* ♿️ Another busy week with the start of the quarter, but not at all a bad week. A particular moment of personal triumph: As part of our Opening Week committee, I’d pushed for a hybrid (both in-person and online) approach, rather than just requiring everyone to show up on campus in person (and therefore excluding those who live and work remotely, have disabilities that make coming to campus and/or participating in big, crowded, group things more difficult, etc.), and we ended up going that way. In our post-event discussion meeting, two people said the they weren’t on board with the hybrid approach but went with the group decision, but after seeing how the week went and reading the positive feedback from participants, are now on board with the hybrid approach. I’m quite pleased about this! Which isn’t to say it was perfect, we definitely picked up on areas that need to be adjusted as we go forward, but overall, we did a good job. * ♿️🚊 Also at work this week, a small group of us went up to see a piece of artwork that Sound Transit has recently installed at the Kent-Des Moines light rail station. The art is designed to be tactile, and was created in consultation with several visually disabled Highline students. While I wasn’t directly involved with the project, I’d known about it and had been enjoying hearing about it as the project proceeded, and it was really neat to see the final installation. * 🎭 This afternoon we went out to see the Renton Civic Theatre’s production of Noises Off. Noises Off has been a long-time favorite of ours (really, how can it _not_ be?), and RCT did a good job with it. I was particularly amused by Rachael Spencer’s Brooke Ashton; her bits of business when she wasn’t directly part of the dialogue or action were consistently entertaining. Also, this was the first production of Noises Off I’ve been to where the stage reset between acts was done with the curtains open, and it was a lot of fun to watch the tech crew strike, rotate, and reset the set. It was also a blast listening to the audience, and identifying both people who were laughing because they were familiar with the show, and those who were laughing because it was their first time seeing it. Well worth seeing, and if you’re local, is running through October 18th. ## 📸 Photos One of the visually disabled students involved with the project exploring the textures of the mural with a friend. I have more photos of the mural on Flickr. ## 📚 Reading Finished two books this week: John and Maria Jose Tenuto’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: The Making of the Classic Film, which I enjoyed, and Mark Henry’s Happy Hour of the Damned, which I did not. ## 📺 Watching We finally started watching season four of Star Trek: Strange News Worlds. Since our summer vacation was right during its broadcast, we’d decided to wait until we got home to start watching it. (Plus, since I cancelled our Paramount+ subscription last year when it was taken over by the Ellison’s, I had to find…other methods to watch it. Oh, wait, is it not talk like a pirate day anymore?) So far we’ve watched the first three episodes, and while they’re certainly leaning into the “wild swings” and genre games rather than thoughtful sci-fi, we’ve been entertained. Time travel and dinosaurs, creepy horror, and “Dude, Where’s My Shuttlecraft”. Apparently, this is the “what if we did a full season of TOS glowing green hands and Abe Lincoln in space episodes?” season. ## 🔗 Linking * This is a modern motherfucking website.: “View source. Seriously, right‐click, do it. Everything I just described is sitting right there in plain text, readable top to bottom by a human being, the way the web was meant to be.” * Joseph Cox at 404 Media: Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They’re Horrified (archive.is mirror of a paywalled original): “When a Copilot user uploads a picture of themselves or someone else, they probably expect that image to remain private between just them and the AI tool. In reality, a workforce of at least hundreds of human reviewers are sometimes looking at that prompt and whatever images they upload. And in many cases, those contractors are inundated with requests to make foot fetish images of children’s cartoon characters, shorten a real woman’s skirt, or put people into sexual positions.” * Sancho Panza: When did Google get so f-ing weird?: “Google, a search engine which does not have human emotions, assumed that I had been spurned by a man in my life named Dario and decided what I wanted was an empathetic digital friend. What I wanted was some links, but that’s not what Google does in 2026.” * Bastardica: “A foundry for bastard web fonts. Mix, stretch and / or squish them.” * Mat​hias S​chäfer: The death of web development education: “The web is a radical democratic medium. Right now, tech oligarchs and fascist movements are trying to dismantle its radical potential. We must ensure that everyone can shape the web. ¶ Participating in independent learning communities, using open technologies based on ethical principles, and building a shared and inclusive digital infrastructure is an act of self-empowerment and emancipation.” * Ilan Kelman and Matthew Blackett at Phys.org: End of humanity? Blow‑by‑blow account of what would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted now: “We already know that a super-eruption on this scale would threaten civilization as we know it. So what exactly would we experience if Yellowstone erupted? We are experts in disasters and volcanoes, and what follows is a thought experiment into what might happen in the worst-case scenario. We’ve based our hypothesis on research and an examination of how countries have dealt with disasters in recent years.” * Lighthouses of the World: “Every charted light on the planet, on its real cycle.” * Magda Patynska at Discover Wildlife: Amazing new penguin discovered for first time in over 100 years: “Until recently, the gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) was thought to be a single, wide-spread species, but researchers now have evidence that it consists of four separate species, one of them previously unknown to science.”

