It was cold and rainy and windy here as the sun set in Amsterdam this All Hallows’ Eve. Spent most of the evening inside the hotel as the cold rain tink-tanked against the glass. Sorry, she said, my personality has a very icy side. Are you going to leave me?

More museum runs and much more wandering today. Walked all the way down to the south side of the city and through the Jordaan neighborhood again; saw Anne Frank’s House; Amsterdams Historisch Museum; De Nieuwe Kirk; De Oude Kerk; Rembrandthuis; revisited the Royal Palace and surroundings… explored a few neat outdoor markets…. I may stay here a bit longer .. am intrigued by the impending “Museum Night” (and I am just really digging this city) .. or may head to Copenhagen or Milan or Vienna. Decision point tomorrow night.

Amsterdam is creative, libertarian, intellectual and alive.

I saw a photography exhibit today that blew my brain out with its stunning and humbling imagery. I cannot remember the photog’s name but it will come later.

[Edit: The photographer is Yann Arthus-Bertrand.]

Meanwhile, I hope my set of pictures from today conveys a little of what I’m feeling.

As I stepped into hers, it was love at first sight. I fell hard. Fetching, classy, majestic, bigger-than-life. Electric. Acoustic. A steely yet warm pulse that I could feel and see flowed down her busy streets. Steeped in tradition yet unapologetically edgy and modern; classically gorgeous and unashamed of her salacious side.

To peek into her closet would be to find her favorite mahogany mink, a string of the rarest pearls, and four-inch stilettos.

She always wants to do something; to show me something. Once in a while it’s garish, but most of it high-minded, vibrant, creative. Her sensory fingerprint is much like her canals; right when you think it could to be too much, she somehow keeps things on the good side of overflow.

She looked back at me as if she could have me if she wanted, but hadn’t yet decided. It was hard for me to play it as cool.

Yup, sweet Jesus, she’s going to break my heart.

I woke up in my Brussels room five minutes before the alarm went off, with a nasty feeling of head congestion that felt like I could barely breathe. As I got up and about it dissipated, and I hope the blame can be laid on the air in the room rather than some developing malady.

Since I want to be in Amsterdam for the Hallowe’en weekend, I decided to head up there today via the intercity train from Brussels. Today Brussels was rather gray, with a light morning coat of rain. Rather than getting lost by taking the wrong tram, which I did my first night here, I was very proud of myself for catching the proper tram and making it right into Brussels Midi station without a hitch.

Then I stepped into the train station ticket area and within a couple of minutes spoke with an agent who stamped my ticket and told me where I should board … in ten minutes. Ten minutes? What? No lines, no waiting? No pointless security checks? For this American that was pleasant news. Off to platform 20 I went…
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Brussels has been more fun and lovely than I expected. Other than the gourmand culture that I’m over-enjoying, it has a style and aesthetic that goes beyond its (literal) taste to include sight and touch. By that I mean, its people are focused on a sensory goodness that feels more contemporary and less traditional than London’s. There are countless shops and makers of almost any kind of food product, an abundance of high-fashion boutiques, and plenty of gathering spots for the cool kids.
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I am really enjoying Brussels. The food is excellent, the people nice. Were I not walking everywhere, I’d have gained 10 pounds already from the endless gustatory temptations. Today I checked out the Royal Palace, the Palace of Justice, and then wandered into the Lower Town. Centuries ago, the Lower Town was where the immigrants and workers lived, while the Upper Town was where the wealthier classes hung their hats. The two areas still have very distinct feels. I also scoped out Grand Place, which was teeming with tourists. The space is filled with some great gothic architecture, and I hung around a little while hoping they’d light the place up nicely as the sun went down, but nothing spectacular happened in that regard.
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As an English-speaking American with pathetic foreign language skills, traveling to England is easy. There’s some slight adjusting to do, as I mentioned, but as a native speaker of English it’s painfully easy to get yourself around and get your business done. In that light, arriving in Belgium yesterday and making my way around last night (I am staying in a non-touristy out-of-the-way part of town) and today for meals, exploration and such - for the first time I really got the sense of being in a foreign land. I realize a lot of this sounds rather quaint, especially to those of you who’ve backpacked across Asia and such, but my foreign travel experience is shamefully limited. My French skills are not great, and I’m sure to them I sound like a moron when trying to form a complete sentence. Brussels has some linguistic schizophrenia itself - most signs are in both Dutch and French.
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I’m having second thoughts about my “draft” itinerary, which is why I’m glad it’s draft. I’ve booked nothing ahead, so can pretty much go where I want and when, with little worry.

