27 Days Out: The Odyssey (well, Kenny's Odyssey), pt. 1

Here we go...part one of what may be the most epic adventure I will ever experience. The original plan was a two week intercontinental jaunt from the Netherlands to Egypt to Denmark and back home. Happily, some volcano in Iceland thought it high time to donate billions of pounds of ash to the upper atmosphere. And whether or not its intent was to ground EVERY plane in Europe, it worked.

But for now, The Netherlands.

The first itinerary including a sane departure time. There was enough time for me to prepare a proper breakfast without even staying up all night.

First stop: Eindhoven...the city in the Netherlands with a Ryan-airport. ('Ryan-airport' is the term that we came up with for the small regional airports that Ryanair flies out of. They're basically play airports with mini security and no jet ways--you gotta walk on the tarmac and climb stairs to get on a plane.)

Among the first things we noticed about the Netherlands: They are serious about bikes. This is one level of a multi-level bike parking structure.

Also, it's encouraged to urinate in public.

We decided to walk around Eindhoven a bit while waiting for our train to Rotterdam. We saw this beaut on the bus from the airport. You know we're getting on it.

Yeah, it's a good one.

Next day, we rode bikes around Rotterdam. I think that's a cool building.

There's our tour guide/CS host, Charlie, just to the left of Tyler.

Take a closer look at that condo complex from the last picture. I thought they were pretty cool.

Here's another cool building.

From another angle. At first, I thought they had to prop it up because it was falling over. But I guess that's a design feature.

Later that night, we went to our first concert of the trip. We would see several.

Next day, we went to explore Rotterdam on our own and saw a surprising number of high-fashion design and furniture establishments.

The first goal of the trip was scheduled for that evening. We planned to go see a particular band (Mumford and Sons) and we were scoping out the venue in the afternoon when it turned out they were playing an impromptu mini-gig right outside the venue for the evening. What luck..

But anyway, we went to the show of the band playing before Mumford and Sons to secure a spot in the front row (and in the center) (literally touching the stage) (I've never been that close to any live performance...). So, that show blew my socks off. It was a whole theatrical event with makeup and costumes and choreography and nearly an entire orchestra and we were close enough to participate.

Our plan worked and we were right in the front for Mumford and Sons. It was a great show, too. Goal well achieved.

I thought this was really cool: The main guy for Mumford and Sons did some drumming while singing. Not too common...

And after the show were these guys. I'm still not sure what they were meant to do besides create a surreal atmosphere. There was a little wooden shack set up that they would come out of from time to time and take people in there for a while. Then the people and them would come right back out. People that went in there said nothing really happened except the masked people just poked at them a bit.

April 10th (Happy B-day Mom!). Time to leave Rotterdam for Amsterdam. We paused at the station for a roll-call with our CS hosts. Charlie's on the far left and there's his girlfriend, Anneleen. Super people.

Our first view of Amsterdam.

The canals are pretty at night.

Here's some back alley in the middle of the red light district. Walkin' through there at night...now THAT was an experience...

This is the passage you have to navigate to get to that sign from the previous picture. Very narrow and hard to find from the front if you're not looking for it. Also, that sign over the entrance suggests bringing small children with you. The Dutch culture is quite progressive.

In the morning, we went walking around Amsterdam and I was pretty surprised to learn who lives at number 42. (probably have to click on this one to get it big enough..)

There's a sign that all tourists are required to take a picture with.

Not ones to break status quo, I took a picture of Tyler on the 'I' and at the same time a picture of me taking that picture. This picture is the latter.

Then, in this one gallery, some people had a rig with a camera and a reflective orb set up. I think they were trying to create one of those time-lapse deals... So we stopped for a while to play with that orb ourselves.