The Longest Blog Ever from Amsterdam and Paris

Bonjour! Ok, there are so many pictures on this blog, whew. Right now I'm finishing my second day in Paris by listening to Elvis Presley and writing this blog to you fine people...whoever is reading this. Wow, pretty much anybody can read this...huh. Anyway, time to backtrack a bit and finish the blog on Amsterdam.

Back in January I auditioned for a sketch comedy troupe called Boom Chicago that performs in Amsterdam. I didn't get it (obviously), but i figured I'd see what all the fuss was about. The show was pretty good - high energy, and pretty "blue" actually. Not sure if I would want to peform that way seven nights a week though - mainly because you can still smoke in there - but not after June! Smoke 'em while you can, you Dutch. So anyway, Seth Meyers, currently on SNL, is an alumnus, and since it was alumni night, he was there and performed.




After the show, he remembered that wanted a picture from earlier, so he kinda approached me and was like "How about that picture now?" So cool.





Paris!!!! I arrived at my host's house, and within 5 minutes I had thrown down my bags and was riding a bike past Notre Dame on the way to a huge picnic on the banks of the Seine River. It was someone's going away party, and so at least 100 people showed up with all kinds of food and just partied right there as the sun went down. I met loads of people that were all fascinated with my 'Americanness'.



You know what's crazy about Europe? The little differences. Royale with Cheese!





People in Paris are so in love. Here's a couple lounging in the park.




Here's me looking like a dork in front of Notre Dame. It's really big.




This bookstore is famous. Ernest Hemingway used to shop at the original before it was rebuilt. Jack Kerouac actually shopped at this new version. See those windows above? To this day, struggling writers can still stay for free in the apartments above, as long as they write two hours a day. The view ain't bad either - only Notre Dame just across the Seine.




Some people relaxing and picnicing in a park along the Seine. This is a Sunday afternoon. Notice the guy smoking in the very center looking at me while I take this picture.





Come on Paris, a little insensitive, don't you think?





At the top of the Eiffel Tower! There were "Beware of Pickpockets" signs everywhere. Not as windy as I thought it would be (a la Empire State Building). Plenty of lovers kissing and taking self-portriats though. I have offered to take many of these types of pics for couples on this trip. I know how a picture looks with an arm in half the picture.




Hello, tourists! Sometimes these pictures turn out to be my favourite.





An interesting angle I thought. I met another traveler on this level from Nevada - from UC Davis! Just random who you meet sometimes.





Already showed this pic, but I thought it deserved a second look. Amazing. I think I'm gonna frame this when i get home.




Ok, so today I took a very early train to the beaches of Normandy. This is one of the things I have been looking forward to the whole trip. I dont quite know how to explain it, why I am so fascinated with WWII. I wasnt there, nobody I know died there, but I just felt the need to go pay my respects to the 1000's of young Amercian and other Allied men who came across the world and died on these shores. This sculpture is outside the WWII memorial at Utah beach.





Inside the museum, the exhibit is set up like so: as the story of WWI draws to an end and we see the circumstances following that lead to WWII, we descend deeper and deeper undergroud. The walls get darker and rougher as you go down, symbolizing the world's political, economic, and military decent into hell. Meanwhile, the big white globe in the center symbolizes the world, watching all this helplessly.





Out at the Utah beach, here's a German gun that was damaged from an American mortar fired from sea. Pretty good shot, huh?




It's pretty cramped in there. But really fortified. All of the bunkers are still over 90 percent intact.




A close up view of what the Allied forces faced on June 6, 1944.





A completely intact German gun touret. I only 2-3 years, the Germans fortified over 3,000 miles of coast, usually stealling materials from the counrties they occupied. I sure hope they got all the ammunition out of there....





Next was the American cemetary. All the crosses face West, to America. This classic lined formation usually seen in military cemetaries is meant to look like they are all marching together.





