Russell's Blog

I finally have a spare moment to upload some of the photos I've taken so far. Sadly, Swisscom charges 22 Euro for a day's worth of WiFi access, and then have the temerity to cap your traffic at 400 MB per day. So, I still have another 600 MB worth of photos to upload, but that isn't going to happen all at once, unless I find someplace in Rome that doesn't have idiotic prices and policies. Anyway, I've finally uploaded the gallery for the first leg of my trip.

These photos are from my 7 hour layover in Amsterdam. I took that train into the city and walked around for a few hours, drank some espresso, ate some cookies, and goggled at the city. I was in the city from 6:30 AM to 11:00 AM, so pretty much everyone was asleep.

I encountered a small barge dredging one of the canals, which was actually quite fascinating. The fellow pulled up an assortment of junk, and carefully sorted it in the container he was tugging alongside the barge. I saw him pull up a 1920's era typewriter, which he put into what I assume was the "probably recyclable" pile, a claw-full of ornately decorated cobblestones (not at all like the ones on the adjacent street), and an assortment of maritime garbage, like ropes, chains, broken pulleys, half a boat anchor, and such. Surprisingly, I didn't see any bottles or cans. I guess people usually don't throw their ordinary garbage into the canals, which is nice. While I was standing on the bank, he splashed me a bunch of genuine Amsterdam canal muck. Lucky me!

I'll upload the pictures from Rome soon. Hopefully I can find someplace that doesn't charge an arm, leg and kidney for internet access.