As the morning ripened against the rolling shutter covering our small window, I showered. With the slippers on again; I did not trust the sketchy bathroom cabin. The whole thing appeared to have been molded with half-chewed gum: It was all one color, a sort of tired-seeming pink, with roundish shapes protruding from the walls in the likeness of a sink and a toilet. The soap dispenser was full of air and inevitably within elbow-distance, and the shower area was so small that I hit the wall every time I turned around. The beams got a nice temperature, but they were few and a bit unfocused. However, though, for €45 for three people for one night, it was a deal we might make again. Once I felt clean enough I dried off.
The hotel provided breakfast in the morning, but exiting our beds on time was included in the additional fee. We could not afford it. Yesterday we had all slept sub-par, so we’d needed a little more night this morning. I laid back down on my bed, slid my phone out from underneath my pillow, and did whatever one might do on a phone without internet. Mother had fallen asleep again.
*Bonk* came from the shower.
Upon appearance of the mighty crevasses of hunger, we left. The hotel behind, we visited a nearby Auchan, the super-huge, super-French, super-market chain, and bought boxes of croissants and sodas and water. Mom mentioned how our cousin who grew up in France prefers even the cheapest French croissants to the more expensive ones we have in the Netherlands. “I can see why she does,” mom said, and took another bite from her swirl of baked doughstuff.
I said, “I actually prefer the ones we have in the Netherlands. These are too soft.”
“Don’t let a French person hear you,” brother cautioned.
I glanced around with the discretion of a dog with a piece of chocolate in its mouth. Fortunately, no mob had started growing and following us to lynch me. Possibly because no-one here spoke Dutch.
We got back to the car and drove off. Mother and brother started an animated conversation about music. Something about a specific sub-genre of music that had been on a slow rise for decades, and whether my mother had ever heard of it. And what modern, big-name artists had been inspired by it, maybe. I didn’t really know. With time I started to feel closed off from the talk. The chairs had come to function as a makeshift wall, partitioning car into front and back areas. I was in the back. The talk in the front.
My hunger had been stilled; now I felt something else; something more negative, a swell of irritation was rising within me. It felt like something was gradually pulling my insides together. But I went on like nothing was the matter.
“Might I have another croissant?” brother asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Sure.” I fished one out of the white linen bag. I passed it over to him.
“Thanks.”
The conversation went on. I stared outside.
Strasbourg seemed like a combination between the French, classic-style buildings and a semi-modern city. There were many long, snaking streets, mixing older, stone houses and with newer dwellings. Throughout the city center we saw several small parks with trees and grass. (And countless heaps of biologically-processed dog food.) We parked our car next to one thin but elongated park and took our time walking to the single item on our temporary list of places to visit, the ‘Rue de Rotterdam’—‘Road of Rotterdam’—which was something we, being ‘Rotterdammers’—people from Rotterdam—couldn’t possibly ignore.
Unfortunately, the street was thoroughly uninspiring. (“Shit,” I might’ve said. “It’s shit.” Lines would inevitably be drawn between this street and the city I hailed from, and I entertained that as a personal offense.) The buildings on it were not well-kept and there was no real conformity on what kind of street it was. There were some old, some modern shops in-between houses; there was a school that looked like a prison; and the road itself actually ran underneath a building. (Not that it was the kind of street that ran; it sauntered at best.) Also there wasn’t any kind of transition between the things on the Rue de Rotterdam. It was as if the city planners had seen empty spaces on the road, said: “Let’s build something there,” and then picked what to build by throwing darts at random construction ideas stuck to an ugly wall. The one positive was there being a nice park at the end of the street, so I sat down on one of the benches amongst the small trees and sunlight and read for a while. My mother and brother were elsewhere; as my annoyance had grown I had walked faster and put some distance between them and myself. Perhaps because they knew me, they had allowed some distance to remain.
Reading by myself ‘charged my battery’ somewhat. I soon felt better and looked around. I felt no more need to rue the street. The hodgepodge of building types and purposes did in a manner resemble my city: Rotterdam itself was an amalgamation of modern and old, of contrasting motivations, histories, and aesthetic expressions. In which perhaps any city, including this one, was in its own way not so different. I stood up and walked on.