These crosses were solid. And very cold to the touch, in fact. If a soldier was found and they couldn't identify him, this is the special engraving he received: (click to enlarge)




This is Omaha Beach, the main front of attack for American soldiers. The opening scene from 'Saving Private Ryan'? Yeah, that's about this beach. On D-Day, the also called it 'Bloody Omaha', because so many soliders were shot here that it turned the water red. Many sunk boats, obstacles, and I think even drowned soliders are still out there.




This was the main cliff occupied by the Germans on D-Day. Notice all the craters - those are from Allied air stikes that dropped bombs on the Germans, trying to take out their guns, weeks and days before D-Day. Our guide told us that enough force was dropped on these cliffs to total nearly half of the descruction power of the H-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In fact, they are predicting that this whole cliff will eventually and crumble onto Omaha Beach below it.




Here's a couple of videos! I'm pretty tired now, so that's it for me. Tomorrow after another day in Paris, I take my first night train..... to Madrid.

Oui, Fromage!

I'm in Paris!!!!!!! It's awesooome!!!!!!!! However, my hosts computer is taking forever to upload pics, so here's two. I'm pretty beat from a whole day of walking around Paris. And I'm getting up in 5 hours to go to the beaches of Normandy! So a quick recap of things I've done in the past 48 hours (with pictures to follow soon):

Met Seth Meyers (current head writer/Weekend Update guy on SNL) at Boom Chicago show, attended an awesome party on the banks of the Seine river here in Paris, toured Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower.

Here's one great picture and one dumb one. The first is of course the Eiffel Tower. I love my camera tripod - it enables me to get great shots like this in the dark. Click on it to get a bigger version and see if you can see the search light the circles the top. It's kind of pointing right at the camera.




Here's some dumb shop I took a picture of on the way home.



Off to Normandy in 5 hours!

Canvas and Bike Lanes

(SECOND AMSTERDAM BLOG - Don't miss the first below!)

Wow, I got on a computer two days in a row, sweet. My host here is really cool, although I don't think I've inhaled as much second hand smoke since I tried to make a phone call once outside a state building.

Today I pretty much spent alone. My host allowed me to take his bicycle in this very bicycle-friendly town (bikes have their own lanes) and go see sites. He also gave me a card to get into all the sites for free. My first stop was the Van Gogh Museum. Up until now, I guess I had been a casual fan of artists like Van Gogh, Manet, Picasso, etc. But now I am a really big fan of Van Gogh. And I guess I have the audio commentary to thank for that. Just listening to the tortured story of his life as an artist, from his youth, to developing his talent, to developing dementia to the point that after an arguement with a fellow artist friend he cut part of his own ear off, to admitting himself to an asylum for over a year. Wow, all the art that cam out of that time is truly amazing. Some of his most colourful and vibrant paintings came from a hand that was also holding his head in anguish.

Here's my favourite painting: "Wheatfeilds with Crows". Notice the three roads that lead off to nowhere, and the crows departing for some reason, as if they sense that that looming dark sky brings nothing good. Yet the grain is healthy and full, despite it's circumstances.



Here's me riding my bike around town! Yes, (sigh) taken with my tripod.




I spend a lot of time just sitting in squares, looking at maps, and people-watching. It's different, and yet the same, in all of the countries. I hate pulling out maps and looking like a tourist, but hey, I gotta figure out where I am.



I saw this sign today. Don't know why, but it fascinated me.




This is the Anne Frank house. Her and her family hid out in a section in the back of the house for two years. They were doing ok there - food was getting scarce tho - until an anonymous tipster alerted the Germans to their prescence. Everyone but the father died in concentration camps. No one ever found out who gave the anonymous tip.




So yeah, a whole bunch of happy stuff, all in one day! Hahaha, actually I really enjoyed it. I came to Europe with the intent of seeing a lot of WWII stuff. Naturally it's a downer, but I think it's important to remember that stuff and learn from it. Next week I'll be at Normandy. In Anne's hidout, her dad kept track of the progress of the Allied forces' movements at Normandy with push pins on a postcard-sized map. It's still there.

Well, I'm off soon to check out the Boom Chicago improv show here pretty soon. Josh and Seth Myers (Seth is currently head writer for SNL) will be improvising tonight - 0ne night only - to celebrate Boom's 15th anniversary. Should be fun!

