Greener Pastures Dispatch

Sorry we haven’t gotten into more on this trip, but We have been busy, busy, busy. Catching up at work, catching up at home, and moving our daughter to a new home, and preparing to move ourselves as well. I promise, more soon.

Meanwhile, you can entertain your self with the blog of a friend of the family. (seen in the blogroll at right and @ http://tenderfootontheoldsod.blogspot.com/)

Peace, RKK

Our flight was good. Security took an eternity clearing everyone to board the plane. However, that meant we sat in the airport longer (as we waited for the line to go away) and less on the plane. Our flight was shorter than expected at just under 10 hours. I made it through three movies and a piece of an old one I had seen (as I knew I couldn’t finish it).

It somehow seemed strange to land and not have the cabin break into spontaneous applause. Our flight into Amsterdam from Moscow, almost a week ago, was the last time that happened. It seemed so weird at first, I mean the pilot can’t even hear it for goodness sake. But after a while it just seems appropriate. Yeah… We are still alive! Is that a vote of thanks for the pilot, or does it express serious doubts about their talent? Well, they all seemed like excellent pilots from where we sat, so Clap Clap Clap!

I think the next few weeks will be spent going over all the things that we noticed but weren’t photographable. And as we go through the photos, I’m sure we will be going, “How did we NOT get a picture of that?” I will keep you posted as we progress through that.

We are waiting for a pizza to be delivered, and trying to stay awake late enough to make tomorrow a reasonable transition. We left just before 1:00 PM and arrived just after 1:00 PM. It’s now about 4:30 but that’s 1:30 in the morning the next day back where we started. If we made it until 9:30 tonight we will have been up 24 hours. I am still sick and will not be seeing 9:30 arrive tonight. I’ll just have to suffer tomorrow.

It’s good to be home. We had some snail mail to go through, and some of it was from people reading this. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and responding as well.

“What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?” as the song goes. We have seen a lot this trip, and we have met a lot of very nice people in a part of the world that seems scary and remote to us in the States. It isn’t so scary as we are scared, and it is only remote geographically. “People are people.” as another song says. And it is so true.

Peace, Love, and Understanding to all, R&R

We are at the airport and at the gate. Our flight leaves at 12:55 and we get home around an hour later. Of course it is actually over ten hours flight time. I’m sure we will be ready for bed early.

When we arrived we caught a ride with an “off the book” taxi who told us up front we could get him in trouble if we ratted him out. He was a nice guy and quite informative, and we considered calling him to come back. But we had a taxi right there so we took it instead. Cost almost exactly what our off the book guy had predicted. But it was about the same as what I gave hime by the time you added the tip.

We tried the automatic machine to check in, but it fouled things up and we spent 20 minutes with a girl at the desk getting it fixed. Then another line to check bags anyway. Why bother? I end up doing everything twice every time I use one of those things.

All we have left now if the hand luggage check, which they do gate by gate here. We are just outside the gate, and still have out water. Flights elsewhere can take water, but we will have to dump the last to go to the States.

I may post a few more things here in the next week or two, as we have time to relax and reflect and go through the twenty some odd gigabytes of pictures we have. Literally thousands of shots to sort through. Many blurred by bouncing around in a moving car or train or plane. But I am betting it is still in the thousands even after we delete those.

I am feeling just a bit better today, but I don’t know if I am better or just rested. Plus I know I don’t have to walk much today.

Next stop. USA!

This has been a fantastic adventure, and I know it will be a long time before we have digested it completely. Thanks to all who have commented or sent emails. And our best to everyone.

R&R

I wasn’t doing much better today. Maybe worse on the cold front, thought my feet weren’t too bad. We decided to walk the Vondel Park this morning, while I was still fresh. That would bring us back around to the Van Gogh Museum about the time they opened.

The nice thing in this was the light was excellent for shooting. It is really big, really beautiful, and has a lot of bike traffic for the commute, so it seemed pretty safe in spite of one or two people there who were quite obviously insane. What would a city park be without the crazy?

We then went through the Van Gogh Museum as planned. We loved his work, but the museum was being renovated and some of the layout of the exhibits seemed odd. Plus some of it was poorly lit. A bit disappointing, but when you get to see many of Van Gogh’s best you really can’t complain. Well you shouldn’t. As bad as I was feeling it was actually pretty easy to complain.