The streets were busy in a lovely way. I met back up with the others and we strolled together towards the ancient green-blue-purple Opel Astra that was our loyal car for this trip (and that had been our loyal car before and that would hopefully also be our loyal car afterwards still).
On the road again, we had some direction troubles.
“You’re such a b-hole,” brother told NavNav, which is what we called our GPS navigation. (‘NavNav’, that is, not ‘b-hole’. We are more creative than to repeat insults towards technology.)
On a road that, according to NavNav, didn’t exist, we curved into an empty parking lot to make a turn. There was an accès intredit sign and we made accidental eye contact with a gaggle of prostitutes that was behind it. We turned back around before I could get out to ask for directions or the possibility of a family discount.
A demanding obstacle separated us from Zürich. Mountains. Driving through the Alps was a heavy burden for our car, but to the same extent an invigorating one for our psyches. Plus, moving slower meant we had more time to take in the skyward-struck slopes. They were mindboggling, astonishing, stupefying. The mountains we had come across before may have been grand—these were on a different level. It was like I was seeing mountains for the first time. The sheer size of their formation and the sky that seeped through and rolled over them made a lasting impression. Which was in part because I took pictures. But still; traversing their twisting bends and turns and watching one incredible view swivel into the next was crazy cool. The Swiss border might have been hidden somewhere between the crags and valleys; we passed it without noticing.
Finding our hotel in Zürich was easy. Finding a parking spot, not so. After more than 20 minutes of strategic nitpicking we accepted one that was paid but not too overly expensive, and not too far removed from our lodge. The slanted street we walked down was stirring with evening traffic. Most of it had whizzed past the hotel before we got to it.
A ‘privat detektiv’ had made their base of operations in the same building. Had we known, we might’ve utilized their services in order to find a cheap single-night stay somewhere, as the room we’d reserved online had cost €90. Twice as much as yesterday’s room. Then again, the price of a detective would have probably offset any discount they might’ve found for us. Then again, again, they might not have taken the job since it could have been impossible. As in: There’s literally nothing cheap in Switzerland. Not the hotels, not the commodities, not the cars or the restaurants, and certainly not the views.
“Wow,” mom said as she opened the door to our room with the keycard.
“Wow indeed,” brother added, hauling the large blue bag in with him.
“Definitely wow indeed,” I said, walking in last.
The room had four beds, each with a pillow large enough to fill both back seats of our car. Next to two of the beds stood red-velvet, contemporary-style spherical chairs, and there was one tv. Like we’d discovered yesterday, the space was more than twice as big as the one we’d exited a few hours earlier. If this trend were to continue, the place we’d be in tomorrow would be just irresponsibly large; the room the day after would be an entire floor; next we’d probably rent an entire ZIP-code, and the day after that we’d be flat broke, having to sell our kidneys to survive the night in luxury. Or we could sleep in the car.
“We even have a fridge!” mom exclaimed.
“That’s cool,” brother said.
“What are your preferences for which bed?” I asked, after high-fiving my brother for his awesome joke.
“I’ll take whichever,” he answered.
“I’ll go for this one,” mom said, putting her bag on the bed beside the fridge. I took the one opposite her and brother sat down on the bed in the far corner of the room.
We scattered our possessions around the room, our own things nearest our own beds, creating ill-defined quadrants of personal space. We ate the salads we’d found in an Aldi. Mine had yoghurt as dressing and was unexpectedly tasty.
The room was, in fact, so spacious that there was no space left in it for a bathroom. I went out and washed myself in one of the two public showers at the end of the long, sad hallway. The bathroom was reasonably roomy, but the water pressure was lacking and the shower curtain did not close all the way, meaning the rest of the shower room got wet.
But at least I was wearing the slippers.
This is Day #3 of A Place to Get Lost Towards. To return to the overview page, click here. On Day #5, we cheat at a game in the arcade yet are still unable to beat its higher-than-high score, and we witness the stone façade of a church in Metz come to life – or seem to, probably. To read it, click here.