This video is for my friend Phillip. If LA turns into a pumpkin, there's always Europe!

Flower Power

Ok, ok, it's been a few days and now the third degree! Haha, I try to sign on as often as I can. Sometimes I have a busy schedule of going to the supermarket or buying bus passes.

This is me on the bus in Dublin. We spent a lot of time in this bus seeing as it a) rained most of the time, and b) it was quite a walk around there, almost most people claimed it was "walkable". Yeah, well, New York is walkable from my house if I have 4 months to spare. Hey, I do!

Then I went to Brussels. Here's an example of how European streets are laid out. This is typical - city centre design. Easy and great because you have a central place to go to, but since it's usually set up circular this way, there are almost no square streets. So it's pretty difficult to go up and just take a left somewhere. So this is what I do: I take a photograph of somewhere I need to be from a street map. Then I use it on my camera as a map, and then delete it later.




There are some really random art pieces around town.




My host Bertrand and his friend Anna took me out to see the town. In Belgium all the beers are fruity and basically taste like sparkling cider.



There are so many people touring Europe in big groups. Mostly high school students actually. Here I found a group of old people - they all looked around like giselles at the same time everytime this guy pointed to something. They all just kind of follow the person in front of them to the next attraction. I actually find it really interesting to observe tour groups sometimes. A crash course in human behaviour.



Humans are cool. Didn't you hear?

Grafftii in Belguim is basically all just cartoon characters. Not much tagging going on here. In fact, there is a tour you can follow around town to see all the comic page art on the sides of buildings.

On to Holland! The land of flowers!

I had to pay a bit of money on the train to have it validated because they told me to do it on the train. Well, not exactly. I could have done it for free in the station. Oh well. It's one of those things you only have to do once, but it's an expensive mistake.

I got to Amsterdam right at 4:2o. Haaha. It took me a minute to unclip my bag so I could get to my camera though.

This is what the streets of Amsterdam look like. Lined with made-made canals that used to be used for travel. Now there is a special lane for bicycles here. I got "jingled" at today because I was walking in them.

The Netherlands has a long history in WWII. Holland was occupied for 4 years and sent 110,000 people to Auchswitz. Here is a memorial to that. I also toured a whole museum solely dedicated to the Dutch resistance. There was a special section for 3 girls who did a lot of resistance fighting and passing secrets, that sort of thing. One was ultimately executed. Her last words, after the first shot fired at her by a N.S.B agent missed, were "I'm a much better shot."

There is a lot of tourist junk in all the countries. I love checking out what tourists are "supposed" to love.

Right next to the Red Light District, there was this kids carnival. So crazy. This was like 2 streets away from where all the girls are in windows.

This is what an example of the windows that the girls stand in look like. But obviously this is different - no girls here. The government has in fact been closing down a lot of "work windows" and converting them into windows to advertise clothes in. They get a lot of looks and people are usually pshyced out because obviously they are expecting a live person to be in there. In fact, my host says that's it possible in two years all the girls will be gone and the Red Light District will be all expensive shops like in Vegas' most expensive hotels. The RLD could soon become a worldwide destination for shopping and exspensive vacationing.

This is one of the streets in the RLD. It's just down the streets from the heart of it. Can't see anything questionable here. You're welcome to click on it though to see for yourself! Notice the guy walking in the red bicycle lane on the right. probably an American ;-)

It's pretty relaxed here in Amsterdam. My host took me in on less than a day's notice because my original host cancelled on me with less than 24 hours notice. I haven't paid to stay anywhere yet, so I figured I had to at some point. But this guy Hans, a middle-aged Turkish guy, was so awesome. He's hosted over 300 times, so he's got all kinks worked out. He even works for the national rail, and gave me a card to get in for free to all the museums. So cool. i think tomorrow I'm going to see a performance of Boom Chicago's improv group. I almost got cast in that this year - guess I'm gonna see what I missed out on! Paris in 2 days.........