Close the lid and your display becomes a pane of frosted glass, leaning away at the speed of your hand.

Letterboxd, the app where film Twitter went to live, could soon have a new owner. The New York Times, A24, and Sony Pictures are among the suitors who've expressed interest in buying the site.

These cold-blooded killers were probably as warm-blooded as mammals, according to new research.

STG Presents & Live Nation Welcomes VNV Nation, Apr. 29, 2026 at The Neptune. Official details here.

Book 40 of 2026: Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Pratchett takes on religion, belief, godhood, corruption, holy wars, goodness, and compassion, and does it all with style, humor, and heart. The Turtle moves.

And now for merrie old England! ## Day 18 (part 2): Paris to London When we hopped on a train in Paris, we headed out of the EU and through the Chunnel to London. The border crossing in the terminal was a little hectic and unpleasant, as there were few clear instructions until you did something a little wrong, when you got firmly corrected, and at first we didn’t understand why we had to do the whole passport scan and biometric photo check twice in a row, ten feet apart. It made sense after the fact — the first time was leaving the EU, the second time was entering the UK — but as a first-timer, the system really feels designed by and for people who do it regularly and can breeze through, rather than newbies. Still, we didn’t make any major errors, got through, and got on the train without any real major hassle. Our last look at Paris from the train station. The train ride was as pleasant as any have been, with pretty views of the French and English countryside as we went. The Chunnel, of course, isn’t much for scenery, but it’s fun to have done that. The train ends at St. Pancras, part of a complex with King’s Cross, so it was relatively easy to find our way to the correct Underground platform and make our way to the Tower Hill station. From there, it’s just a couple blocks around the Tower of London to the Tower Hotel where we’re staying. This is the same hotel we stayed at last time we were here; it’s a funky old brutalist exterior (according to Wikipedia, “voted the second most hated building in London in a 2006 BBC poll”) with very ’70s British interior and gorgeous views of Tower Bridge, and we like it a lot. We got settled in and called it a night. Cheers, London! Never going to get tired of that view. Much of our Paris to London journey wasn’t quite as ‘as the crow flies’ as these track log maps make them look, but the GPS tracking app occasionally glitches out. # Day 19: London For our first full day in London, we didn’t have anything planned until the evening, so we decided to start our day with wandering around and exploring the local sights on foot. Since there’s a particularly notable sight right outside our hotel window, we decided to do something we’d skipped on our last visit, and do the Tower Bridge tour. Seeing a bit of the inside was neat — Victorians weren’t exactly minimalists, and even the interior spaces are impressively crafted. The tour goes up one of the towers, across the upper walkways (which now have glass floor sections), then down again, and then down into the old steam engine rooms (not used anymore). Fun start to the day! A little disconcerting, sure, but fun to do. From there we wandered up the Queen’s Walk along the Thames, wandered through the Borough Market and sampled a few different goodies for lunch, found the Golden Hinde and explored that, then went through the Clink prison museum, and then went back to the hotel for a bit to give our feet a rest. For our evening adventure, we walked back up the Queen’s Walk to Shakespeare’s Globe to see Much Ado About Nothing. Their production was wonderful, as expected, and seeing a long-time favorite play at the Globe was a real treat. A nice nighttime walk back to the hotel afterwards, and off to bed. ‘Groundling’ tickets are just £5. We opted for seats, and paid a few pounds extra for cushions. Two very similar walks for this day’s outings. # Day 20: London This day had originally been entirely unplanned, but then last night we were browsing the London theater options before Much Ado started, and we’d made an impulse decision to add another performance to our itinerary. But that wasn’t until the evening, so we started our day by being _very_ touristy and hopping onto one of the “hop on hop off” open-top city tour buses that constantly run around d the city. We figured this would be a good way to get a peek at areas of London we wouldn’t otherwise see, and maybe help us find ideas for more things to explore during other unplanned times. It was a grey and lightly rainy day, so while we were comfortable sitting on the open top deck for a while, eventually it got to be raining hard enough that we came down to the lower enclosed deck. Not long after that, the bus suddenly filled with