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Lisbon, Portugal - Visited Portugal in mid July for the music festival Super Bock Super Rock located near the beach south of Lisbon. Highlights of the festival were Arcade Fire, Portishead, Tame Impala, and Junip.
After the festival I spent a few more days climbing the hills of Lisbon (the geography and layout of the city has much in common with San Francisco), eating fresh seafood, Portuguese cheese, and lots of Chorizo.
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Siracusa, Sicily, Italy - Visited Siracusa, Sicily for a long weekend of chilling on the beach, jumping off cliffs into the ocean, cooking up fresh fish from the markets, and wandering around the old city, all in 35C/95F+ temps.
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Helsinki, Finland - Visited Finland in mid June where I met up with my brother and four other friends I’ve studied with in Amsterdam. Our week in Finland consisted of exploring the city, eating reindeer meat, pub crawling, and then recovering with a daily sauna visit, including taking dips in the icy Baltic sea between sessions.
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Queen’s Night and Day in Amsterdam
Queen’s Day, or Koninginnedag in Dutch, is one of the most popular holidays in The Netherlands and one of the biggest parties in the world (especially in Amsterdam). While Queen’s Day is officially April 30, the festivities start the night of April 29 with many bars and clubs hosting special Queen’s Night events…but for most people it’s just an excuse to start celebrating early in the streets in anticipation of Queen’s Day. The naive often overdue it on Queen’s Night and don’t see much of Queen’s Day itself, while the wise and foresighted balance it out to get the best of both (I was in the second group mostly thanks to the advice of I gained from some Dutch).
Queen’s Day itself starts around 6am with the streets, from the suburbs to the city center, filling with every item imaginable for sale, like a Amsterdam-wide yard sale. Since I had to get that previously mentioned balance to make it through both days, I didn’t make it out for the morning street markets (though I did see people marking off their spot on the street for selling in the earlier morning hours while biking back to Uilenstede). By the time I made it downtown around 1:30pm, the city was overflowing with people, orange people, or at least wearing all sorts of orange clothing and accessories. Orange is the color of the Dutch royal family, House of Orange-Nassau, so on Queen’s Day, Dutch National Football team matches, and many other major sporting events, Oranjegekte (orange craze) takes over the country. We spent the day wandering between all the major -pleins and squares of the city, listening to live and DJ’d music, and consuming the “occasional” beverage, with a lot of Canal Chilling* in between. As the sun started to set we started the long walk back to our bikes (which were far south of the city center), but fortunately the walk wasn’t without its excitement for we were joined by thousands of Dutch who were heading home as well. Once we found our bikes (the combination of Dutch street names and the occasional beverage can be a hinderance), we rolled off for Uilenstede finally arriving home around 11pm. To sum it up, this won’t be my last time celebrating Queen’s Day in Amsterdam.
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*Usually involves finding a sunny place to sit on the edge of a canal while watching boatloads (or really anything that floats) of drunk Dutch dancing to techno and house music. At times may involve squirting passing boats and pedestrians with whatever liquids are closest at hand (let’s just say there’s not the possibility that it didn’t involve canal water) with a squirt gun recovered from the mayhem near Museumplein.
Visited Prague, or Praha as the locals call it, in November of 2010. Prague, located in the Czech Republic is one of the most beautiful cities of Eastern Europe. A walk through the winding cobblestone streets and cavernous underground bars leaves one with the feeling that they’ve fallen back in history to the height of medieval Europe.
Days were spent walking the city streets, exploring museums and churches, and random snowball fights when conditions allowed (see the next post about snow covered Prague). Nights were spent much like the days, except the focus was the exploration of restaurants and bars. The combination of not yet being on the Euro and having some of the best breweries in the world makes Prague a beer lovers city (keep an eye out for a Prague beer focused post).
Life Abroad: The Book (Volume One)
As of today, I’ve been living in the Netherlands for six months, having arrived August 17, 2010. Everyone, whether they have lived in the same place their entire life, traveled around occasionally, or lived abroad for any period of time, changes (by some degree) everyday as they integrate new information and perspectives. The difference is made by the familiarity of the newly encountered knowledge and views. The more familiar the less one is forced to reevaluate their internal model of the world; the more exotic the more one is forced to step back and consider various perspectives from a neutral vantage point. And that is, in a nutshell, what I ‘dig’ so much about living and traveling abroad. It’s been an exhilarating six months, and the next six are sure to be even more so.
And now onto the Life Abroad: Volume One. The book includes maps and photos of my travels through The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Morocco, and the Czech Republic. It had a limited run of print editions*, but is now available free as a PDF. Download here (file size is about 75MB; right-click “Save Link As”).
*Contact me for details if you’re interested in the print version.
Berlin in Photos: East Side Gallery
The East Side Gallery is a 1.3km preserved section of the Berlin Wall on which various artists have painted powerful, thought provoking murals. Read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Gallery
Berlin in Photos
Berlin is a fascinating city to visit. Like most European cities it contains a mix of old and new architecture, but it is unique in that it also contains a mix of Western and Communist influences as well. While I was only there for one full day and two nights, I packed in as much as possible. During the day the group took a walking tour of the city guided by an Australian ex-pat living in Germany, and then made our own tour in the afternoon, specifically of the East Side Gallery (section of the Berlin wall turned into public art - pictures to come). At night we crawled the pubs of Berlin, including a squatted building containing multiple bars, a club, garden, marketplace, and living spaces. The final day was spent on a seven hour bus ride back to Amsterdam.
Castle Zuylen
Back in early September, Paul, Lindsay, Lauren, Derek, and I visited Castle Zuylen located near the city of Utrecht (the city I ended up in on my first day in the Netherlands after a train mishap). While the castle was originally built in the 13th century, it is has been updated so many times that it looks more like an old manor that just happens to have a wall and moat surrounding it.
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