Photos

I have lots of photos from everywhere I went, but I'm too tired to put them all up so I'm putting up just a few from each place, my favorite ones. They don't necessarily show you buildings and sights, I have those but these ones are interesting and show the things I found neat about each place. I may eventually put up more photos but enjoy these until then.

Europe Photos

The Home Stretch

I'm writing you from where I first started back home in Madison. First I'll bring you up to speed on my last days in Europe.

I last left you in Prague after a night of opera and moved on from there to Amsterdam. I was exhausted the day I was leaving for Amsterdam and last minute changed some plans around and booked myself a hotel room trading in for the 20 bed barracks style room I was set to go to at my hostel in Amsterdam.

This was a great idea, I ended up loving Amsterdam not because I got to see a lot of it but because it was a place I just relaxed in. I was there for New Years, and I was all amped up as I made my plans for an awesome night out, it ended up being a quiet night in for me. I got some food and laid in bed watched movies, at midnight I drank some champagne and watched from my window as the sky exploded with fireworks. The fireworks lasted for a good hour and then I got a good night sleep. It wasn't exactly the story I had been looking to create when I chose Amsterdam as my New Years destination but it was the night I needed after all my traveling and I don't regret it.

The next day was beautiful, crisp in the mid-thirties but clear blue skies. I wandered around the canals mostly. Amsterdam was one of my favorite places because it had a great youthful vitality to it and a playful disposition that was present in everything from street art to shop displays and goods.

I did walk around the red light district. I sort of was surprised to find myself in it. I was walking down one of the canals and took a turn into one of the alleyways and I found myself walking next to a row of neon lit windows. They framed women in nothing more than their underwear, laying in beds and sitting in chairs with bored expressions, they took no notice of me and I found that I couldn't look at them for too long. It still felt so wrong, its legal and accepted but the stigma attached to it here in America was carried over by me. I didn't stay long and moved on.

After Amsterdam I moved on to Brussels, my last stop. Brussels hadn't been one of my priority places to go before I left for Europe and I only ended up going because it was easy to get cheap flights from there to Shannon on Ryanair. But the city was great. As the capital for the European Union its very international. All the signs were in both Flemmish and French, but the city also hosts a large Moroccan, Spanish, and Italian population among others. But Brussels is not a very big city and I found I had accomplished most of what I wanted to see my first day there. I was accompanied by a Japanese girl for most of the day, she is studying in Cardiff for the year and during the holiday break is traveling around Europe. She had been visiting friends but Brussels was the beginning of her time travelling alone and her english wasn't very strong. We were staying in the same room at the hostel and so the next morning as we were eating breakfast she asked if she could go around with me that day, and I couldn't say no.

We saw a lot of the city starting with Mannekin Pis the diminutive statue of a boy peeing that has become a symbol for the city. There we ate waffles covered in chocolate and bananas. We left there to go to a flea market, which was a large open lot that was covered in precious junk. It was a great selection of things, but nothing I needed or at least nothing I wanted bad enough to lug back to America. We also went to the cathedral but there was a service going on so we didn't do much exploring. Later that night we went to see the light show in Grand Place which was neat.

And then before I knew it was time to come home. I arrived home yesterday and lasted until about 8 and then went to bed, unfortunately I woke up this morning at 5. I have had bursts of energy but I'm slowly starting to fade.

Its odd to be back. Its odd to realize that all those months of planning and waiting and imagining for my time in Ireland and Europe are done. I'm happy to be home and stay a while in the same place, to see my friends, get back into a bit of a routine. But I'll miss the freedom of travel and the opportunity it gave me, but I know I used my time as well as I could taking advantage of every opportunity. I can now add eleven new countries to the places I've been and one new continent (I still can't believe I went to Africa). I think its going to take time for me to realize all I've done and seen in these past four months and I'm excited to see how these experiences will help me in my future. I plan to travel a lot more in the future but for now its back to the real world and the steady life in Madison.

Thanks for following me all this time, I hope my blog lived up to its name. I will be posting photos soon.