Old European Photos

As part of moving my travel photos here from Facebook, I am going way back in time - to my 1990s European trips.

I had three European stints in the 1990s, as follows:

• March 1996, London and Southern England
• March 1998, Belgium, France, and England
• December 1999, Netherlands and Germany

The latter two are featured in this post. Photos are scans of Advanced Photo System photos from a cheap camera - back then, I thought that was the greatest thing ever in photography. How times change.

My first four trips to Europe (the fourth was in 2003) had me arrive at London's Heathrow Airport on United Airlines. And this second arrival, on Flight 2 from New York on the morning of March 14, 1998, was certainly the most memorable - it was the only one that actually gave me a lovely view of central London, as seen here.

Due to a technical delay back in New York, this flight is running 80 minutes late. And that's a bit of cause for concern, as I had to get to Waterloo Station (visible in this photo) and take a Eurostar train to my first destination of Brussels. As it turned out, I made it to the train right on time.

The lack of London Eye certainly dates this photo to the 20th Century, rather than the 21st. And the fact that United was running New York - London services, especially as part of an Around-the-World service, further adds to the dating; both services became victims of cost-cutting when the airline went bankrupt in 2002.

The next day is a cloudy one. In fact, my entire Belgian stay turned out to be cloudy.

I am touring Brussels, and I am finding myself in the north end of the city at Bruparck, in the neighborhood of Heysel/Heizel. That is the Atomium, built for the 1958 Expo and intended to be Brussels' answer to Paris' Eiffel Tower. The elevator takes me up to the top atom via the vertical shaft, and I walk down to the ground via the diagonal shafts.

With Belgium being a center for comic strips, some of the interior displays of the Atomium had exhibits dedicated to comic strips, some featuring the Atomium itself. But that was one thing about Belgium that I had not known until after the fact. Fact-gathering in the 1990s, when the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, was not easy - often I had to rely on a few cut-rate guidebooks that were obsolete the moment they were printed.

The following day was spent over in Brugge in Flemish Belgium (Bruges in French and English) as a day trip.

This is the main town square, and the Dutch architecture of the Flemish Region is very evident. Bruges also treated me to lovely canalside scenes, living up to its reputation as the Venice of the North. Bruges was once a major trading and industrial powerhouse, with sea access only a stone's throw away, before silting and more modern ports (such as Antwerp) took away the trade, reducing the city to a medieval time capsule and a modern-day tourist magnet.

Belgium is bilingual. The Flemish speak Dutch, while the southern Walloons speak French. Brussels is officially bilingual, though in reality, most residents speak French. The animosity between the two groups is considerable - so much so that the safest way to go is to speak a neutral language, like English. That works out fine for me, especially in the Flemish areas, since I speak some French but zero Dutch. Besides, European travel infrastructure accommodates foreigners with zero language proficiency quite well anyway.

After wrapping up what to this date remains my only visit to Belgium, I moved on to Paris for four nights. Paris had been a city on top of my wishlist since childhood, so it was priceless to actually get there for once.

It's March 20th, the last full day in Paris. Trying to get to the Bateaux-Mouches cruise along the Seine, I'm walking close to Place d'Alma - and I am noting some graffiti around this tunnel. It was the previous August 31st when Princess Diana had a fatal car crash in this very tunnel. And sure enough, some graffiti has renamed this area from Place d'Alma to "Place Diana." I even looked into the tunnel, and sure enough, the crash marks were still there.

Place d'Alma isn't too far from the Eiffel Tower; in fact, one of the legs is visible in this photo.

This wide-angle Advanced Photo Systems photo was something I used to pride myself on for a while.

After wrapping up Paris, I returned to London, where I did a two-day pre-arranged car rental. The Citroën Xantia LX 1.8 I ended up driving was quite memorable, just by virtue of being my first stickshift, my first right-hand-drive car, and my first European drive. The infamous Citroën self-leveling adjustable air suspension only added to the confusion. I did okay, even after finding that my South London hotel had never been confirmed. After spending my first London night partying overnight at a goth club near the Angel Tube station (thanks to a local goth friend I had met in Canterbury), I picked a pricey airport hotel for the second and final night, and immediately set out for Stonehenge.

The sight of Stonehenge was worth all the trouble. This will remain one of my favorite travel experiences for a long time to come. The crows flying around, the desolateness of the Salisbury Plains, my own all-black outfit, on Spring Equinox, it was just perfect. Too bad my car was green and French.