From there I had very little walk left in me, so we bought a pass on a canal boat and headed for the Rembrandt House Museum. Then we realized that the Oudekirk (a very old church) also closed at 5 in the afternoon. That meant we could go shoot it from the outside, but if we went all the way around to the Rembrandt House first the interior would be out.

So we changed plans and walked from the end of the boat line to the church rather than board another boat around to the Rembrandt House. We figured we could see the church, walk to the Rembrandt House and still have time to go in there as well. It would only cost us good light for the church (as it was very bright out mid afternoon).

It turns out the outside of the church wasn’t too nice anyway, so no loss there.

And we lucked out in that there was an art exhibit inside and so admission was free today. This was a real interesting place, as most of the floor is made up of marker slabs for those buried under the church (including Rembrandt’s first wife). We are talking old here.

There are also many paintings on the wooden ceiling that date from the 1400s.

I was feeling really bad and even though it was a lot cooler inside, I kept having the sweats and shakes and had to sit down a lot. Once we moved outside again I was better in the open air and breeze, even if it was hotter.

We made our way through the Red Light district on the way to Rembrandt’s House. I knew it was coming, and I thought the “old Sailor” was a give away. Not much to top an old sailor for red light clientele.

But I guess it was still a bit surprising to see the girls hawking their talents in little booths in the middle of town in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny summer day.

We were still chatting about that when we arrived at the rembrandt House Museum, only to discover a sign saying it is closed this week and next for remodel work. Nice that none of the places that talk about the museum (signs, info stands, here at the hotel, etc) bothered to post that. We had decided on the house over the Rijksmuseum (which has many Rembrandts) based on they all operate the same hours and we had to do just one. We selected the house as it is supposed to be furnished as in his time, and with many of the painting of others that he owned.

We though it would give us a rembrandt experience and a touch of what life was like at the time. As it is we got to see this sign, and had no time to switch and go to the Rijksmuseum.

Well, no use crying over spilt milk. We leave tomorrow for home and will have to wait for a return trip I guess. It is such a great city I can’t see how we would not be back at some point.

A last couple of shots. We spotted this game of chess near the Hard Rock and it goes on all the time in a prk named for a chess master.

And we also spotted this triple deck bike parking facility near the Central Station. Did I mention they like bikes?

See everyone at home soon. R&R

Well, no photos from the Anne Frank house this morning. They don’t let you take pictures. We did get a special edition copy of the book that is only sold there as a memento. I must say, it is an even more moving experience than one can imagine.

We walked there, then walked on a canal walk from the tour book we had that maps out specific buildings and tells stories about the more important ones. About a third or so of the way through you end up at a famous department store with a 6th floor restaurant. Six floors is high for this part of town so you get a good view.

Here is a shot Rita took out one of the windows.

And here Rita goes over the route still to come.

One thing I notice is how much more variety of vehicles and odd brands as well. I particularly liked seeing was the big VW trucks, and then put them up against the smaller vehicles.

And here is a real Mini, before BMW up-sized them for reintroduction.

Another obvious fact is the age of things. Especially as they were fond of saying when they built something.

Some cultural differences as well. Here I am using a urinal on the street. There were urinals placed out for the concert at the square when we arrived Sunday that were made of plastic like porta potties, but just 4 urinals on the four sides. Used out in the open, with no walls or screens. At least the permanent ones have a small screen around them.

Two more canal shots. One from this morning with great light that Rita shot as we walked toward the Anne Frank house.

And one shot from the boat as we returned from a canal excursion. This is a picture of our hotel.

Tomorrow we have to work in several things. But the difficulty will be my condition. As the title mentioned I am sick and tired. My cold was worse today, plus my feet did not like me walking more than I have in the last two years all in one day.

For sure we will work in a photo shoot of the oldest area of town, and the Van Gogh museum as well. Plus we have to figure out how to go to the Rembrandt House Museum without too much walking. But if I am not dead, we will work out something.

I ran out of Tylenol, and apparently they don’t sell it (or it’s ingredient) here. The first medicine they sold me did nothing, but I found another this afternoon that feels like it is at least nearly as good. So hopefully I will have semi healed feet and a better head to finish up our last full day here.

More to come. R&R