Well, my girlfriend and I have been floating around Amsterdam all week. The weather is pleasantly cool, unlike the heatwave much of the U.S. has been suffering through.
I’m putting together some awesome panorama shots which I’ll display once I return from the trip. In the meantime, here’s a couple of random pics I took while out and about.
The first is from Museumplein, a large park in the south of Amsterdam which holds three of the biggest art museums in the city, the Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh museum, and the Stedelijk (modern art, pronounced “stay-to-lick”) museum. The view here is from the Rijksmuseum, looking back towards the concert hall at the other end of the plein.
The second picture is a distant shot of one of the neo-Gothic churches in the city, the Krijtberg.
More pics to come! I’ve also taken video of some interesting behavior at the Amsterdam zoo which will make for a nice post…
Skulls in the Stars 
Every time that I say I lived in Amsterdam, people raise their eyebrows knowingly and all of a sudden it’s “Rembrandt” this and “Van Gogh” that (not to mention Escher). People just assume that if you go to Amsterdam you must visit the museums. You know, there’s more to Amsterdam than history and culture, people. Gah! Pisses me off to no end.
PD: It’s odd, but I was thinking pretty much the exact same thing earlier today (though not quite in the ironic sense.)
I’m off to the Ukraine tomorrow. Wish me luck; if I don’t return, tell Critter he can have my boardgames (what am I saying; he’s got ALL of them already!)
PD and Skullstars – I WISH people would ask me about the museums! Everyone I’ve told that I was going to Amsterdam assumed I was going to get stoned. I haven’t been stoned in 15+ years and have no desire to travel around the world to do it now.
To TG: Hmmm… my irony was a bit too subtle, it would seem. In the future, assume that anything I say is, at best, facetious.
As was once said on The Simpsons:
Teen 1: “Dude, are you being sarcastic?”
Teen 2: [shrugs] “I don’t even know anymore.”
But seriously, when I got back from Amsterdam, I wished I had a t-shirt that said “Yes, I lived in Amsterdam. No, I didn’t get high.”
PD – I did miss your irony. I guess I don’t know you well enough to pick up on that.
Plus, I assumed you hung out with a better class of people than I did.
TG wrote: “Plus, I assumed you hung out with a better class of people than I did.”
Nope, I don’t hang out with a better class of people. If we didn’t swim in the same class, you probably wouldn’t be dating Mr. Skulls-in-the-Stars. š
Hope you both had a great time, and I really should look into making that t-shirt I mentioned above.