The only regret was that I had to return to New York and my studies the next day. Already I was returning a day late, but I really didn't want to go back. I did prolong my London experience by four more hours, by voluntarily getting myself bumped from the return flight. United Airlines gave me $600 in credits as compensation, and that went on to fund my next European trip.

December 2nd, 1999. By this time I was in the San Francisco Bay Area, trying to get my bite out of that dot-com pie, but the bubble was already hurting me badly. I knew that I was NOT going to be working for December 1999, so I decided to instead take a joyride to Amsterdam using the airline credit, and spend a week there.

United 930 is now taking me out of San Francisco, on a nonstop flight again to London Heathrow, where another United flight would complete my journey to Amsterdam.

As it turned out, however, Flight 930 was the ONLY part of the whole journey that went according to plan. My trip into the airport had been marred by a fire on my BART train - I had to change trains as a result. And once in London, Amsterdam's severe winds resulted in airport closure - and United canceled my connection, and handed me over to Air France, so that I could ride the delay out in Paris. Instead of arriving at 11 in the morning in Amsterdam, I got there at 5 in the afternoon, after dark - and I hated being greeted by Amsterdam's racist, sexist thugs (who themselves were Third World immigrants, interestingly). Door-to-door time from my apartment in the Bay Area to my hotel in Amsterdam was 27 very long hours.

December 4th, 1999, my first full day sightseeing in Amsterdam.

I beat the crowds and entered Anne Frank House, at 263 Prinsengracht, as soon as it opened at 9 in the morning - barely after sunrise thanks to the northerly latitudes. It would get dark again by 4.

This was a lovely, yet sad, sight. I could tour the storefront run by Anne's father Otto even during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, with video testimony provided by his secretary Miep Gies, who continued to live in Amsterdam until her 2009 death. I then opened the bookcase and climbed up to the Secret Annexe, which was surprisingly roomy, making for very comfortable accommodations for the eight people who hid there for two years. I could even see posters of movie stars and royalties that Anne admired - including a young Princess Elizabeth, who would become the Queen of England in 1952. The tour ended with the aftermath of the eight (only Otto survived), as well as translations of Anne's diary in various languages.

I ended up buying a copy of the diary at the house's bookstore - of course, the book came with an extra sticker to denote that it was indeed purchased at the house. I also signed the guestbook, noting the ongoing prejudice and hatred outside the house's walls, though this time coming from the Third World immigrant thugs I just mentioned. I had initially identified them as Surinamese, based on longtime Dutch colonial rule in Suriname, but a native Dutch friend of mine who lives in nearby IJmuiden tells me that those thugs, while a severe menace, are more likely to be from elsewhere, possibly Morocco.

Sunday, December 5th, 1999, was set aside as a day trip to Cologne, Germany, a 3-hour train ride away from Amsterdam. Bad idea to schedule a visit to Germany on a Sunday, thanks to Quiet Day Sunday laws in Germany.

My Cologne itinerary included a tour of Imhoff-Stollwerck chocolate factory, as well as a visit to Romano-German Museum and its Roman mosaic floor. But this streetside musician's performance, using cups filled with different levels of water for different notes, is what clings to my mind the most from this day. People like him kept the main shopping streets lively, even with all the stores closed.

But again, the rather primitive nature of the Internet during this timeframe meant that I had not learned much about Cologne beforehand, so there wasn't much I could do around here, except for a teaser into Germany. The one thing I noticed was the similarity between German and Dutch languages - entrance and exit were "ingang" and "uitgang" in Dutch, and "Eingang" and "Ausgang" in German.

I left after seven hours in Cologne, vowing to return to Germany sooner than later. Due to my worsening financial situation in the next few years, my next Germany visit would have to wait until October 2009.

Tuesday, December 7th, 1999. Another day trip away from the Amsterdam thugs. This time, I am in Den Haag (The Hague in English), served from Amsterdam by very frequent trains via the airport and Leiden.

The Hague is best known for Madurodam, a miniature village depicting a generic Dutch city but using real-life landmarks from throughout the country. Many of the miniatures, from cars to even the airplanes at the village's international airport, actually move.

It was a very miserable rainy, windy day - typical of Holland - but I nevertheless spent a lot of time walking around here, and walking through a large park toward a different part of the town. I visited some anthropology exhibits at the Museon, before returning to the train station and taking some tram joyrides out to Vreispalace (Peace Palace, UN International Court) and the Scheveningen Beach. Tiring and miserable, but staying in Amsterdam to take abuse from the thugs would've been even worse.