other people who decided to use it as a good way to get out of the rain. We stayed on just long enough for the rain to slack off a bit, and then hopped off at Notting Hill. We stuck it out as long as we could, but even Seattleites eventually get tired of rain. Photo by my wife. We took a slow wander up Notting Hill (even spotting the storefront used for the film) to Portobello Road, poking in little shops along the way. We found me a new hat and a few more CDs, got lunch, and wandered back to the bus stop. I found three volumes of the Dependence: Next Level Ectronics sampler series; the first two (2004 and 2007) and a later one from 2015. Each was filed in a different section of the store. Photo by my wife. We hopped back on the bus, intending to ride it the rest of the way around the loop to where we started. Unfortunately, for some reason, it seemed this driver had other plans, and we ended up literally going in circles. We went around one block twice, then passed the Marble Arch at least four times, and eventually ended up going entirely rogue, heading down a street not on the published bus route. Eventually it got back on route, but by then it had taken much longer to get there than it should have and we no longer trusted the driver, so we hopped off at the next stop and took the tube back to the hotel. This did mean that we ended up at the Piccadilly Circus tube station. We had about a hour or so to rest, and then it was back on the tube and out to the theatre district to see our impulse purchase show, Avenue Q. We’d both heard about it for years and had had it on our “want to see” lists, and it did not disappoint. Funny, raunchy, and sweet, and absolutely fascinating to watch, as the performers handled their puppets. After the show, another tube ride back to the hotel and off to bed. Featuring that catchy tune, “The Internet is for Porn“! Weird route and rain and all, that bus did take us around parts of London we wouldn’t have otherwise seen. # Day 21: London Having had two pretty full days, we gave ourselves a slow morning and didn’t leave hotel until after noon. Once we did, we took the Underground up to Trafalgar Square. We started with a couple hours in the National Portrait Gallery, then went on to the National Gallery, giving us a nice afternoon of gorgeous and historic art. The Royal Family: A Centenary Portrait (2000) by John Wonnacott. I though the wide-angle, almost fisheye-lens distortion of the painting was really neat. We found dinner, then went to our third show in three nights and saw The Producers. While we’re both very familiar with the film version of the musical, this was our first time seeing it on stage, and it was hilarious…and, honestly, at times a little unsettling. I mean, it’s one thing seeing “Springtime for Hitler” on your TV screen, it’s quite another, no matter how hilarious, to be sitting in a theater with giant red, white, and black swastika banners dominating the stage. Mel Brooks knows, though: _Always_ mock fascists. If you’ve got it, flaunt it! After the show, another tube ride back to hotel, and another late collapse into bed. We were definitely getting more and more familiar with these particular sections of London and the District, Circle, and Northern tube lines. # Day 22: London Another more planned day today. We got up a bit earlier in the morning and headed out, taking the tube to Waterloo station, then hopping on the NRS South Western Railway out to Hampton Court. We then spent our day slowly wandering through Hampton Court, letting my Tudor-era Anglophile wife soak up the history. We did have some disappointment in that a large part of the formal gardens was taken over by an upscale car show (which we had no interest in paying £112 to see), but there were other gardens still accessible, and aside from that unfortunate bit of timing, we very much enjoyed the day. We came back to the hotel in the afternoon, and had a quiet hotel evening. Inside the courtyard of Hampton Court. The part of the gardens we weren’t able to get to because of the car show is to the right side of the second of these maps. # Day 23: London Took it somewhat slower again, with another day where we didn’t leave the hotel until after noon. (At over three weeks into this trip, we’re definitely flagging a bit.) Once we headed out, we started with some souvenir shopping, then went back out to the theater district. Wandered there for a bit, then saw The Mousetrap (notable both for being a fun Agatha Christie mystery, and for being the world’s longest continuously running play, now in its 74th year). Now, if it was in its 74th year with the same cast, that would be _really_ impressive. After the play ended, we started to come back to the hotel and saw that the tube line we wanted from the closest station was delayed with massive crowds in the station, so we bailed out and walked to the next closest station that would have the final line we needed to get to