The flight over The Atlantic was a non-event. Which is the best kind of flight to have, really.

The plane was one of Delta's latest Airbus A330-300's which feels like the seats are even narrower than usual. It was uncomfortable for me... so I'm only guessing it must be downright miserable for at least half the passengers on the plane. I suppose it's only a matter of time before airlines do away with seats altogether. They'll just stack everybody in the plane like firewood.

On the bright side, the new entertainment system features Picture-In-Picture...

After landing, I took the train to Leiden so I could kill some time until The Dutch Bitch got off work. Back in 2012 I walked around the city to see the sights, but this time it was pouring rain...

To escape the weather, I went to Leiden's National Ethnology Museum, (Museum Volkenkunde)...

It features artifacts from peoples around the world (outside of Europe), with sections devoted to North America, South & Central America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania...

The museum is incredibly well-done and has a surprisingly deep collection. The only problem is that everything is suspended in glass cases with no background, so it can be tough to focus on the artifacts. A few times I experimented with angle-shifting to see if I could add some separation, but it wasn't terribly effective...

The display spaces are pretty amazing, and full-wall projections are used to put you into the place where the artifacts are from...

And then? It was time for PATATJES MET!!!

And now I could really use a nap...

I woke up.

I finished packing.

I drove over to Seattle.

I made my way through SeaTac Airport (barely, as it was torn to shit as usual).

Then I caught a flight to the Netherlands.

The end.

Or... the beginning?

Back in the Netherlands for one last day of vacation time.

The "Pixar 25 Years of Animation Expo" has been traveling around the world since it first began in New York back in 2005. With each new stop, it gets updated with material from their latest works, so now it's actually more like the "Pixar 34 Years of Animation Expo." And it's currently showing in Amsterdam, so off we went...

The expo is pretty great, mostly focusing on the artwork that goes into a Pixar production before it ever gets to a computer... but they've got a few exhibits dedicated to showing how the computer art is created as well. But the highlight of the show has to be a giant beautifully crafted zoetrope featuring the Toy Story characters. It's Pixar animation of an entirely different kind, and well worth checking out.

From there it was time to cash in some of my Reward Certificates at the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam. I had been dying for a Coke to wake me up all day, but the Coke machine was broken, so I started going into withdrawals right there in the restaurant while waiting for my lunch.

After a Coke-free meal we stopped at Ben & Jerry's for ice cream, which is always a treat because they've got an awesome mural painted on the walls...

We were going to see the Greatest Illusion Show on Earth because, honestly, how could you not... but being lazy at Casa de DutchBitch sounded more appealing, so Hans Klok will have to wait for another time...

And there it is... the end of my week's vacation. Tomorrow it's back to Schiphol Airport and my flight home.

I pretty much have one day in the Netherlands before heading out again.

The DutchBitch decided that this would be best spent visiting "Maastrecht." I thought this might be the name of a windmill... or perhaps a cheese farm... but she tells me that it is a city. "Wow! There are other cities in the Netherlands than Amsterdam?!? I asked before getting slapped in the face.

And so there are. Maastricht is about as far as you can get from Amsterdam whilst still being inside the Netherlands...

It's a very pretty city. The first photo I took was this statue of St. Hubertus reading a book to his deer skull hat...

One of the more famous landmarks of Maastricht is the red tower of St. Jan's. Which looks fantastic when photographed in HDR...

Sadly, there was bad news to be found in the shadow of the Red Tower... somebody lost their Miffy doll and binky. She now waits patiently for her owner to come back and get her...

Walking through the city I found this really cool "Bidweg" monument... "Bidweg" meaning "Way of Prayer"...

The waterway nearby is filled with brilliant green plants which I thought looked like something out of a Van Gogh painting...

There's a wall surrounding old Maastricht that you can walk on top of. It's quite pretty and looks more like a garden than a wall...

The wall itself is home to a lot of flowers and plants that have managed to grow between the cracks...

I got excited when I saw a Free Ladies party... until I saw it was a month ago...

A sign asking people to be quiet so the neighbors can live in peace was interesting. I wonder if it works. I sincerely doubt it would any effect in the USA...

Awesome kid drawings at a Maastricht school...

The DutchBitch then took us to hell...