On that note, I decided to take the train to Belgium today. I took the high-speed Eurostar from London’s Waterloo station. The check-in agent remarked on the hour of sunshine we’d just had, as if God had worked some kind of miracle. After passing through security and informing the immigrations officer that I was headed for Brussels, he offered a skeptical glance and stamped my passport.
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It’s been a rather gray and rainy couple of days. Fortunately, I bought an umbrella when I arrived. Unfortunately, I left it in the hotel today, and decided to get lost (and soaked) in the Lower Marsh portion of the city.

I did get a few shots during the rain-breaks and managed to keep my camera mostly dry. I know they’re kinda touristy shots but there are a couple funky ones. I think I am headed out of here in the next day or so.

I went to DJ Magazine’s annual awards bash, and was less than impressed. That’s what happens, I guess, when you’re not on the cool list.

[A Flickr usage note: the browsing features show the smaller versions of the image. To see the full image, click the "all sizes" chicklet above the image.]

I flew in on an overnight flight, and as one who can’t sleep on airplanes, that turned out to be a slightly less than ideal move. Having not slept since the previous night, I was feeling wiped out here when I arrived, and passed out at about 11PM - for a few hours. Now I’m up, wide awake, at 4AM local time. Here’s hoping my sleep cycle recovers. But in the meantime, I’ll crank out a piece…
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Cheers from the PopTech conference. It’s off to a great start, with music legend Brian Eno sharing the stage with game genius Will Wright. Hearing the father of ambient music discuss the philosophy and practicality of emergence alongside the driving force behind simulation gaming - and the forthcoming game Spore - is an example of what PopTech is all about. To see all the speakers, check out the speaker list here and get the live stream and such here.

On another note, now that I’m on the road, I’m missing Keith Olbermann’s “special comment.” As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Olbermann is one of the few in the mainstream media who is really stepping up and saying what needs to be said. On that, see the latest one courtesy of the good folks at Crooks and Liars.

Over the past couple years, I’ve tended to opt for quality (while I understand that is debatable) over quantity when it came to posting. I’d stew for a couple weeks over what to post, and finally put something up that I judged “postworthy.” But, since the next couple months is going to be a lot of travel and random adventuring, it is likely that I’ll be posting shorter pieces of less consequence. Hope they are somewhat interesting - and please, if they aren’t already low enough, lower your expectations.

On Sunday, I went for a nice hike up western Maine’s Mount Cutler with my friend Ian. See the pictures here.

My draft itinerary for the next month or two - very rough and very loose - looks something like this:

Camden, Maine for PopTech -> London -> Brussels -> Amsterdam (for Hallowe’en, I hope!) -> Copenhagen -> Krakow, Poland -> Budapest, Hungary -> Ljubjana, Slovenia -> Vienna, Austria -> Paris (but I reserve the right to love any of them enough to skip subsequent places on the itinerary…)

Then I’m back to the US to commence a nice, slow, twisty drive across the country, roughly along these lines:

Boston -> New York -> Atlantic City -> Virginia Beach -> Nags Head / Kitty Hawk -> Nashville -> Saint Louis -> Omaha -> Denver / Boulder -> Cheyenne -> Billings -> Sandpoint, Idaho -> Vancouver, BC -> Seattle -> Portland (the other one) -> San Francisco -> Los Angeles.

Ideas? Pit stops? Must sees? Do tell.

Four years after arriving in Boston, I said good-bye yesterday.

Before I stepped out of my place and into the car, I meditated on how lucky I’d been to have had this experience, to have lived as I did, doing what I did, all the while learning a ton. I am better for it all, and inside that emotional envelope I found gratitude that dwarfed the speck of sadness.

Gorgeous skies and crisp autumn air wrapped it all as the city’s serpentine skyline shrank in my rearview. Paul Van Dyk’s “See You On The Other Side” harmonized with the growling thunder of my engine. With a smile that felt a mile deep, I opened the sunroof.

Onward. North, for now.

Hastert, trying to save a party destined for the electoral dustbin, held a bumbling and portentious press conference today in which he, y’know, announced a new “tip line” that people can “confidently call” - and then provided someone else’s toll-free fax number. These folks can’t even get their faux-apologies right.

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