Sensitive Euro-Man

Ah, my first post from the European mainland. I've been spending the past several days making day-trips out of Utrecht, my unofficial base of operations for The Netherlands. Major props definitely go out to my friend Anand, who is studying at Universiteit Utrecht, for providing me with shelter (against his better judgment, I'm sure). Utrecht itself is a nice place...I'm glad I'm staying here rather than in the midst of the typical Amsterdam chaos. Here are some pics I took during my explorations:

As Anand and I were walking through the center of Utrecht, he paused and said, "wait until you see what's behind that bus." As the city bus continued along its route, I was confronted with one of the most shocking visions of my life. Yes, my worst fears had been realized: the infamous "Wash U Bunny" had followed me to Utrecht:

Here we came across a small plaza where an animal rights group had set up a protest against animal testing. According to them, some unnamed American organization was performing cruel chemical tests on dogs to "prove that smoking is unhealthy." Sounds suspect, but we signed the petition anyway because we are mindless drones. Even so, I'm not sure if their protest was working, because the only message I took away from this display was, "smoking can kill you, unless you are a cute little puppy dog, in which case it makes you unspeakably cool (and photogenic)."

The cool thing about the canals in Utrecht is that they have room for sitting and walking right at the canal level, and many restaurants and cafes serve food and drinks right at the canal's edge. While we were sitting down there having a snack, we witnessed a Dutch guy come idling by in a small motorboat. After a quick cellphone call, he produced a bottle of wine and some snacks, picked up an attractive woman from the dock, and sped away with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Damn, that guy was smooth.

The tower of the Domkerk which, at just over 100m, is the highest in The Netherlands. Although Utrecht wins the award for "highest church tower," Amsterdam trumps all with its "highest citizenry" card.

City scenes from the top of the Domkerk:

The other part of the Domkerk. The tower and the main part of the church actually used to be connected (you can see evidence of that from the photo). Unfortunately, due to budget shortages, the middle section did not get the full flying buttress treatment, ultimately resulting in it being leveled in a big storm a few hundred years ago. Shoddy church construction makes baby Jesus cry!

Me on top of the Domkerk:

And now, the topic you've all been waiting for: Amsterdam! What can I say...it's one hell of a city. You have to understand, though, that I am presented with a dilemma when blogging about Amsterdam. See, this blog has been aproved for general audiences and Amsterdam, well, hasn't. But you can't visit this city and focus solely on the museums and churches...to do so would be to deny the very "uniqueness" that makes it especially compelling as a destination.

So, I've decided not to write about it. As much as I like to keep you all in the loop, I can't just go around handing out full-access passes to my life. Plus, I have keep up my brooding, mysterious persona. And that's all I have to say about that.

Anyways, I've got about 4 days left in The Netherlands, after which I'll be heading to beautiful, bustling, bombastic...Belgium! At this point it looks like I'll probably spend a night in Antwerp and two in Brussels, with a day-trip to Brugges. In the meantime, I plan on doing a couple day-trips out of Utrecht, with Rotterdam and Leiden being probable candidates. I'll be finishing things up on Friday night with the big "Queen's Night" celebration (it's a big blow-out in honor of the queen's birthday), so I should have some more material to write about in a few days. Adios!