the hotel. Got back, had dinner, and relaxed in the room. Just before crashing out, we got to watch Tower Bridge open and close for a cruise ship passing through. Your browser does not support the video tag.The people on the cruise ship sure got a nice twilight view of London and the Tower Bridge as they went along. A bit more walking on this route that we’d originally planned, but certainly nothing we couldn’t manage. ## Day 24 (part 1): London to…? Travel day! The usual routine: Pack up, check out, and head off towards our next destination! Heading out was a little more trouble some than expected. Turns out today was the day for the London Big Half half-marathon, which attracts some 16,000 runners and starts by going over the Tower Bridge. This was pretty cool to discover when we were getting ready this morning, and we’d take regular breaks from packing to watch runners cross the bridge. But when it was time to go, this was the day we’d planned to give ourselves a bit of a break and take a traditional London Black Cab to our departure point, and we suddenly discovered that the number of roads closed around the Tower Bridge meant that cabs couldn’t get to our hotel. We checked with the concierge, and they just told us that the next closest taxi stand was near the Tower Hill Underground station, which gave us a vague direction to go, but wasn’t exactly clear directions. Apple Maps found us a taxi stand, though, and just a few minutes later a taxi pulled up to drop someone off, and we were able to hop on. And now we’re settled in and waiting to depart for our next stop. I was fascinated by the street map display style of the GPS app the black cab driver was using. Oh, dear, the destination on this track log does kind of hint at where our next destination might be, doesn’t it?

Bonjour Paris! ## Day 14 (part 2): Brussels to Paris Well, _that_ was a _long_ travel day. After the four hours sitting in the Brussels Midi station and getting on our train, things looked fine, with the most interesting piece being checking the weather report for Paris and seeing thunderstorm warnings. Well, we’re from Seattle and brought lightweight raincoats, so we didn’t think much of it, and ended up missing all of the rain anyway. We got to the first train station on the outskirts of Paris, and transferred to one of the local B-line trains to go into the city — almost missed it, but just squeaked in the doors with the help of a man on the train. We chatted with him until he got off, and then we rode a few more stops to where we had to switch to our next in-city C-line train. And waited… …and waited… …and eventually figured out (along with everyone around us) that the storm had downed some trees on a track somewhere and the C trains were entirely disrupted. So we decided to go up to street level and see what we could figure out, hoping it wouldn’t have to be on foot, since we were about an hour’s walk away from our hotel. We got up to the street level, and were immediately distracted with a gorgeous view of Notre Dame at dusk. Once we got over that, we walked a little ways up the street until we found a bus stop and taxi stand. At that point, it was after 9 p.m. we were tired, and it was time to admit that sometimes, a taxi is worth it. Fifteen minutes later we were at the hotel. Yes, that’s our cabbie scrolling through sports scores on his phone with one hand as he drives us through busy Paris traffic to our hotel. Welcome to Paris? The hotel is very cute, all built around an inner courtyard, with an elevator we had to take one at a time, tiny walkways, and a tiny room, and it’s great. We’re here, the beds are comfy, and that’s it for the day. Our Interrail journey from Brussels to Paris. From the southern end up to the left turn just at the ‘a’ in ‘Paris’ was the train, the final leg was by cab. ## Day 15: Paris Big day for exploring Paris and seeing all sorts of pretty things! We started by getting up nice and early in the morning and walking from our hotel to the Louvre (just over two miles, which is entirely doable after a night’s sleep and when you’re not carrying backpacks). Made it to the Louvre with about half an hour before our 9 a.m. entrance time (when the museum opens), stood in line at the entrance closest to the Mona Lisa…and then right at nine, a museum staff person came up to tell everyone who was lined up there that that entrance wouldn’t actually open until 10, and to follow them. Of course, by this time there was already a huge line at the main entrance, so we were a little concerned that we’d just get dumped into the end of that line, but instead, we all got marched over to the group entrance and let in there. No biggie, as it turned out. Once in, we beelined for the Mona Lisa…along with nearly everyone else. This really is one of those things you do to be able to say “I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in person”, not to actually, you know, stand there, look