Wednesday, December 8th, 1999, last full day in the Netherlands. I am north of Amsterdam this time, having taken a city bus into Zaandam area.

My destination is Zaanse Schans, a folk village. December is not a good time to visit, as most of its live folk demonstrations are summer only, but I can still look at some old windmills that actually work. Zaanse Schans is a good approximation of a traditional Dutch industrial town powered by windmills, though the windmills are collected from elsewhere in the country rather than originally erected here.

It's always rainy and windy this time of the year in this part of the world. But that makes those windmills very valuable. But the misery, both from the climate and from the Amsterdam thugs, was really getting to me.

The next day - Thursday, December 9th - was a relief for that reason. I was so relieved to arrive at Schiphol Airport, clear the departure passport check, and see this United plane sit at the gate, waiting to take me out of the misery. Flight 947 will take me to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC, where I will connect to a San Francisco-bound flight.

In any case, I am so sick and tired of all the racist, sexist, homophobic thugs in Amsterdam, that I am glad to be flying United, rather than one of the KLM planes in the background. Especially when I could count on a Melissa Etheridge-only audio channel as part of the United inflight programming for this millennial holiday season - LESBIAN POWER, BABY! Even to this day, the mere sight of a KLM plane is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure, and similarly sighting a United plane is guaranteed to leave me feeling some lesbian power.

Some people have been incensed that I am choosing to side with a large, evil American corporation rather than "tolerant, anything-goes" Netherlands. But when tolerance includes tolerance of ethnic thugs in the name of political correctness, I am having none of it - especially when similar thugs have ganged up to take my rights away in California as well.

For those reasons, this moment remains quite iconic even today. I think of this moment, whenever I board any United flight, whenever I send a letter of commendation (or complaint - "you were so awesome that day, why were you so awful today?") to United Airlines, whenever I listen to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (the official United Airlines theme music), or whenever I listen to Melissa Etheridge.

As for my travel patterns, I had trouble connecting with Europeans as a result of the abuse I took in Amsterdam. Even my return to London and Paris in 2003, to bring some of the good feelings back, didn't quite work out - partly due to London's own Jamaican thugs on the Southbank (though London as a whole remains a city I love). Only with the 2009 European trip would I completely lose the demons.

Toronto: Wrapping Up

A bit overdue - photos from my final Toronto day. I will certainly miss Canada's largest city - though if I were to move to Canada, I'd still pick Vancouver as my hometown.

Starting out at Eaton Centre again. I took another photo of the billboards, this time concentrating on Sarah McLachlan. That is the best photo of her I've seen in a long time, if ever. Thanks to the likes of McLachlan, Canadian musicians - and women rockers around the world - have a level ground to compete on.

There is a somewhat pricey diner below this sign - selling eggs-oriented breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It appeared to be part of a national chain as well. I ended up having a late breakfast there.

I am in the subway, in order to reach Casa Loma. And I see that on June 2nd, I will be able to buy a DVD of He's Just Not That Into You, with an all-star cast including my favorite Greek Goddess, Jennifer Aniston.

I have reached Casa Loma, the largest residence in Canada. It was the residence of Sir Henry Pallatt, who made a fortune developing hydroelectric power on the Niagara River, and was influential in the economic development of the Toronto area and early Canada as a whole. While such mansions are common in the US, where showing off one's wealth is considered the reward of one's hard work, Casa Loma is one of a kind in Canada. Casa Loma feels a lot like California's Hearst Castle in many ways.

Pallatt lived here until 1924, when business overexpansion drove him into debt, and the loss of his hydroelectric power monopoly forced him to liquidate everything he owned. The Kiwanis Club has maintained the mansion as a tourist attraction since 1937, slowly but steadily restoring many of the sections.

This photo shows the indoor conservatory. Pallatt and his wife were renowned horticulturists, I was told.

Climbing up the narrow spiral staircase, I have reached the highest level in the mansion tower, with this great look at the city skyline. A lot of bricks were covered with tourist graffiti - some in Asian scripts!

Those row houses in front, which I had passed to get here, felt very British in character. One of these days, I need to get back to England, and really expand my reach well beyond London. Maybe beyond England and into other parts of the UK.

The outdoors garden, open from May to October, is also a gem.

It's starting to get a bit warm again, even though forecasts called for the day's high temperature to be just 19 degrees Celsius. I am again wearing my trusty tights and boots, topping them off with a dress-shaped floral tunic featuring poet's 3/4 sleeves (a very popular look during my teeny bopper years) and a black trench coat. My makeup is also a bit heavier than usual, especially with the eye pencil, and I am feeling a teeny bopper spirit inside my 33-year-old body.

