Aug 16 - To Meknes

After lunch, we encounter our first transportation crisis – the bus headed to Meknes is full - it does not originate in this town, so it has already filled up on its way here. And while it seems that people got on the filled bus at Tangier anyways, that’s not the way things are done here. What do we do? Drag our suitcases back up the steep hill and stay another night? Try for a bus to another town? Not quite panicking yet, since we still have most of the day ahead of us, we ask a policeman at the bus station what our options are. He introduces us to the wonderful system of ‘grand taxis’ (as in the French for big), giving us the best route (split the journey into 2 legs, first to Ouezzane, where we can either take another taxi or a bus to Meknes) and what we should even expect to be charged. He was incredibly helpful and even helped us find a petit taxi to the taxi station. (See petit taxis in Tangier to the left).

As I mentioned before, ‘grands taxis’ are inter-city taxis (see right), while ‘petits taxis’ are intra-city. Grands taxis are found at taxi stations (parking areas) within each city. Travelers go to the stations and tell someone what city they want to go to and whether they want to go ‘solo’ (charter the whole taxi) or ‘distributif’ (only a certain number of seats) because payment is by seat. Each taxi leaves only when all the seats are paid for which means 6 seats – 2 in the passenger seat and 4 in the back. It becomes a waiting game as the drivers see whether we will give in and pay for the extra seats just to get going, while we wait in hopes of other passengers. We are somewhat in luck this time around, as a middle-aged couple also wants to go to Ouezzane. After 20 minutes waiting in the hot sun, we opt to pay for the 4th back seat and ride there in relative comfort.

In Ouezzane, we are in luck that the taxi station is next to the bus station, though the parking lots are unpaved so we do a lot of suitcase lugging. We discover the system at this bus station is nonexistent. We cannot buy tickets until the bus arrives and everyone tells us different ETAs for the Meknes bus. We decide to wait till the first ETA before trying for a taxi (pic is of us at station), but one of the ppl we had asked went and got us 3 seats on a grand taxi without us asking (he wanted a 10Dh tip for it). This ended up working quite nicely since it was a full car, though it was a very cramped, sticky 2 hour ride.

We settled into our hostel at Meknes and walked down to the medina in search of phones and dinner. At this point we have figured out the teleboutique system. You walk in, plunk down a bill on the counter and ask for however much change you need in coins. Collecting your pile of 1, 5 and 10Dh coins, you walk into one of the booths and dial. Local, national and international calls all have base starting amounts, then you go by time. I just remember that international ones start a 5Dh and that gets you maybe 30s of airtime.


Meknes was our first exposure to the hubbub of Moroccan cities after dark – when they truly come to life. The streets fill with families, tourists, young people strolling, shopping, eating and having a good time. Dinner was at ‘Chez Oumnia’ – a small family owned place recommended by Lonely Planet. This is where we had our first harira, couscous (previously pictured) and where we saw mint tea poured from high for the first time.

Next - Aug 17 - Meknes

Aug 16 - Chefchaouen

The names of most places are usually meant to be pronounced as if reading from French. Chefchaouen is Sheff-shauw-in (where 'shauw' rhymes with 'how') but is often referred to by Moroccans as simply Chaouen (shauw-in). Tour groups don’t go to Chaouen. It’s a smaller town set in the hills that is popular with backpackers as a quiet rest-stop where you can recover from the heat and bustle of the imperial cities. Charming, peaceful and friendly can all be safely used in the same sentence as Chaouen. There’s no hassle, the hills are relatively cool and there’s no hurry to go see this, that or the other monument. We could not have asked for a gentler introduction to Morocco.

Peaceful is a relative term though. I have trouble sleeping that night because there are people enjoying their evening on the streets outside our window. For whatever reason, what seems to be a procession of cars winds its way down a nearby hill, honking all the way. Early in the morning, a rooster crows, and continues crowing - it never stopped. At daybreak, the first call to prayer also sounds out from the mosque (it sounds like someone chanting in Arabic). This is the first time I hear the call to prayer, but it will to become a regular part of the sounds of Morocco. In Europe, it was church bells and carillons that dominated the airwaves every 15 minutes; in Morocco, the call to prayer goes out 5 times daily and can be heard from the loudspeakers on all the mosques.