at it, and _see_ the painting. The scrum wasn’t as bad as trying to see the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, and we were able to get to the front and get our 15 seconds of photo and selfie time in, so we called it a success and went off to investigate these rumors that the Louvre has one or two things worth seeing other than the headliner. We then had a very pleasant few hours wandering the museum and finding all sorts of things to gawk at. Yes, it’s a bit crazy, but I can now say that I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in person. Some people will be very impressed, others will understand that it’s about the experience, not the art. When lunchtime rolled around we grabbed a bite at the Louvre’s cafe (it was close, quick, and convenient), went out and wandered the grounds for a little bit, and then went across the street to the Musée d’Orsay for the afternoon. What they say (whomever “they” are and wherever they say it) is true: you go to the Louvre to say you’ve been to the Louvre, you go to the Orsay to be able to see the art. Another incredible collection, but not (quite) as crowded (save for the Van Gogh rooms on the top floor, but having just been to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, we were okay with skimming those rooms), and much easier to be able to find something you like and be able to hang out and really appreciate it. The Orsay has this incredible model of the Paris Opera; if we)d had more time, I could have spent a lot of it just staring at this (and hoping to spot the Phantom…). Once we were all art-ed out for the day, we crossed back over the Seine to the Jardin des Tuileries, and then proceeded to walk the entirety of the Avenue de Champs-Élisée, all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. Once there, my wife found a bench to rest on while I climbed the 280 steps to the terrace at the top for some gorgeous views of Paris. When I made it back down to ground level, we walked from the Arc back to our hotel. At the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The Orsay-to-Arc-to-hotel leg of the day’s walk was about 4.7 miles. All together, my watch tells me today ended up with 23,705 steps and 10.58 miles — a record for this trip so far! (We’re not really _trying_ to set these records, we just want to see All The Things, and then whine when we get back to the hotel about walking too much and swear we’re going to take it easier the next day. Then the next day comes along….) That was a lot of walking, but it was well worth every step. ## Day 16: Versailles Today’s adventure was an excursion out to Versailles. We got up really early, had a quick in-room breakfast, and headed out. Hopped on a local train, rode ten stops, and a short walk later were at the gates. We had the earliest entry tickets we could get (9:30 a.m.), and had made sure to get there nice and early, so we had time to start our day with a short walk through the gardens. Being able to do this first thing in the morning was really neat — hardly anyone else was there (a few visitors early for their entrance time like us, and locals out for their morning run…y’know, like you do, when you live close enough), so we had the entire space nearly to ourselves. We did that for about half an hour, then went back up to stand in line for our entrance. It bugs me to no end that this fountain is just _slightly_ off center from the rest of the gardens. Once in, we kind of skimmed through the first half of the palace (lots of pretty paintings, but having just done a number of museums, we were okay with doing a quick breeze through while keeping an eye out for any we really wanted to stop at) so that we could get to the Hall of Mirrors before it got too crowded. While not empty when we got there (there were 9 a.m. entry people before us), it wasn’t super crowded, and so that was where we really slowed down to take things in, and enjoyed moseying our way through the rest of the palace. What I admire the most about Louis XIV is his understated and subtle design sensibilities. From there we went back out to the gardens, which while much busier, had the advantages of having the fountains running (which hadn’t been turned on yet earlier) and more dramatic skies (instead of the morning’s flat grey). We went down along the main walk towards the Grand Canal, then headed off toward the Grand Trianon. