Thanks Andrew for the mention on your cool blog… I’m honored. I offered to let him use the picture I took in his upcoming book, but I think it has already gone to print. I guess we just met too late.

Anyway, here is another trippy picture of Holland for Andrew; I know he had too many space cakes, and perhaps this is the passed-out-view he saw every morning when he awoke.

Filed under the categories: Haarlem, Musings, Netherlands, Travel

I arrived to Haarlem early in the morning and managed to capture the Grote Markt empty before Sunday services began. This is the same church where Mozart once played the famous pipe organ inside as a child.

And here is a shot of the inside.

Filed under the categories: Haarlem, Musings, Netherlands, Travel

After spending most of the day in Haarlem, I’m now convinced that it is a much better place than Amsterdam in almost every way, unless you count massive quantities of stoned British soccer hooligans as an important part of your Rick Steves’ featureset.

I took the train from Amsterdam to Haarlem after spending a while trying to figure out the Dutch train schedule, which required the discovery of a WW2 enigma machine. It was only about 15 km away, so it was a short ride. The town of Haarlem itself was extremely nice, completely unlike the Harlem in New York.

I spent most of the day walking around with my camera and my iPod. I must have walked about 15 km around the city getting completely lost in little alleyways. I took a ton of pictures and have only had a short amount of time to process a few of them for now. These things take a while, since my workflow on these things is Sisyphusian at best.

The first picture below is of Grote Kerk. At the end of the church is a famous pipe organ that Mozart once played on as a child. The pipe organ is 100 feet high with over 5,000 pipes. I recommend the Large version on black.

Filed under the categories: Haarlem, Musings, Netherlands