Our hotel breakfast consisted of mint tea (our first) and soft french bread, accompanied by butter and a runny orange jam. Our first order of business was to check bus schedules to Meknes for later in the day, so we walk down a steep hill to the bus station. There is a bus leaving around 2, so we plan to come back with our suitcases around 1. Now to explore the medina (old part of town).

One of the other chief attractions of the town is its blue-washed streets and buildings. Doors, walls, steps, streets are all painted shades of blue ranging from a darker chalky blue to an almost blinding white. We spend a while winding through the streets, getting lost, but not caring too much.

We end up at one of the gates through the wall enclosing the city. Beyond is a natural water source where people bring their washing and livestock for water.

A hill road leads from here to a ruined mosque, originally built by the Spanish but never used by the locals. As we walk, we pass goatherds, and two people singing a duet of some sort across the hills. (I don’t know what language it was.) At the mosques some random youths are hanging around and we talk with them a bit in French. They ask if we smoke (this area is really famous for kif) and offer to take us on a hike through the region for 200Dh to see the ‘cascades’ and the marijuana plants. We decline and climb up the minaret of the mosque to catch a view of the hills.

Heading back to the town, we are invited into our first carpet shop where K and I actually end up buying carpets, as A is ‘shocked and appalled’ that we do so before shopping around. I’ll write more on the little piece of drama that carpet selling is later. I regret not going back to take a picture inside the shop now. We then eat our first traditional Moroccan meal complete with tajines, OJ and stray cats. The stray cats were not in the dishes, but rather hanging around the tables and meowing at our feet for food (see lump under table in pic). They’re everywhere in the streets of this town, and as we are to discover, always hanging around the outdoor seating area of restaurants all over the country.

Next - Aug 16 - To Meknes

Morocco Itinerary

Here is a map showing the different cities in Morocco that we visited.

1. Tangier (Aug 15)
2. Chefchaouen (Aug 15-16)
3. Meknes (Aug 16-17)
4. Fes (Aug 17-19)
5. Azrou (Aug 19-20)
6. Marrakesh (Aug 21-25)
7. Casablanca(Aug 25)
8. Rabat (Aug 25-27)
9. Asilah (Aug 27-28)
1. Tangier (Aug 28)

Next - Aug 16 - Chefchaouen

Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part V – Bus to Chefchaouen.

The bus-ride turned out to be a crash-course intro to Morocco in all its glory. When the bus arrived, a stream of passengers descended, while we tried to figure out where the luggage went. We saw a small side door open and a lady tugged a large bag of onions of a rather filthy compartment. We brought our luggage near there, but were redirected to the rear of the vehicle, where a larger compartment meant for baggage was located. The man putting our suitcases in charges us 10Dh a bag – no one else is charged we later realize. Waiting for the bus to leave, a stream of people with random items to sell makes its way through the bus. Tissue packets, biscuits, cigarettes, sweets. These are usually silently offered to each row of passengers, but there is one persistent man who (in French) keeps trying to sell us biscuits and ‘accidentally’ drops them in our laps several times. The bus continues to fill – there are no more seats left, so people stand in the aisles and the back exit stairs.

The long ride there affords us our first glimpse of this country and the countryside. It is hard for me to determine what is normal, what is wasteland, where does poverty begin. Outside the main cities or main thoroughfares, roads and areas around buildings are unpaved. Buildings on the outskirts of the city seem to rise out of large tracts of rubble and it is hard for me to tell whether they are in the midst of being built or destroyed. Moving into more rural areas, you see donkeys, herds of goats, small buildings in dirt fields surrounded by ‘hedges’ of cacti. The cacti are sometimes the only green. There is litter everywhere – uncultivated land is filled with low-growing vegetation all sporting bits of plastic bags that have blown onto them and caught. The only thing in my experience I can relate all this too is rural China.


As the sun sets, there are no streetlamps along the highways. The rocks near the road and the base of trees are painted white, I suppose to catch the headlights. The main highways all over the country are in remarkably good repair though, better than in Canada. I do not know whether they have recently been redone, or if it’s because they don’t go through the yearly freeze-thaw, or because they are subjected to far less traffic.

The only other non-Moroccans on the bus are a small group of young males conversing in Spanish across the aisle from us. I thought they were backpackers, but A’s conversation with the nearest one of them reveals that they are therapists of sorts going to Chefchaouen to teach families and school how to better integrate mentally handicapped children into everyday life. He himself works with MSF and has traveled to South America and Africa for his work and Canada (east coast, west coast) for vacation and to learn about the Natives.