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to go in or just wander the outside, but it turns out our tickets were good for that too, so we got to wander through the inside of that smaller palace as well. Those skies were really staring to look ominous…. After the Grand Trianon we went out and explored the Trianon’s gardens and fountains for a bit. This was a nice treat as well, as fewer people make the trek out to the Trianons, so it was a much quieter stroll than in the main gardens. Eventually we could see the skies getting even more dramatic, so we decided that it was time to head back (not an easy decision when we realized we’d missed Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon, but there’s only so much time…). We got back to the main gardens just in time for a heavy rain storm to start, which lasted our entire walk back up the gardens, out of Versailles, and the few blocks down the street to the Paris Metro station where we got on our train. We were absolutely _soaked_ , but still having a good time. We got back into town and to our hotel, hung our clothes up to dry, and crashed out for an afternoon nap. After a couple hours to rest, we were hungry and ready for dinner, so we headed out and walked down the block to a really cute little Italian place just at the end of the street from our hotel. Had a good dinner there, then walked two more blocks to the Champ de Mars, and stood and watched the Eiffel Tower slowly light up as the sun set, then as it put on its sparkly light show shortly after sundown. We then walked up through the park to near the base of the tower — and as keeps happening on this trip, knowing about something on a theoretical level doesn’t really prepare you at all for the reality of standing underneath this colossal structure. It’s really an incredible thing. It’s _huge_. After enjoying the view for a while, we decided that it was time to call it a day and headed back to the hotel. After having seen Versailles in films and TV shows for years, actually being there was kind of surreal. ## Day 17: Paris Today we made another attempt at taking things a bit slower, with…mixed results, unsurprisingly. We slept in as late as we could, and had a nice slow morning, with breakfast in the room and no rush to get out and about. When we did venture out, we started off by getting a bag full of pastries from a local patisserie, and walked up to the Champ de Mars to eat them while sitting in the park in the (figurative, due to the time of day) shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Then we strolled around the park and the base of the tower for a bit before making a brief stop back by the hotel room to make sure we were prepped for our afternoon adventure. Enough people want to do this kind of shot that there’s a very convenient plaque on the ground telling you where to stand. Well, I never claim to be original…. Heading out again, we started by crossing over to the other side of the Champ de Mars and finding a cute French restaurant for lunch (we had to get actual French food at least once while we were here, of course). When that was done, it was back to the Eiffel Tower, where up to the top we went! We took the easy way up in the elevators, which is a two-stop process: one elevator up to the second level, and then a second elevator (and then a short flight of stairs) up to the top. And here I thought the view from the Arc de Triomphe was impressive! As can be guessed, the view was incredible. We went all the way around the top, me taking photos and my wife (who is somewhat afraid of heights, but was determined to do this, and handled herself quite well) stayed nearer to the inner wall. After our circuit, we started heading back down again. We took the elevator down from the top to the second level (the only option), but then, having spent our time in line for the elevator sandwiched between one family who didn’t bother to rein in their rambunctious 7-year old at all and another family who were remarkably pushy and kept trying to go around (or through) us even though there was no space to either get around or to get to, we decided to just skip the next elevator and take the stairs down. All 674 of them! It’s a lot of stairs, but easier to do going down than up, and though it took longer, it was a much more pleasant experience than being crammed into one of those elevators again. About 15 minutes or so later, we were back on the ground (to my wife’s great relief). We took a little time to recuperate, and then headed back to the hotel to get back into a quiet space and away from people…and once there, though we’d considered some other evening jaunts, we decided we were fine with calling it a day. A short venture out to the local grocery for dinner sandwiches, and then we tucked ourselves away for the evening. Having a hotel two blocks off of the Champ de Mars was incredible. ## Day 18 (part 1): Paris to…? It’s another travel day! So, the usual routine: sleep as late as possible (today that meant we got about 11 hours of sleep…we may be getting a bit tired at this point in the trip), pack everything up, and head out. We walked to the closest metro station, took two metro trains, and made it to the Gare du Nord with several hours to kill before our next train. Camped out on the floor, found some lunch, waited, and eventually made our way to the right platform, boarded our train, and are now watching the French countryside roll by on our way to…. Saying goodbye to Paris.

