the period in Amsterdam it wasn't totally clear whether the next stop would be Hamburg or Berlin.

Coming into Amsterdam Dave & Kate had been feeling Hamburg was next and this seemed confirmed by the freight train they passed as they arrived at Amsterdam Central with 'Hamburg' painted on the side.  They seemed to know they had to go there at some point for whatever reason.

Just as with Amsterdam they hadn't overly fond memories of Hamburg and their impression of it was a gritty, northern port town not too dissimilar to Glasgow.  It was also approaching December and getting colder.

They had also been in touch with Mark and Brian around this time with the possibility of meeting up somewhere in Germany.  Berlin seemed the most likely place.

Berlin was growing and seemed to represent the Heart.  If the land of Europe was a physical body (maybe it is?) then Berlin was the Heart.  They knew they were on their way but didn't expect it to be so soon.

It looked likely a meeting with solo Mark was on the cards but it wasn't to be for now and a decision had to be made and so Hamburg it was.  For 3 nights.  A train ticket for Berlin after that was also bought.

After the laziness and comfort of Amsterdam, they were ready for going back onto the battlefield...

Hash Adam & Jesus (complete with poseable arms and gliding action)

Midway through their time in Amsterdam, they received a package from Edinburgh with winter clothes which they were very chuffed with.  It had been getting considerably colder all the time and they still only had summer clothes and jackets.

On their way back from buying train tickets for Hamburg (their next destination), they collected the package from the agency, and then in a gift shop nearby Anne Frank's house, they found a friend in Jesus.  He ended up leaving with them and so that day they arrived for a coffee and smoke at La Terturia with their winter clothes and Jesus alongside them.

There was a young guy just leaving at the table next to them but he spent a few moments staring at them before he got up and left.

The next day they returned there - this time without Jesus and clothes - but the young guy was there.  He soon introduced himself as Hash Adam, a young Dutch/English outlaw, his weapon of choice being a camera.  He was a freelance photographer apparently.  He didn't appear to recognise them from the day before although they recognised him.  Instead after asking to borrow the Bob lighter, he got straight down to the benefits of hash, which he was smoking, and spent the first 20 mins telling Dave & Kate in great detail all about hash and how to make it. 

He offered them a toke of his joint and was determined to find out if they enjoyed it as much as he did.  They were neither this way or that about it.  It was nice, but so was the weed they were smoking.  They continued chatting, mainly about the system, and when Dave & Kate explained their situation and what they were doing, and how much money they had left.  He looked on in wonder.  Then a long pause....

His face suddenly creased up and he burst out laughing with the phrase "have you guys ever thought about getting jobs?!"  They all cracked up at this but as he left it looked like a guy who had contemplated some of what was spoken.

Meanwhile, Jesus remained with them.  He was supposed to depart and head to Edinburgh from Amsterdam but the bastard wouldn't leave and ended up following them on to Hamburg.

Got To Have Kaya Now

The whole 11 nights spent in Amsterdam was a very relaxing and rejuvenating time.  They hadn't known what to expect and this was a very different Amsterdam experience from their last one.  A lazy, hazy atmosphere pervaded each day and so Dave & Kate went with it.  They didn't really need to go out much, had no reason to, and so found other than supermarket trips they'd find themselves heading to Yo-Yo's or La Terturia, having a smoke, and then wandering wherever or heading back to the apartment. 

After the manic time in Paris this was exactly what they needed.  Amsterdam also seemed the perfect place for Dave to dispose of his rasta trainers (in a park bin) which had been falling apart for some time.

From Atlantis To Yo-Yo's

On the 4th night Dave & Kate felt the time was right to revisit an old friend, Kaya.  It was pouring down and as they walked the streets in the area not too far from their apartment they spotted a coffeeshop called Atlantis.  It seemed apt that they try and find Kaya in there.  They did and left, heading back to the apartment for a pleasant night.

Amsterdam with all its canals was also continuing this strange water-related theme that seemed to be significant.  Pretty soon they discovered their luxury bathroom with its two sinks only had one in working order - the other was leaking water at the base.  Chris and his Dutch friend Ron arrived but couldn't fix it so one sink it was.

As Dave & Kate walked into Atlantis the girl at the counter misheard Dave and thought he was asking for "Jamaican", a strain of their friend Kaya.  Bob was certainly around.  The next day in a headshop for papers and any old lighter, the middle-aged lady specifically pulled one with Bob Marley on it from the shelf for them.  They would find him looking down on them from above in La Terturia, the only coffeeshop they sat in at other than Yo-Yo's.

They had heard Yo-Yo's produce was organically grown and since it was out of the city centre, was much more relaxed, for the locals rather than tourists.  It sounded like their kind of place.  La Terturia was more well-known, but still relaxed, run by two elderly women, a mother and daughter team.