Helpoort... or "Hell Gate"... is the oldest surviving city gate in the Netherlands (from the year 1229!). It's in amazingly good shape for being so old, and well worth a visit.

After wandering around for a few hours, it was time to head back to Casa de DutchBitch. But not before... WAFFLES!!!

The perfect end to a perfect afternoon.

The problem with mid-day plane schedules is that they pretty much kill your day. My 12:30 flight was too early for me to run into Hamburg and do something... but too late for me to arrive into Amsterdam and do anything. Which means I was kinda stuck.

So I decided to sit in my airport hotel room and get caught up on work. Which was a great idea... until I fell asleep. Usually when I feel there's that possibility, I set my alarm clock. But today I didn't for some reason. Which was pretty stupid.

Nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of getting to the gate with a mere ten minutes to spare.

But it all worked out in the end.

I made it back to DutchyLand in time for one last order of PATATJES MET and an aged cheese sandwich with the Dutch Bitch.

Not the worst way I could have spent the last day of vacation.

Today The DutchBitch says "It is a beautiful day to visit Zaanse Schans!" And, like the fool I am, I believed her. Though I suppose if you ignore the freezing winds and overcast skies, it was a beautiful day to go exploring.

Zaanse Schans is a tourist attraction north of Amsterdam with various shops and interesting things to see. But it's best known for its collection of preserved and functional windmills...

Among the attractions is a "Klompenmakerij" or "Wooden Clog Workshop" where you get to watch them make shoes...

They also have a "Kaasmakerij" or "Cheesemaker Shop" which has all kinds of delicious hand-made cheeses...

It's a nice shop... but you can't bring your chicken in with you...

And there's a gift shop with... Miffy!...

Eventually the sun started to come out a bit, so we walked down the row of windmills...

Once we were tired of goofing off in Zaanse Schans, it was time for PATATJES MET and OUDE KAAS!!

Never mind that I have eaten fried potatoes with mayo and an aged cheese sandwich every day since I've been here... you just can't get enough of a good thing.

And, just like that, my adventure in DutchyLand has come to an end. I'm off to the airport in an hour.

Today I visited the world-famous Keukenhof, "The Garden of Europe."

It is so famous that I had never heard of it before The DutchBitch suggested that we go there this morning and take photos of flowers.

Here is my assessment...

If somebody were to say "It is one of the most amazing fucking things I've ever seen in my life..." they would be underselling it.

It's that good. Huge grounds filled with meticulously maintained flowers and walkways...

Annnnnd... I'm going to have to stop before I post the entirety of the hundreds of photos I took. All of them amazing. It is impossible to take a bad photograph at The Keukenhof.

After a couple hours, all of Europe turned up at the gardens, so we decided to leave while we still had room to walk out. With time to kill, The DutchBitch drove me to the city of Leiden. Where they have a citadel!

And then it was time for PATATJES MET and an OLD CHEESE SANDWICH! Two of my most favorite things to eat.

Which makes the day just about perfect.

Half the time when I am traveling I'm working. The other half of the time I am playing tourist and have a schedule of things I want to see. The wonderful thing about being in Amsterdam today was that I didn't have work or an agenda... I could just wander along the canals and soak in the city.

And when it comes to aimless wandering, Amsterdam is pretty hard to top. I could do that for days and not get bored, because it's just so dang beautiful...

After a while, I came across the Anne Frank House Museum. I've tried visiting here at least three times, but the line is usually absurdly long...

But when I checked, it wasn't even around the corner. So, 35 minutes later, I finally got to see it...

It was both fascinating and heartbreaking, and now I know why people are willing to stand in line for such a long time to see it. After that I started wandering the canals again and saw this...

It didn't say anything about humans not being allowed to poop there, so I took a dump in the planter. And then... then... I saw something really bizarre. A boat dredging up bicycles from the bottom of the canal. You'd think that they might find one or two from careless people accidentally dropping them in, but you'd be wrong...

A HUGE pile of bikes. They brought up a half-dozen just as I was standing there watching...

The DutchBitch tells me that people get drunk and drive their bikes into the canals all the time, so they have to clear them out every couple of years. Scary.

