brugge, luxembourg

sunday i hit museums- saw madonna and child statue from michelangelo-- one of very few of his pieces outside of italy... monday i biked to the north sea coast and tuesday i left for luxembourg by train and then took a bus to this tiny town... my hostel is on a lake and today i will mountain bike and then head to luxembourg city... museums/old castle tomorrow and perhaps a late train to germany to meet Jan, one of my roommates from chas. last summer.

some photos finally.

i just pulled some randomly from my memory card... a sampling of stuff. tulips, canal/bikes in amsterdam... my new obsession with photographing numbers, art imitating life-- me inside a huge piece of art/statue, from a belltower in brugges, and my obsession of photographing signs/ symbols... i think it is a really neat commentary on how everyone speaks different languages, but everyone can understand simple drawings/symbols. enjoy.

Belgium

I departed ways with Rhonna and Nori on Saturday morning and got dropped at the Amsterdam train station, got a rail pass and 4 hours later I made it to Brugges, Belgium after changing trains in Antwerp. Now in 2008 the borders within the EU are much more open... I havent had my passport looked at since I arrived in Copenhagen. This city is gorgeous... lots of canals and old architecture... the European capital of culture a few years ago i think. went to museums today and climbed the bellfry... 366 steps. tomorrow, i will bike to the coast, tuesday to luxembourg.

M, T, W

This week we have visited a few national parks, went inside a working windmill and toured tulip fields and gardens. All very cool... I hopefully got a few great images of tulips... so much color. The old windmill was really something too. Today we visited a museum with 90 Van Gogh's and a painting or two from every other famous artist you can think of... picasso, monet, manet, ceazane, rivera, gaugain, etc. etc. This place was in the middle of no where... a super rich family donated their collection and old hunting lands and it is now a national park. Anyway... tomorrow morning I am going to attempt to post some photos... so check back.

Amsterdam

After arriving on the train i took 1 1/2 hours to wonder to the hotel and was just leaving a note for Rhonna when she and Nori, her friend, arrived. perfect timing. we hit the Van Gogh museum, the home Anne Frank hid in and another museum. All very cool. The next day (Sunday) we met the CountryWalkers tour group and did a guided walk around the city and had lunch overlooking a canal. Beautiful city, so much water. We then drove to Haarlem and walked a bit around the town before having a delicious dinner at a local restaurant.

15:34 hour train

I like riding trains because you get to see countryside you may never see any other way... this one was a long one though (from copenhagen to amsterdam) . the amazing thing to me was that it was exactly on time... 15+ hour train arrives 2 countries over in exact time. Met up with my aunt today and we saw anne frank's house, the van gogh museum and another museum. Yesterday i took a train over to Malmo, Sweeden for a little day trip from Copenhagen... cool place-- saw and old castle, went in an old submarine and saw some other cool exhibits. The day before, thursday i think (can't remember if i have written about this yet), i rented a bicycle and rode around Copenhagen. very cool. saw some art exhibits, the mermaid statue, some wind turbines from afar and just rode around a lot... and got lost some... ive gotten to be pretty good at following a map walking around citites, but doing it on a bike is much, much more difficult... but that is part of the fun... i wasnt really lost because i wasn't going anyplace in particular most of the time. thats it for now...

copenhagen

welp, i made it safe... extremely exhausted... got in at 7.15 a.m here (1.15 EST) didn't get much sleep on the plane, but trying to stay up so jet lag won't be bad tomorrow. will try to post photos soon. sorry, that's all for now.

Departure

Greetings... I depart tomorrow, 15 April for a month journey in Europe. I'll spend a few days in Copenhagen before meeting my aunt Rhonna [thanks for making this trip possible] in Amsterdam for a week in Holland. I'll then travel to Belgium and Luxembourg. Next I'll visit one of my roommates from Charleston in Germany and will eventually probably fly back to Istanbul to see my friends there. Take Care, Brian