Hazy Days

Arriving in Amsterdam around 11am and with little sleep, they made their way to the apartment they'd booked from Paris - an upmarket townhouse flat not too far from the Van Gogh museum.  It was bigger than they needed but the only option with a few days to spare.  This time they were glad not to be right in the heart of the city centre.

They met the guy from the agency at check-in, Chris, who had cycled to the apartment to meet them and then had to cycle back and return with the right set of keys.  Nice start but it gave Dave & Kate a chance to pick up some groceries while he was gone.

Chris was a full-on, enthusiastic English guy who had been on his way travelling elsewhere 20 years earlier, arrived in Amsterdam and decided to remain there and live on a houseboat.  Kate was touched when he came round one day with some of his own teabags he'd been sent from England.

Once all checked in and sorted, Dave & Kate slept for a good chunk of the day... and for a good part of their first 4 days in Amsterdam.  They had immediately felt a very different kind of energy here than in Paris and it seemed to be making them very spaced out and hazy.  And that was before anything was smoked.

Yet again, they were thankful for the apartment that had come their way.  There was an Albert Heijn supermarket 5 mins down the road, Vondelpark was 2 mins away, a tram stop right outside the flat (they only used it on arrival and departure) and everything else they needed was close by.

In the apartment they found various Buddha statues, photos of elephants and some spiritual books, including 'A Course In Miracles'.  They never read any but this type of thing would repeat itself and indicate something was going on.

From Paris To The Amsterdam Hilton...

Not quite but close enough.

It became clear with a few days left that Amsterdam was the next place to be.  They had no reason to go there and in fact, again, didn't really want to.  Their last visit to Amsterdam several years earlier had not been so great and although they didn't dislike the city, they had memories of a hard time in a bustling, slightly crazy place to burn.  Maybe that was as good a reason as any to go.

The signs had been presented... they stayed TWICE in the same hotel on Rue d'Amsterdam and while they were there, Dave remembered hearing the Lloyd Cole song "Lost Weekend" and feeling it was significant somehow - "I spent a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam..."

When they arrived at the Truffaut apartment what did he find in the small CD collection but a Lloyd Cole album.  And then one day Kate put on a Beatles album from the collection and they heard John Lennon sing the lines "from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton..."

With a day or two to go, Kate managed to find and secure an apartment there for 11 nights.

During this period they were also feeling it was time to shed their shells (backpacks).  They were slowing them down and too inefficient for all this moving.  Nearby the apartment they would find a lot of luggage shops, looking in, knowing suitcases were the way.

They bought a train ticket the day before they checked out and said goodbye to Paris in the early hours of the morning.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

On Friday 5th November 2010, Dave & Kate stepped out of their hotel with the task of finding themselves a room for that night and some kind of accomodation which offered them a few days of stability.  An apartment was the preferred choice but its not easy to book an apartment a day in advance.

Nothing much was showing up and so they'd take breaks from the internet cafe, going out for walks to give the mind a rest, and then coming back.  Sometime in the afternoon Dave came across an apartment not too far from the area they were in and as a bonus it had a PC with internet connection.  This would be a massive help in saving internet costs.  They emailed the owners, David & Elizabeth, about checking in the next day.

Luckily, they were able to email back quickly and put things into action - 5 days in this apartment sounded good and after that they felt sure they would leave Paris one way or another.  David & Elizabeth wanted a 100 Euro deposit before arrival and accepted paypal which suited Dave & Kate perfectly.  The remainder was to be paid in cash on arrival.

At this point on their travels, Dave & Kate seemed to be plagued with money issues.  They couldn't use their euro currency cards as they'd intended until a bank statement from their UK banks arrived at the family residence they had provided (since they had no permanent residence of their own now).  This was another security measure from the Babylon Shitstem which seemed intent on halting things.  They could only transfer money by direct bank transfer to their cards and this took a few days to process each time.

So they were relying on directly withdrawing money using their UK debit cards and they didn't even know if they were going to work since the bank had already froze their accounts after seeing attempted foreign withdrawals.

At 5pm they eventually found a hotel for the night... the same one they'd stayed in for 2 nights at the beginning of the week on Rue d'Amsterdam.  After nothing showing up for their budget all day, it popped up on offer late in the day and so they once again were saved at the last minute.

They moved their luggage from the previous nights hotel to this one again, checked in and then went back out to hopefully finalise the apartment for tomorrow.

The dark forces were out to stop them yet again.  When Kate attempted to make the paypal deposit payment she got a message from paypal saying they had frozen the transfer until further security checks were completed.  This was going to take 5 days - they'd be checked out by the time it went through.  No good.