I proceeded to the harbour, where my real age started to catch up with me. My left foot was starting to hurt, as if I had fractured a bone! Walking became very challenging.

I decided to do a touristy harbour boat tour, shellling out $27. That got me an hour in a boat with a guide to explain the various sights, with an option to get off at Toronto Islands and explore.

Here is an interesting sight. This bridge came from an Amsterdam canal, as a gift of the Dutch Royal Family who had been based in Toronto during World War II. The last thing I need right now is a reminder of my past travel hellhole with way too many parallels to the California ethnic theocracy.

Other waterfront sights include former industrial warehouses turned into art galleries, as well as Rogers Centre, the home of Toronto Blue Jays and formerly known as the Skydome. Rogers is one of the three major players of Canada's cell phone industry (Bell Canada and Telus are the other two), and all AT&T phones - including my iPhone - use Rogers when roaming in Canada.

I landed at Centre Island, one of over a dozen islands that make up the Toronto Islands, separating the harbour from Lake Ontario.

The Islands have many features. Some natural sections doubled as the Florida Everglades in a movie - in fact, the CN Tower made a 3-second appearance in Florida in that movie, I was told. There are recreational facilities, including a small amusement park seen above, open daily June-August and weekends May and September. There is even a clothing optional beach on the west side - one of two in Canada - but due to jurisdictional differences, it's legal to be naked on land but illegal to be naked in the water (fine is $65). As the Islands are quite chilly compared to inland, I wouldn't dare get naked here...

The Islands even host an airport, Toronto Island Airport, which hosts Porter Airlines, offering frequent propeller aircraft service to Chicago, New York, and other major cities.

Due to the foot pain, I decided to return to my hotel for a quick break. Then I added even more eyeliner, changed into that white Aritzia long shirt, topped off with a long suit jacket, and headed back out. Aside from my lack of pants, I could've passed for a Toronto commuter. (Though I was really feeling even more like a teeny bopper this day.)

My first destination: the Distillery, a gentrification of a distillery and several other industrial buildings just east of downtown on the waterfront. The gentrification is still ongoing, so not many things to see/do right now. Love the "abandoned factory" ambience, however.

I then headed west on King West, taking a northbound bus (#63) on Shaw so that I could head back east on Queen West. West of Bathurst, Queen West maintains its original rough-and-tumble independent funky vibe, while between Bathurst and Yonge, it feels more corporate and trendy. Again, due to my foot pain, I didn't do much walking. I finished off with a Thai fast food dinner at Eaton Centre, as well as shopping; while I wanted to buy dressy boots as an alternative to my flat suede casual boots (that'd give my "pantsless suit" ensemble a bit more polish), I had no luck, and instead ended up with a Gap black mini, which I kind of needed to replace my worn-out black microminis. Due to Gap's generous sizing, I found that a Size 6 was a good fit.

My journey back to California started after only an hour or two of sleep. I declared only USD $120 worth of purchases to the US customs, who have presence at all major Canadian airports (including Toronto Pearson). The US immigration officer grilled me with a dozen detailed questions, but the questioning was smooth and I cleared US entry formalities without fuss.

It's now about 7 in the morning. I am on a very old United plane as it leaves Toronto. The left of the shoreline shows the Toronto Harbour as well as faint outlines of the CN Tower and a few other skyscrapers.

This was a very miserable flight due to a very cut-rate purser who had a knack for insulting the passengers' intelligence. If this were my first flight on United Airlines, it would've certainly been my last as well. I usually have far better luck with United's flight crew, both pilots and flight attendants, however.

As I had cleared US immigration and customs in Toronto, I was a domestic passenger upon landing at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. This is the underground corridor that links the two main United terminals at O'Hare. Of course, O'Hare is United's home airport, and American also maintains a large presence.

Continuation to Los Angeles was on a newly renovated Boeing 767 aircraft, featuring United's new flat-bed business class and revamped first class. The economy section had seen next to no improvements, however, and I was very unhappy about that. While flying on an airplane in general, and on a United flight in particular, is normally a joyous occasion for me, and usually ends up taking me to a better place than where I leave from, today was certainly NOT one of those days, especially considering that California was reaffirming the ethnic theocrats' greatest contribution to the state politics, the constitutional ban on gay marriage (Proposition 8), as my half-renovated 767 was descending over San Bernardino.

I already miss Canada - especially its constructive approach to immigration (rather that the destructive US approach). I will make sure to visit more often.