We arrive in Chefchaouen but have no idea where we are in relation to the hotel so we take a taxi. We later realize that the bus had dropped us off in the center of town rather than the bus station on the outskirts and that the hotel was all of 150m down the street. But, we had safely found our first hotel in Morocco and we still couldn’t believe that we had made the last 24 hours happen.

Next - Morocco Itinerary

Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part IV - Tangier

We arrive, bracing for the hordes of hustlers - and – nothing. Apparently the police crackdown on this has been quite effective. Only taxi drivers, tourists and travelers are within the port area. Even outside at the CTM (gov’t run bus system) station, we are not accosted. We discover that their daily bus to Chefchaouen (3 hrs drive) has already left, so we decide to try the independent bus companies, which run out of another station. This was our first introduction to Moroccan taxi drivers – he offered to take the 3 of us there for 700Dh. We say no, just take us to the bus station. He says, looks, he’s paying for gas, it is 3 hours there, 3 hours back, over mountains, there are only 3 of us, we would be sitting comfortably, on the bus, it is so cramped. We stick to our plan. At the bus station, we are offered the same trip for 400Dh. We still don’t trust them. Final price for 3 bus tickets was somewhere about 100Dh.

There were several hours before the bus left so we went in search of phone cards and food – 3 suitcases in tow. Intro to Moroccan traffic – Mein Got. The bus station was located in the center of a roundabout, pedestrian signals are nonexistent and sidewalks are pot-holey and often disappear into stretches of rubble (BAD for suitcases). So, we half-rolled, half-carried our suitcases around and around the roundabout, trying to cross when the locals did. We see card payphones, but no one sells the cards. Not gas stations nor these strange stores filled with coin-op telephone boxes (teleboutiques – we learn how to use these later). We did end up finding dinner at a very clean very quiet Middle Eastern-type food place. First vegetable dilemma though – the sandwich comes with raw lettuce and tomatoes. Are they washed? Even if they are, it’s not going to be done with bottled water. Which is worse? Do you pick it out? Or has it already touched everything else in the salad anyways? It does no good to dwell on these things, I just ate it as-is.

Next - Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part V – Bus to Chefchaouen

Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part III – Boat to Tangier

This is the first time I begin to miss the efficiency pervading UK and Netherlands transportation systems. Everything from now on is slow, slow, slow – and it’s the norm. Customs lines, baggage scans, I don’t think the boat left until 14:00. This is also the first time I discover that telling people that I’m from Canada isn’t sufficient, the Morocco customs guy wants to know where my father is from – ‘parce que ton visage, ce n’est pas Canadien’ or something to that effect. On the boat, we change some Euros for Dirhams (Dirhams are not allowed out of the country, so you can’t change beforehand), find ourselves some lunch (bland sandwiches, but our first time ordering in French), park ourselves at a table in the lounge and doze.

Our destination is Tangier which has been described by Lonely Planet as the ‘worst possible introduction to a country’ just due to the sheer amount of tourist hustling. At this point everyone has warned us about the touts, the pickpockets, the drive-by-snatchers, the people who try to drug you and rob you. We’re more than a little nervous and have no idea what to expect – will we literally be swarmed and plundered as we disembark? So, we prepare for the worst. Locks on the suitcases, locks on the backpacks, wallets chained to selves, extra cash etc. in money belt, nothing you value in the pockets, keep an eye out for each other’s bags. What more can you do? We even made plans to stay in nearby towns on our way in and out of Morocco, just so we would not be staying the night within Tangier.

Next - Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part IV - Tangier

Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part II – In Spain

Our limited Spanish was put to the test as we used the airport bus into the city. This is the first time it hit that even though they use the same alphabet, pronunciation of certain consonants is very different. We did get off at the correct spot (Puerto de Jerez) and deciphered the map to find the main bus station (Estacion de Autobuses) so we could look up bus-times to Algeciras (port city) for the next morning. Keep in mind at this point that each of us had one backpack and a small rolly-suitcase, which proved to be the main limiting factor in our mobility. I’m not sure giant backpacks are much better – you can still only walk so fast whether you are dragging or carrying all your worldly possessions.