Kate got in touch with David and explained and he very kindly agreed to cancel the paypal transaction and accept a cash deposit on arrival.  Only thing was, the cancellation didn't free up the money back into Kate's bank account.  So 100 Euros was unavailable to them for 5 - 7 days. 

They were left that night having agreed to this apartment and not even sure whether they could get any of the money out their banks for it.  At 11pm that night they made their way to a cash machine where Dave tried to use his UK debit card to take out a chunk of the money.  He almost expected Chris Tarrant's face to appear on the screen and ask if he wanted to phone a friend as they waited those long seconds while the transaction was being processed.

Jah didn't let them down.  The cash came out and they were able to go back the next morning and withdraw the rest.  Finally it looked like they were about to have 5 days of stability in which something could happen to keep Europe alive.

Europe - The Final Countdown?

On their second and final night at the hotel on Rue d'Amsterdam, no money had shown up and neither had anywhere else to stay for the following night.  Edinburgh was almost certainly on the cards now.

That night they didn't feel to even bother looking for hotels on the internet.  Instead they stayed in and checked out the following morning, leaving their bags at the hotel reception, and headed straight to an internet cafe.  No luck.

All they could think to do at this point was what they'd done before 8 years ago on their first trip around Europe... go on foot round hotels in the area and enquire.  They knew they couldn't leave this part of Paris yet.

They made an error (or was it?) straight away by going into the third hotel enquiring, getting the guy to take the rate down from 95 Euros a night to 60, and paid by credit card for 3 nights... before seeing the rooms.

They knew they couldn't stay there for 3 nights and didn't care if they had a hard time finding somewhere else.  The guy reluctantly refunded the card but that money would now not be available for 30 days while the refund was processed.  Things weren't looking good.

After they'd wandered around for a bit, everywhere far higher than they could afford, Dave suddenly felt a rise of righteous anger at what they were doing - "we shouldn't have to beg like this!  we have every right to live like kings!!".  This outburst broke the momentum, it all felt too much of an effort wandering around like this.

They recognised it was going nowhere and all they could do was return to the internet to see if anything new had shown up.  And there it was.  The one they'd been waiting on.  Just along the road from their last hotel - a great deal on a 4-star hotel for the night.  They would live like King and Queen for a night afterall.

Europe In Paris

On Monday 1st November 2010 they checked out the Ibis.  They were surprised to be offered another free breakfast for all the trouble from the smirking guy in the background.  Pity they'd already eaten out that morning.  Still, they took up the offer and sat and had a coffee before leaving.  They wondered why it was so busy so close to check-out time in the breakfast room.  They found out later the clocks had went back so it was 10.45 when they thought it was 11.45.

Nearby was a launderette they stopped off at.  They'd been once already but this time they chose the wrong (or right?) machine.  The water got blocked and the machine kept on spinning.  Kate asked the few people in there if anyone spoke English and a very kind French guy saved the day by offering to call the caretaker on his mobile.

While they waited a little girl in with her mum wanted to play with Kate.  They were noticing a pattern of having lots of these kind of encounters with children.

Eventually they got to leave the launderette and discovered the only metro stop they could get off at on their route to the new hotel was called Europe.  This seemed significant.

Their hotel was on Rue d'Amsterdam and they soon discovered why the metro was called Europe... all the streets in the area were named after European cities - Moscou, Liege, Naples, Berne, Vienne, Madrid, etc...

Immediately they felt much lighter in this area.  For the first time in Paris they felt they had found The Place.

It wasn't just because of the Europe connection.  They liked the buildings, could see themselves living there, and the general ambience of the place.  It felt much more relaxed than some parts and not as arty-farty or pretentious as say Montmartre.

That afternoon after they checked into their hotel they felt a strong energy shift within themselves and could only lay there on the bed unable to move for a few hours until they 'came round' again.

Water Blockages Begin...

The next day the shower stopped as Dave was under it.  No hot water due to the boiler blowing a fuse.  This brought about a week of encounters with Antonio, Susanna's friend, and The Electrician (who spoke no English).  By the end of the week they had it fully operational again but this was only the beginning of water troubles.

A few days after the boiler was fixed the toilet stopped flushing.  When Susanna heard of all their troubles - stolen laptop, broken boiler and now toilet not flushing - she could only laugh and say "it must be your turn for a run of bad karma".  Maybe.

At their next destination in Paris, they would be moved hotel rooms due to water-related issues, find themselves in another hotel where the plug for the bath was jammed bringing about an amusing encounter with the hotel staff member on duty (he had to lock the doors of the hotel as he was so busy at reception to attend to their room where he appeared and then reappeared with a knife to sort the plug) and finally in Amsterdam had a luxury bathroom with two sinks, one which was leaking water and unusable.

It also didn't go unnoticed that Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam and Hamburg (the first 4 destinations on their journey) were all cities where water was prominent to the landscape.