Pictures Of The Trip

I have gotten most of my pictures up on the web. Click here to view them.

Vacation Over

Well, I am back now and the trip is over. It was a lot of fun. I can't say that traveling all alone is too exciting, but backpacking is a wonderful experience when you are young and can still put up with all the difficulties of hostels and public transportation.

I will be filling in the blog with pictures as soon as possible.

Long Flight

I got the chance to see 5 movies on the airplane back from London:

Capote(2.5 stars)
Fun with Dick and Jane (3 stars)
Prime (3.5 stars)
Memoirs of a Geisha (3 stars)
Bad News Bears (2 stars)

That was a long flight, plus it was delayed 1.5 hrs in Heathrow, which is never very fun.

Air Traffic Control Sucks And So Does Virgin Atlantic

I missed my flight home to SFO. My flight from Brussels was about 50 minutes late because of technical difficulties and the air traffic. And when you get to Heathrow and make a stink about queuing because you are late for your flight, you get through the terminal pretty fast, but you can't stop Virgin Atlantic from their automatic computer shutdown 1 hour before your flight. Thus, you are screwed. They hapilly routed me to LA and said I was on my own from there. It's a long walk to Newark from LA, so I have to spring for a Southwest flight.

Bruges

This was a beautiful city... probably the best on the trip. My first stop was the chocolate museum of course. They showed how chocolate is produced and told about the history of the use of chocolate. I didn't know that the Aztecs used it as currency. It's kind of strange to think that you could either have enough cocoa beans for a hot chocolate or enough to buy a full feast.

Next was the bell tower. You get a great look at the city from the top. The day started out a bit rainy but turned out okay in the late afternoon. Regardless, the view was pretty good.

This town had 4 old wooden windmills no longer in use. I got some good pictures.

Other than that, I walked around an awful lot and took a lot more pictures per mile walked than all the other places I have visited.

Off To Bruges

I am on my way to Bruges for a day trip. I hope it will be exciting. I have one more night in my Brussels hostel and then my vacation is over. :(

It was quite an adventure.

Brussels

Friday morning, I got up early to do some sight seeing and to see the Museum of Fine and Modern Art when it opened at 10. I took a long stroll through a market before a couple hours in the museum.

I ended up randomly meeting someone on the train from Amsterdam, and we decided to meet up and hike around Brussels. It was nice to have a buddy willing to do about 5 miles of hiking around the city to see the sites. I took lots of pictures which I will post when I get back.

London Flash Back

I went to see Queen with Paul Rodgers last night. At one point Brian May did a phenomenal guitar solo with a backdrop of footage from London streets. I got very excited. Then the camera rounded a corner and I thought, "Hey, that’s Charing Cross Road." I can't decide if it is cool or scary that I knew that.

Walking Aroung Brussels

I spent most of the day walking around Brussels and seeing all the magnificent architecture here.

European Parliament
They give free audio tours of parliament so that was my first stop here. It turned out to be pretty long and boring, but I did get to see the main meeting and debate room. That was pretty much the core of the tour.

The Hague

I had a late start Wednesday because I ended up staying up too late with the Canadians, and then the Irish men that joined our group.

Wednesday was spent at The Hague and I walked all over the place. I must have put 5 miles on my sneakers. The Hague was a pleasant little town where all the main sites are within walking distance.

Torture museum:
This was a tour of an old prison where they would hold people who were on trial. The tour was all in Dutch but I there was a little pamphlet telling the story of one governor falsely accused of conspiracy and consequently being tortured and killed there.

In the evening, I went to the beach to get some rest and relaxation in the near freezing temperature.

Red Light District

So I am catching up on the blog here while on the train to Brussels.

Tuesday evening was spent on a walking tour of the Red Light District where I saw the sketchy side of Amsterdam. While asking someone to take my picture, I ended up meeting a group of three Canadians whom I hung out with for the evening. It sure beat walking around the cold streets of Amsterdam for the night.

Home Again, Home Again

I made it back from London in one piece and I am back at work today. The whole trip seems surreal because it all happened so quickly. From the moment I decided to go to the moment I got off the plane in SF was less than a month. I had a great time and can't wait to go back again, and again, and again.

Amsterdam, Getting Settled In

The flight this morning was rather quick. I think that we were in the air for about an hour. Most of the time was spent on the ground queuing as only the British can. I think that they said that the flight was closing about 45 minutes to departure time. I decided to run to the gate to find out that no one had boarded yet.

I got a chance on the plane to read my Amsterdam tour guide which really came in handy. Thanks Liz. I walked around Amsterdam for a while and ended up getting a place at a Christian youth hostel for about 18 Euros each night. It's in a good neighborhood and I now know how to use public transit here so even though it's like a 20 minute walk from central, it works. I hope the dorm style accomodations aren't too bad. It will be a lot different than staying at my posh London hotel.

Anne Frank House:
My first event of the day. It was pretty thought provoking though a bit sparse on information. It was impressive to see where she spent a few years as a child confined to such a small abode.

Sex museum:
My second event. All I can say is that this was rather stupid. Oh well.

I have to figure out what to do tonight.....

Debate Settled

Today we visited the Natural History Museum (Erik for the second time), where we settled a debate that originally came up on our trip to Peru. What kind of creature are ticks? Are they insects? Arachnids? Some other unique class of bug (or arthropods as we learned creepy crawlies with exoskeletons are called)? As it turns out, a tick is in fact an arachnid because it has two body segments (head and abdomen), 4 pairs of legs, and lacks wings and antennae. In fact, within the arachnid family, ticks are most closely related to mites, as opposed to spiders or scorpions. Now we just need to know who is related to fleas and lice.

Victoria and Albert and Jack the Ripper Tour

Today, we spent some time at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a huge museum with lots of modern art, Renaissance art, glassware, iron works, fashion exhibits and a lot of other things. It's definitely worth a look if you are ever in London. It took us about 2 hours before we were exhausted with the place and went to this great little Thai food restaurant where the yellow chicken curry was pretty scrumscious.

Later that evening, we did a Jack The Ripper Tour of White Chapel which was pretty fun. This is a 2 hour walking tour where the guide talks about the first serial killer of Britain and details all of the murders that were committed as we walk to the places where they happened.

Lastly, Liz showed me Mile End, where she lived for a semester, and we ate a huge kebab to end the night.

Tomorrow, I am off to Amsterdam, so I might not have as much access to the computer. Hopefully, the blog entries will keep coming though.

Portabello Road Market, Freud Museum, and Harrod’s

Portabello road is the biggest outdoor market I have ever seen, and the most crowded. We pretty much just walked down the main street and headed away from the place. Liz decided to get a nice quilted skirt, which apparently is a Portabello road specialty.

The Freud Museum sucked. I didn’t quite know that it was just his house, a few pictures, and a 40 minute video on him.

Liz dragged me to Harrod’s, which is the biggest department store I have ever seen. I conceded to going because there was a promise of great chocolate at Harrod’s, and there was great chocolate. After the chocolate, we shopped and shopped and then I was able to get away in about 2 hours.

A Night On The Town

On Friday, we went out with all of my coworkers to a really nice dinner and some good dessert. It’s too bad that we had already eaten because we expected to go to this pub with them. We hit up this club named the Roxy until about 3:00 am where they played 80s and 90s music. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Michael, Naomi, and Erin.