By the time we found the bus station it was nearing 11pm and we wanted to get to the hostel to maximize the hours of sleep we could get before our 07:30 bus. This is when we discovered how difficult it was to find taxis in this city – it wasn’t that there were many full taxis everywhere, there were just few taxis to be found anywhere. There was a long lineup near the bus station at the taxi sign, so we went to the nearest roundabout – no luck. Anything that did pass was not libre, and there was another group also intent on flagging just down the street. So, we rolled our bags back to Puerto de Jerez where we hoped for less competition. Luck strikes – a single taxi with a green light (libre) is turning as we roll up, so we frantically wave.

Some four hours of sleep later, we get up shower, and taxi it back to the bus station to get tickets (hostel guy called taxi for us). We end up standing around for a bit as the ticket counter does not open this early. Everything goes smoothly, though, and we end up in Algeciras on time. The scenery I was awake for was really pretty – golden fields and I did get to see one of those towns consisting of white buildings clustered on a hill.

One other reason we needed to get to Algeciras early was so A and K could sign up for their final year courses at noon Spain time. At about 11:30, they commandeered the only two computers at a internet/camera store. From 11:45 onward, they constantly try logging in hoping that ROSI might wake up early again this year… cuz we just might make the 12:00 ferry if it does. No such luck. Sometime after noon, A is let in, but ROSI just won’t work on K’s computer. So, the 2 of them are frantically signing up for courses on alternating windows on the one computer, while ROSI lags horribly and denies them access to random things. All in all, it takes about 45 minutes – we catch the 13:00 ferry.

Next: Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part III – Boat to Tangier

Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part I – Out of England

In the interest of saving money, we chose to get to Morocco by finding the cheapest flights into Europe (which go to London), take a budget airline into Spain (Ryanair to Seville), then get ourselves to a port and ferry over to Morocco. While the overall cost, including hostels, might have still worked in our favour in the end, we spent inordinate amounts of time and energy making this roundabout journey. In hindsight, doing this the long way added much more adventure (stress too) to the trip.

The trip to Standsted airport (1 of the 3 major airports in London) itself was the first of our many ‘longest busrides in the world’. Rather than take an express train there, we opted for the cheaper coach bus ride leaving from the same station. Boarding the bus with what we thought plenty of time to spare, we ended up arriving in the airport 20 minutes before the gate closed. We had not anticipated the time it would take the bus simply to exit the maze known as the streets of London, a trip that included us crossing the bridges to twist and turn a bit and then doubling back All totaled, the ~60km journey took 2-3 hours. Luckily we are able to check in and power-walk it to the gate where we locate bathrooms. (Question of the day – do budget flights have toilets on board? Answer is yes.)

The flight to Seville was uneventful, and we arrived in the evening to much drier and warmer golden land. I started associating different countries and cities with colours after a while – the Netherlands countryside was an emerald green, London is white limestone buildings, Spain was dry golden sunrises and sunsets and Moroccan countryside is a dry dusty red.

Next: Aug 14-15 The Long Journey Down. Part II – In Spain

Chinese Diaspora

In the spirit of me being in a new city, and this fascinating documentary which I've only read about but never seen (I originally read the G&M review linked here under Reviews), I present the Chinese restaurants I encountered on my journey.

Some of my first pictures I took in Amsterdam and on my whole trip were of the Chinatown I accidentally stumbled upon. I had no idea there were sufficient Chinese in the Netherlands to merit a Chinatown but there it was - Dutch-Chinese bbq duck. J and I had issues relocating this area after when we were looking for soy sauce for her pantry. Eet = eat. Huis = house. Chinees = well...

How authentic is a restaurant that does not even bother using Chinese characters? I saw this pair of restaurants in Winchester.

London's theater district is right by their Chinatown. As I mentioned earlier, we were looking for Indian food that night, but I did have Chinese food in London - that very expensive bowl of soup.

The one and only restaurant we went to in Seville. After finding our hostel around 11pm we came here to have soup rather than heading to the nearest tapas bar (we were tired...). Our first introduction to Spanish food vocab - sopa y zumo de naranjas. The owners did not speak a dialect either A or I could understand so out came the travelguide.