And now for Belgium (my apologies for using such rude language)! ## Day 12 (part 2): Amsterdam to Brussels Before we left for this trip, while researching so that we’d be prepared, we’d read that trains in Germany were the most unreliable. We’d also read about some of the most common behaviors to avoid to make sure we didn’t stick out as stereotypical rude Americans: Talking unnecessarily loudly, having loud phone conversations or playing music without headphones, placing our bags on seats so that we took up multiple spots, and so on. Well, bad behavior is universal. Europeans are just as bad about all of those as we were warned not to be (and we’re not much for that kind of behavior anyway), and so far, the German trains were rarely more than a few minutes late if at all and they regularly apologized when it happened, while every Dutch train on our Amsterdam to Brussels leg has been late by at least 15-20 minutes. One time that just meant we had to change our connecting train, but then later they decided that the train we were on was late enough that it was better to pull it out of the schedule entirely, made the next stop the final stop, kicked us all off, and we had to find another train to get us the rest of the way into Brussels. It’s nothing we haven’t been able to cope with, and all part of traveling like this, of course, but it has definitely been a bit of a shift from our expectations. Delays and train swaps and all, it was a really pretty trip. Minor grumbling aside, we did make it to Brussels without any _major_ complications. The mentioned minor ones, but no major ones, ending up at our hotel just about two hours after we thought we’d be here. That was still early enough (about 5 p.m.) for us to get our room and then head out for a bit of a wander, finding dinner and then getting fancy dessert Belgian waffles and sitting in the gorgeous Grand Place as we ate them. Not a bad evening at all! Then back to the hotel to wind down and get to bed. Brussels’ Grand Place, the central square of the city, was just about a ten minute walk from our hotel. For two people tired after a long day of travel, we didn’t do too well at staying put once we arrived. ## Day 13: Brussels Today we had just one thing planned: a morning tour of Choco-Story Brussels, a really cute little museum all about the history of chocolate. It’s a self-guided walkthrough of displays tracing chocolate from its initial cultivation through its being brought to Europe, and ends with a demonstration from a chocolatier making pralines (which you then get to sample). It was fun, and quite tasty! Just before entering the museum, since we’d shown up a bit early, we were walking up and down the block and peeking at what was on nearby streets, when we realized that we were standing right next to Manneken Pis, a famous fountain of a small boy peeing. One more Brussels landmark seen (in a city full of them; Brussels really is gorgeous). This funny little fountain is a huge part of the Brussels culture. Images of it are everywhere. After the museum we took the rest of the day for a slow wander, starting with browsing through a music store we’d spotted just a half-block away from the fountain. The store had a nice mix of vinyl and used CDs, and I had fun browsing through and picking some up as Brussels souvenirs. Then, as we walked on, we found two more vinyl shops in the next two blocks! Considering how just a few days ago I was bemoaning the modern dearth of record stores, this was a fun part of the day; apparently Brussels has a good physical media scene! Ended up coming out with a Hooverphonic album from the early 2000s, a techno/industrial sampler from 1993 called Blood and Computers (I have Vol. 2 already, so it was fun to find Vol. 1), an album from a band whose name I don’t remember right now but who was described as New Wave/Buggles/OMD-inspired because I wanted to get at least one thing I was totally clueless about…and the old Songs in the Key of Springfield Simpsons soundtrack album at my wife’s request. From there it was just a day of poking around the streets of Brussels, peeking into cute shops and fancy cathedrals, and just seeing where we ended up going. We were nice enough to ourselves to take a few hours of mid-afternoon downtime instead of pushing through the full day again, which was a good idea. Then sandwiches for dinner, ice cream while watching people at the Grand Place, and back to the hotel again for the evening. Even with a few hours of midday rest, we definitely still got our steps in. ## Day 14 (part 1): Brussels to…? This is a long travel day. Our train out of Brussels doesn’t leave until 16:52, and checkout time at the hotel was noon. So we checked out just a bit before noon, walked to the local station, hopped a short train to our departure station…and then spent the next four hours camped out in the Brussels Midi station until it was time to board. Not exactly the most exciting hours of the trip, but sometimes that’s how it goes. We’re on our next train now, headed for…. Just one small section of one tourist shop in the train station. If you’re ever in a sudden need for a small figure of a urinating boy, Brussels is the place to be.

