Blaine's B&B at the Park Amsterdam

... to do.

We will certainly miss the foggy winters of Amsterdam. Also, we will miss our bikes and our daily cycling in the town centre. Naturally, we will miss our family, friends and colleagues. But for now we are especially focused on the first leg of our journey: Singapore.

... for about 10 years, however he produced hundreds of paintings during this time. His early paintings used dark colours and often portrayed the hard but dignified life of peasants. His sojourns in France led to the brighter style that is famous today.

Both Ann and I felt quite sad after the tour, as the paintings led us through his mental illness and his eventual suicide. The devotion of his brother Theo was quite remarkable, as Theo ...

... So I tend to tell certain people that I was traveling a lot shorter time than I was truly doing because I kind of felt embarrassed that I was doing 3 months. I met a lot of people that were doing 6 or 8 months and I even meet a few that were doing 12 months worth. But I guess I kind of felt like a pompous ass because I was doing a considerably long trip and sometimes would modify it from 3 to maybe 2 or 1 month depending on the person and what I felt like ...

... unbelieving at me and this battle of attrition escalated into me, very politely, punking him out of my bed. (ïs this going to be a problem?) He got up and when I finished getting stuff out of my bag, I looked over and he'd moved to a mattress with no sheets and passed out upright against the wall. I felt kinda ******, woke him up and told him it was okay to crash out on my bed til i got back later that night.

Long story short
- I now believe it ...

... sean bought some $150 dollar sunglasses though.....thez actuallz did end up looking good even because ...he had no waz of kowing that the time. anzwaz, tri8ed to make it to the heineken brewerz, which would usuallz be a half hour walk, but took us about 2 hours....i wonder whz. it was aweome there though, thez gave us 3 free beer, showed us how thez brewed it, there were fun rides and stuff. best. museum. ever. So we started walking back to ...

... minature horses, goats, bikes, people riding horses, a rollerblader, some windmills (both an old one and a huge modern one), etc.). I think the pictures will do a better job of describing the experience... (although I have to warn you that I took most of these photos while I was riding along the road so some are of nothing or are weird angles! but I think I did a decent job)

... moving around... um, seductively? Anyhoo, not much else to report here... haha. <Lang's Extended Version> It looked like it would be an overcast day again today, but luckily, Terry had our whole day planned out, so we didn't really have to do too much apart from make our way over to Chinatown to be picked up by 11am.. So after breakfast, we slowly made our way over - of course this meant that we needed to walk through the Red Light ...

... next to each other because someone is always trying to pass you. It is also very dangerous walking in Amsterdam because the trains run very close to the sidewalks as well. When I say close, I mean two or three feet away. Far enough away not to hit a bike but not far enough away from you to fall into one if you tripped... Other things that we observed as we were walking around, there are trains everywhere in Amsterdam and they are running constantly. In Cologne, the train ...

... everywhere!). Would have liked to have stayed a little longer but needed to meet Steph in Frankfurt, Germany! Not to mention I couldnt find much in the way of hostels for less than 60 euros a night... I was lucky to get the two nights I did for about 23 euros a night!

... continues to live in the mean streets of fin-de-siecle New Orleans and in the hearts of the people of the most run-down, destitute, stripped-bare-and-left-for-dead underclass neighborhoods of the city, where the Wild Indians of Mardi Gras and St. Joseph's Night perenially represent the triumph of spirit, creativity, and beauty of song and dance over every obstacle the oppressor class can place in their way. The Wild Indians almost have to be seen ...