We never dreamed we'd find one in Morocco, but find one we did in Rabat (the capital). K and I accidentally stumbled onto it on our way back to the hotel and decided this was where dinner would take place (this was our 2nd last night in Morocco and we were willing to try a dinner that not involve tajine or brochettes (shish kebabs). He got the Chinese rice (fried rice), while A had the Vietnamese rice and I had poulet aux amandes. The poulet was very strange - it was battered at one point but merely soggy when I had it. The amandes, vegetables and accompanying rice were excellent though. The restaurant was actually managed by a Chinese lady, though the only other customers that night were two Oriental (possibly Japanese?) men. Very relaxing after days of eating in marketplaces.

London, England (Aug 11th to 14th)

I actually fell sick and spent all of the 11th and much of the 12th unconscious in bed. I think it was more exhaustion from all the walking I'd been doing than anything else. Lesson learned - don't push self so hard, I'm on vacation after all. A and K flew in on the 12th, so I was no longer on my own. Our first meal consisted of the most expensive bowl of soup in the world (for me at least). We went to a chinese restaurant near the hostel and ordered the set lunches (5 pounds) which came with soup and an entree. The soup was excellent, thick and chunky. But, still recovering from my illness, I had next to no appetite, so I barely touched the fried rice. Get this though - they wouldn't let me pack it away. Have you ever heard of such a policy at a Chinese restaurant?? It wasn't as though they didn't have the containers, they did do take-out orders. I don't know what the reasoning behind it is, but that is how (with exchange rate of ~2.2) I ended up eating the most expensive bowl of soup ever.

The next day, we three met up with S from nano who had just flown in from Spain the night before. Our day in London started at the Covent Garden Markets after having bought theater tickets for the night. We ate Cornish pastries and watched the crowds. The market itself was smaller than expected, and didn't have so much of interest.

Our next stop was the British Museum. It has a very impressive central hall and even more impressive collections. This is mainly owing to it conquering so much of the known world and then 'acquiring' said world's artifacts.

Its collection includes the Rosetta stone (shown here), much of the Pantheon's friezes and statues as well as parts of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. That last one was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Mind-boggling.

After the museum, we went to the National Gallery for the hour before closing time. Dinner after that (Indian food) before heading to see our chosen musical - Les Mis. We sat two rows behind the orchestra pit but it was every but as good as I'd remembered.

Cambridge, England (Aug 10th)

The second day of my train pass was used to get myself to Cambridge. My train left from Kings Cross Station where I took the time to visit the following Harry Potter shrine. I don't know how long it has been there but I first heard of it from J. The point is to pose as though you're running the baggage cart in through the wall. I didn't...

Lots of punters to be seen along the Cam - mainly tourists, either steering their own boats in a zig-zag or hired punters pushing along. Made for a nice backdrop to everything, with the bridges and weeping willows.

Since all the colleges were paid entry, I visited the two most highly recommended by Frommer. The first one was King's College, which had a magnficent chapel. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed in the inside, but I spent a while looking through the exhibits.

The other college was St. John's College. My favorite building here was the New Court aka the Wedding Cake.

St. John's College is also the site of one of the nicest bridges on campus - the Bridge of Sighs. What a name.

Spent the night tramping around London again. Highlight of the evening was finding 221B Baker Street, fictional address of the famed Sherlock Holmes. I was terribly confused when looking for it. The actual 221 Baker Street is in the midst of a construction site. The fake 221B Baker Street (located next to 241 Baker Street) is the Sherlock Holmes museum. I wasn't the only Doyle geek out that night. I saw a guy taking pictures across the street too.

Winchester, England (Aug 9th)

The next day, I took a train to Winchester, the old capital of England. Why Winchester? I've not sure how it first struck me, but it was way back in May or June when I first started searching through the tourist literature. The grand plan was to buy a two day train pass allowing me to travel in the greater London area. This city offered an interesting mix of things and I wanted somewhere that would allow me to see a bit of the English countryside.

First item of interest - the Round Table. While not THE Round Table of legend, it is A Round Table modeled after the legend. Apparently it's some 600 yrs old and it hangs in the wall of the Great Hall of the former Winchester Castle.

Second item of interest - site of a really old cathedral (11th century). I just walked around the grounds a bit.

Item 3 - Jane Austen lived near this city and died in a house inside Winchester. It is a private home now, with just a commemorative sign. Her actual house is converted into a museum but it was too far to access by foot for the day. So, I made a semi-pilgrimage. BTW, what's the word on the new P&P with Ms. Knightley?