…the Netherlands, and Amsterdam! ## Day 10 (part 2): Berlin to Amsterdam No private cabin this time, but that was fine; we still had booked first class seats, so were in the first class car. One of the things I discovered on the Frankfurt to Berlin ride was that no matter how pretty the view is, it’s extremely difficult to take decent pictures while traveling at 150 MPH, so I left the camera packed and just alternated between watching Germany go by out the windows and watching Max Headroom episodes on my iPad. Our first in-Europe country hop! The train to Amsterdam was about six hours, and then we figured out the local tram system to get to our hotel. Turned out to be nice and easy: one tram line for about 30 minutes, then a short walk along a pretty little canal before heading about a block into a residential/commercial neighborhood to get to the hotel. If you’re going to have a bit of a walk to get to your hotel, you could do far worse than this. Got ourselves settled in, walked a couple blocks away for a really good dinner at a neighborhood Middle Eastern place (Turkish pizza, which though called pizza, is closer to a burrito in form, is really good), stopped by a grocery for breakfast supplies, and now are getting ready for bed, as we have an early morning planned for tomorrow. Walking to the local tram stop, then taking that to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Berlin to Amsterdam! Tram from the train station, and then a short walk to the hotel. ## Day 11: Amsterdam A day of museums and wandering around the central part of the city. We started the day with the Rijksmuseum (Dutch masters, Rembrandt, etc.), had a great lunch at a nearby café, and then went to the Van Gogh Museum (all about the VW microbus and where it’s been…wait, no, that’s not right). After that we took a tram a few stops towards the city center until the main canals started, when we got off and walked the rest of the way in so we could walk over each of the canals. Then we spent the next couple of hours just randomly wandering our way through central Amsterdam, seeing what we could find. My only iPhone shot of the day from the Rijksmuseum, to take advantage of the wide lens. Militia Company of District VIII in Amsterdam under the Command of Captain Roelof Bicker by Bartholomeus van der Helst, c. 1643. Amsterdam is a gorgeous city, and for all I’d read and understood on a theoretical level that bikes are a big thing here, I didn’t really get it until today. It’s incredible to walk around a city like this, where bikes, walking, and the transit system (trams and buses) are by far the preferred ways to get around, and cars are drastically deprioritized. You’ll see streets as wide as a three- or four-lane road in the U.S., but there’s just one car lane each direction, and all the rest is pedestrian, bike, or tram lanes. Bikes are _everywhere_ at all times; the morning and afternoon commute look like you’re on the sidelines of the Tour de France, only instead of athletes on speed bikes, it’s everyday folks on regular bikes, from modern e-bikes to old style Schwinns (or the European equivalent) to various forms of cargo bikes. It’s really incredible, and I wish the U.S. would get on board with this kind of thinking and city planning (or re-planning) – this article on how Amsterdam became a bike city is worth a read. I saw a lot of this style of cargo bike, some kitted out like this as a child carrier, and some with a more utilitarian cargo compartment. What with not having seen a single SUV or pickup in almost two weeks, convenient and low-stress country hopping on Interrail (formerly Eurail), and experiencing Amsterdam, this summer vacation has been an amusing experience in just how far behind Europe America is when it comes to seriously thinking about transportation as anything other than cars, more cars, bigger cars, and more bigger cars. Eventually we were running out of steam, so we found a restaurant for dinner and ate while sitting outside and watching people stroll and roll by. Then we hopped on the tram back to the hotel, and called it an end to our day. The longer straighter line is the tram from our hotel to the museum plaza, the rest is us wandering wherever our feet took us. ## Day 12 (part 1): Amsterdam to…? And it’s our next travel day! You know the routine: Get up, have breakfast, pack out, and get to the train station. All of which went as expected, so we’re ion the train, nicely settled in to our first class seats, and off to our next stop! We did manage to spot a number of traditional Dutch windmills out the window of our train after we got out of Amsterdam and into the countryside. This was the closest we got.