I stumbled across Amsterdam's brand new Apple Store. It is absolutely glorious, featuring a glass spiral staircase that's mind-bogglingly terrifying for people like me who are afraid of heights (if only they would let me photograph it). Apple does a good job of finding beautiful buildings to build into, and this one is no exception...

After lunch with some friends in the city, I was given a coupon for Het Scheepvaart Museum (Maritime Museum) as the rain came in. It's a pretty fantastic place...

The displays they have there are incredible. I mean really incredible. I wish they had more of them...

You can also go out on an old ship, which is pretty nifty...

By the time I had finished and headed back to the train station, the sun was out again...

All in all, a perfect day of new experiences for me in Amsterdam. How sweet is that?

Despite having been to the Netherlands dozens of times, I've never gone out to the bulb fields when they're in bloom. Usually I've been here at the wrong time... but other times when they've been in season, I've had to work or didn't have transportation or something goes wrong.

Today The DutchBitch finally fixed all that. I have to say though, they're not quite as impressive as the postcards lead one to believe...

I lie. They're everything you'd imagine and more.

And while a photograph can only partially communicate just how beautiful it is to be standing in front of flowers that stretch out to the horizon, the thing that really got to me was the smell. I don't know why I never thought of it before, but the bulb fields smell incredible. In particular the Dutch Hyacinth, which is almost other-worldly.

The bright colors don't record that well on a digital camera sensor, which makes photographing the field a bit of a trial (where is film when you need it?), but it's still a great subject to take pictures of.

Eventually all the flowers are cut down so the bulbs can be harvested then re-used or sold...

And thus the Circle of Life begins again.

And so the event I traveled 5000 miles (8000 kilometers) to attend, finally arrived... BITCHSTERDAM 2! As expected, it was well-worth the trip, and everybody had an awesome time. Just another reminder why I love blogger meet-ups so much!

As it was a beautiful day in the Netherlands, we decided to head into Amsterdam early and play tourist (even though The DutchBitch is a native and Lady Penelope and I have been here many times). It's such a beautiful city with so many things to do, that it would be a crime not to spend some time exploring. Eventually decided on a canal boat tour...

Since the Lady Penelope had never been to the Red Light District, we wandered through the neighborhood for a while. I've only ever seen it at night, and it was an entirely different experience in the daytime...

Along the canal in the Red Light District is actually quite beautiful in the daylight, as all the seedier elements are not so noticeable...

Throughout the Netherlands everybody has World Cup fever. It's a bit difficult to explain to Americans, except to equate it to the Super Bowl (if the Super Bowl took place once every four years and the entire world was competing for a spot to play in it)...

England was expected to wipe the floor with the USA in today's match, and the English were having a big laugh at the anticipated beating they were most certainly going to dish out to us. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and the Americans managed to hold England to a tie game of 1-1. Many tears of agony were shed in Blighty, I'm sure. A really good recap to explain it all is over at the BBC.

After goofing about Amsterdam for a few hours, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe early so we could have a few drinks while waiting for Bitchsterdam to ensue. The scenery at Max Euweplein was... interesting... to say the least...

I'll leave the Bitchsterdam recap and photos to DutchBitch but, suffice to say, we all had a lot of fun. Many Euros were spent to make sure of it...

A big shout-out to Blogography reader Erik who was kind enough to come over and say "hello." He was sitting at the next table with his friends, and somehow managed to recognize me in my drunken state!

After Bitchsterdam had ended, we were walking back to the car park when we saw a drunken barefoot man kicking his shoe across the street. A motorcycle police officer was keeping a careful eye out, and went to question the man, who replied "What the fuck do you want?!?" Much to his credit, the police officer let the man go on his way... even when he shoved his shoe down the storm drain...

But then the drunk man decided to do some property damage by trying to tear out a street sign. This was something the the police officer could not ignore, and the result was obvious to everybody except the drunk guy...

Backup forces arrived in the form of two beautiful lady cops in a squad car, who were apparently signing autographs while the drunk guy got hauled off in a van...

Bravo to the Amsterdam Police, who were incredibly calm, cool, collected, and reserved in trying to keep everybody safe! And bravo to drunk guy for giving us some post-Bitchsterdam entertainment!

And bravo to DutchBitch for an awesome day!