Item 4 - Wolvesley Castle. My first castle was in Antwerp but this is the first one I was allowed to clamber all over. It was in ruins, but I loved it. For the first 15 minutes I was there, it was just me and the pidgeons. Only later did other tourists show up.

Returned to London that evening and spent the whole time exploring more of its public spaces. I think my all time favorite was Trafalgar Square. I suppose the ppl there were largely tourists but I'd never encountered a place in Toronto with that feel and energy.

This next one is just beside the National Theatre. I'm not sure whether these folks were congregating there during an intermission or whether they were just using the space. The whole strip next to the bridges is just filled with ppl enjoying the evenings though. Alcohol is allowed on the streets etc. so there are ppl spilling out of pubs with glass in hand and people on the benches will be relaxing with a bottle of something.

A view of St. Paul's. Another reason I loved walking the bridges at sunset aside from the people watching was because the majority of the important buildings could be seen from here, not to mention pretty bridges. And speaking of pretty bridges...

Here you see the Tower Bridge (NOT the London Bridge, I might have been on the London Bridge though). So pretty. And would you believe that it opens for boats? I spent a good few minutes wondering how that battleship in the foreground got in between the bridges, cuz the one I was on didn't seem to lift or swing. Then I saw the Tower Bridge opening up and the light dawned. J and I saw a number of lifting bridges in the Netherlands and Belgium but nothing on this scale. That sailboat stopped a lot of traffic.


Why sunset at the bridges? Here's why sunset at the bridges.

AMS -> LHR (Aug 8th)

My flight to London was in the afternoon so I spent one final morning wandering the streets of Amsterdam. I found the streets here a little unwelcoming or unfriendly due to the way the houses were designed. Buildings next to the canals basically stood shoulder to shoulder and their fronts were straight up and down. Stately, staid, little in the way of personal or homey touches. No gardens, or porches, no frilly curtains. They seemed very impersonal - I could not tell whether they were residences or offices. These were my initial impressions anyhow. One cool things about them was how ppl moved into them. I passed two sets of movers in my time here. Basically, stairways are terribly steep and narrow, so rather than lugging things up these, they would use these conveyer ladders to bring things in through the large windows at each floor.

And then I arrive in London. Here is a picture of afternoon rush hour traffic near Trafalgar Square I took later. I've already written about my long walk on my first day here, so I'll just post some obligatory tourist-y pics.

1. Royal Albert Hall where I ate sandwiches for dinner. It was near here that I bumped into Ron.
2. Buckingham Palace.
3. Big Ben and Parliament.
4. Same thing from across the river.
5. The London Eye.

Photos of The Hague (Aug 7th)

The Hague is the last city that I visited with J and where I said goodbye to her. We arrived there on a Sunday, and hence the city was substantially quieter than any of the cities I'd visited up to then and many places (tourist attractions and shops) were closed for the morning or day.

The first place we hit was the Binnenhof or their parliament buildings. It was very quiet on the grounds. At the back was a large pool featuring several sculptures, including one that looked like Gumby striding through the water, and another that was an iceberg and freely floated around.

One of the more curious things we saw here were these pillars embedded at some pedestrian street ends that would raise and lower to allow cars to pass. Tourists in vehicles had huge issues with these - it was amusing to watch them drive up to then back away from these things, as the locals tried to instruct them in the correct manner to approach them.

We wandered in the antique market in front of the Het Palais (The Palace) for a while before going to see the Escher exhibit that was currently featured there. J picked up some Indonesian containers (if memory serves) while I found a kiddie version of Le Petit Prince in Dutch.

The Escher exhibit was amazing. I never even knew he was Dutch - he preferred the Spanish and Italian countrysides but his roots are evident in the woodcut Dag en Nacht or Day and Night.

After the exhibit, we made our way to Vredepalais or Peace Palace where the International Court of Justice is held. On the way, we passed a number of embassies including Cuba and Malta, but we did not spy the Canadian one.

Finally, we sought refuge in a coffeeshop to warm up and dry off since it had been raining on and off all day, though it never poured. In the few coffee places we went tea was invariably served in clear glass mugs while coffee was served with small glasses of water to rehydrate you. Drinks also came with a small sweet item such as candies or tiny cookies.

After saying bye to J at the train station, I head to Amsterdam for my final night in the Netherlands.