Multiculturalism and its possible pitfalls

Multiculturalism has been the guiding principle of the Western world (and to varying degrees, many other societies, including India and China) for the past several decades. Its premise is that foreign cultures can offer some new insights that the prevailing mainstream culture cannot readily achieve on its own. It's certainly worked its magic in the US - it is valuable for me to discuss the message of Kwan Yin, my transgender matron saint, and the belief systems that worship her, with people who used to be exposed only to Christian and related thought systems.

However, there is a pitfall. Not all cultures/religions believe in the same premise of learning from others that the Western world today believes in. And some white liberals are of the mentality that nonwhites are incapable of evil on their own, all nonwhite evil is sourced from white colonizers, and that nonwhite cultures are simply passive victims of white imperialism. Unfortunately, this does not explain the honor killings of a number of Muslim societies, the primitive Sharia laws of many other Muslim nations, and the severe misogyny of Confucianism; these evils have nothing to do with the white cultures.

Sitting in Southern California, where nonwhite conservatism has done severe damage to the society in the form of recurring restrictions on women's reproductive rights and the elimination of gay marriage, I know this too well. And even when it comes to "white problems," the greatest, most faithful torch-bearers of those problems are themselves nonwhites (i.e. the Korean reverence of US southern white supremacy based on Christianity). Tolerance of diversity and other cultures does NOT include tolerance of honor killings and Sharia law, at least in my books.

Over in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, there is a well-deserved backlash which is a hot social topic today. I do know first hand that Amsterdam is a living hell, because of all the immigrant thugs who have NO respect for the Dutch tolerance for the unconventional (though they themselves benefit from the Dutch tolerance, just by being there and spewing their hate). The majority (well, white Dutch are a mere minority in Amsterdam, but they still have the rest of the country) has now stepped in, by decreeing that while foreign cultures and people are still welcome, there are some ground rules that they need to learn and obey. While the strongest sentiments, including outright ban of Islam and foreign language use in public, belong to the far right, the more moderate sentiments are well echoed by the liberals as well, as they rightfully see that some of these foreign cultural elements are actually destroying the very liberal values that they hoped these nonwhite cultures would uphold. The UK, also home to many immigrants (20% of London, in fact - and Jamaican homophobia does get me), faces similar challenges and arguments.

It's about time that the US, particularly California with its huge conservative immigrant population, did something similar. But given that the conservatives are benefiting too much from the status quo to ever change it, and that the liberals are utterly scared of even remotely hinting that nonwhites are actually capable of evil, I don't see much hope. While many liberals do point to the likes of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, descendant of Mexican immigrants who also happens to speak fluent Spanish, as proof that ethnic liberalism is a very strong ideology, the nonwhites that I deal with in real life are far more likely to be along the lines of Alan Keyes, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, or Counsel John Yoo. Around me, gynecological clinics that supposedly perform abortions are being picketed by Central Americans speaking Spanish, rather than whites speaking English.

Here's a Wikipedia article on multiculturalism that discusses these points very well:

Wikipedia

Amsterdam

In an effort to curb organized crime - at least that's what the officials say - Amsterdam will cut its brothels and cannabis joints by half.

It looks like Amsterdam is trying to be just another city, rather than a unique place. Actually, given what I know about Amsterdam, it'll be even worse than just another city, because there is absolutely nothing being done to check the menace of the Surinamese immigrant thugs.

The thugs, notorious for their outright sexism, racism, and homophobia, have made Amsterdam a living hell for many, and that was certainly my experience when I was there 9 years ago today. In addition, they and other immigrants, many of them reactionary Muslims, have been testing the Dutch tolerance by imposing their backward intolerant views on the rest of the society.

In a week, I must return to California, where the local Korean population - extremist even by Seoul standards - have been doing the exact same crap to the society. And the white liberals in both Amsterdam and California are unable and unwilling to do anything about this, out of their politically correct, but vastly incorrect, belief that nonwhite cultures are incapable of doing harm. I'm sorry, but that's how California passed Propositions 22 and 8, and other backward strides will be taken over the next several years unless this madness is brought to stop at once.

Amsterdam remains the one place that I hope to never see again.

BBC

P.S. The 2MB supporters' fuck-up of my Internet connection is so severe, that even United Airlines' website is timing out randomly. Maybe they do want me to fly their puppet airline, Korean Air. I'll surely raise hell and make everyone in South Korea know how much I hate their illegitimate government, and once back in California, I'll do everything to derail the Korean-American agenda.