Trip pics

I thought I'd share some of my pictures from my trip last month.

First stop was Amsterdam:

We arrived in the morning and after checking into our hotel and freshening up, we set out for the open air market on Albert Cuypstraat street. I'd heard they had fabric and yes, they certainly did. Amazingly, I did not buy any.



The flowers in Amsterdam are, of course, gorgeous. I really wished we were staying there longer so we could enjoy the flowers more.



Oh yeah, and the cheese:



I really enjoyed Amsterdam. The canals break up the streets and provide a really peaceful atmosphere.



There were a lot of people out and about, most of them on bicycles. We had an enjoyable time walking around and visiting museums.




The people are very stylish and groovy. I did a bit of window shopping and this caught my eye.



Sadly, I did not get to any fabric stores (other than the vendors on Albert Cuypstraat) and missed a neat looking button shop by about 30 minutes. I liked the door handles.



Our next stop was Brussels. Brussels is an interesting city, not as cool as Amsterdam, but they have a lot of history and we enjoyed walking around the city.



Nice, but I don't think they're as stylish as the Dutch:



Brussels does have a lot of old and different architecture, including a lot of art deco style:



We took a tour through the city to find many of les bande dessinée, comic book characters, painted on the sides of buildings. This one is "Lucky Luke." Notice how he is so fast that he outdraws his shadow.



Here are the cobblestones beneath our (well at least my) tired feet.



And oh yeah, then we went to a race.



It was hot (HOT!) but I had a good time. The race was loud (LOUD!) and it was great to see it live. I've never been to a big-time car race and this was one giant party of about 325,000 people. I've concluded that Europeans, at least those who go to car races, can drink a lot (A LOT!). I'd go again but I'd plan on having a bit of down time after the race. The race ended at 4 pm on Sunday and we had to drive back to Brussels that night and then catch our plane in the morning. It was much too abrupt of an ending to a really enjoyable trip. C'est la vie!