Back in the Cosmic Hamlet

I've been back in Homer, sometimes known as the Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea, for a little more than 2 weeks now. It has not been a perfect re-entry but it's had many good moments to offset several bad ones. The bad news first: My faithful 1993 Camry has, to put it in the common vernacular, shit the bed, turned "Tango Uniform" that is, Tits Up, rolled over and died. It  was a sad day last week when my mechanic scratched his head and pronounced last rites on what has been, up to now, a most reliable old friend. With 207,000 miles on the clock, I knew this moment had to come someday. But there's never a good time for a car to die. Especially when I'm living up on the bluff above the bay, 6 miles from town and 1000 feet above sea level. A nice bike ride in — a long, hard bike ride home. And the weather has been, to put it in the most charitable fashion, not that summery either. I've played a bit of tennis. But it's been mostly blustery and cloudy. And chilly.

I'm installed in my summer residence. It's a fine place to be hanging out with great views and total privacy. The drawback is that it is, as I said, a hard bike ride from town for an aging and out-of-shape tennis player. I'm driving a borrowed car and looking for a thousand dollar beater to get me through the summer. But things aren't all bad.

View from my front door
(N59.666850, W151.601616)

One of the good things is that I get to work with my office mates at Alaska Boats & Permits. They're happy to have me back.  And I'm happy to be back and doing cool computer work . I'm feeling needed and appreciated, and I love that feeling . And now that I am forced to buy a car, I'll need to be making money so I can turn around and throw some of it away on a vehicle.

Then last week, a very old and dear friend visited Homer. Carol came all the way from Maine in order to check a tour of Alaska off her bucket list. Back in the seventies we were housemates and along with 8 others shared a charming 18th century mansion in Boston. It was a huge house situated on a wooded lot with a garden and grape arbor. We heated it with wood we hustled from the town dump  — mostly elm that was killed off by Dutch Elm Disease. I spent two happy years living there while attending computer classes at nearby Boston University.

For the most part the weather was decent while Carol was here and on one perfect blue-bird day I took her and her friend Barbara down to see Swift Creek Cabin at the head of the bay. I lived in that cabin during the winter of 1983-84 with Tuli's mom, my first year in Alaska. We were totally unprepared for the darkness that descends on the north country in November but we got through it and in the end enjoyed living off the grid, truly off the grid. No running water, no electricity, no anything. The ever changing view from the front window of Kachemak Bay and the mountains beyond made up for much of what we missed in the way of creature comforts.

Swift Creek Cabin — Russell Homestead
(N59.787760, W151.085881)

I'm waiting for summer to truly begin. Carol and Barbara are in Denali. And I'm looking for a car... Damn the luck!

Talking photography and photographs

A few weeks ago I was browsing Facebook when a photo that appeared in my news feed grabbed my attention. It was a very nice picture of sunrise over the Homer Spit that had been posted by a friend of one of my FB Friends. The weird thing was that it belonged to me - it was my photo. Apparently someone had been looking through my Alaska Scenes Album on Facebook, took a liking to this particular photo and decided to Share it on their own wall. This friend of a friend liked it and also shared it. Neither person claimed it as their own but I nevertheless felt somewhat slighted.  Many people who include their own original photographs in their blogs watermark them with their name and copyright info. I've always been reluctant to spoil the looks of a nice photo with such legalese nonsense — I'm a believer in the concept that "information wants to be free" and I reckon that includes photographic information. But then again ...

I'm happy that someone liked my photo enough to appropriate it for wider use but not overjoyed that I didn't get credited for it. In this much wider circle of viewers it received many more positive comments than it did when I first posted it. This motivated me to re-appropriate it  as my own.  You see it now as the new cover image on my blog. Btw, for those of you who aren't familiar with Homer or where it is in Alaska, here are some coordinates you can copy and paste into Google Earth or Google Maps. This location will put you right over the Spit. (N59.624274, W151.466733)

The day I captured the first three photos you see in this blog entry, including the image at top, was a fine day for photography. It was a cold, crystal clear winter solstice morning, Dec 21, 2008. I was living in a borrowed house just after the breakup of my marriage of 10 years. It had been a hard winter — a winter filled with much soul searching and many blue days. Just before the split my wife and I had bought tickets for a month's vacation in Fiji, a vacation we had hoped would heal the growing rift in a relationship that had bridged more than 20 years. Long story short and not surprisingly, she decided to stay home and take a refund for the tickets. After a lot of vacillating I finally decided to take a chance that I might be able to enjoy an exotic, mid-winter vacation on my own. I kept the tickets and began making plans. Part of those plans was the purchase of a camera to replace my venerable Nikon Coolpix 995. The new camera was a Canon G10.

That's how it came to pass that on that cold winter morning I found myself scraping the windshield of my old Camry in the dark so as to get into a good position up on West Hill Road to watch the sun rise over my beloved Kachemak Bay. I wanted to check out the G10 to see what it was capable of and to learn how to use it to make the coming trip to Fiji more fun and more memorable.

I've always enjoyed photography. My cousin Don and I had darkrooms in our basements back in the fifties and together developed many rolls of Kodak 620 film shot with our Kodak Hawkeye cameras. Then 20 years later, with my girlfriend Jean at our apartment on East Avenue in Rochester, New York, I put together a full featured darkroom in a second bedroom where we developed lots of Panatomic-X and Tri-X film from our 35 mm SLR cameras. We both had Nikkormats at the time. I sold mine to my good friend Joseph when I left New England for Alaska back in 1983; the last time I talked to him he still had it.

Brownie Hawkeye Nikkormat 35mm SLR

But that was back in the day. Digital photography has changed all that. No more darkrooms, no more Dektol developer, no more tedious washing of prints or yellow boxes of enlarging paper for high and low contrast negatives, no stinky fixer baths, and no ferrotype plates. Now there's only Photoshop — it's darkroom, airbrusher, color-balancer, beautifier, post-processing, photo manipulator par excellence, rolled into one magnificent computer program. As I've remarked on many occasions, there is probably not a single image you've ever seen in a print or web publication that hasn't been run through Photoshop. The following photos are no exception.

The G10 can shoot in a mode called "camera raw". This mode produces a large file, on the order of 15 MB, that contains 16-bit color information recorded by the camera's sensor. Your computer monitor by comparison can display only 8-bit colors. Having 16-bits of color data to play with means one can minimize exposure errors, adjust color balance, and a host of other things before the in-camera firmware has transformed the sensor data into the standard 8-bit JPEG format you see at the end. By shooting in camera raw you're working with image data without having to sacrifice anything to the camera's internal JPEG algorithm. Now, the G10 is not a high end DSLR but it can produce images with a fairly high quality. Luckily when I shot these, I captured them in camera raw. (clicking on them should load a larger version.)

Solstice sunrise over Kachemak Bay, 9:50 am

Alaska and Kachemak Bay are very photogenic  —  I'm sure many gigabytes of images have been collected of scenes similar to the ones I've shown here. For those of you stuck in cities in the lower 48, take a gander at what for many years was the view I had from my car window during my short commute into town. Most of the mountains over there have no official names and with the exception of the tiny town of Halibut Cove practically nobody lives on that side of the bay. It's part of the allure of living in Alaska. I reckon the mere idea that there are no people, towns or shopping malls anywhere in one's field of vision is an attractive idea for most Alaskans, myself included.

Later that morning I caught this bull moose grazing peacefully in a meadow above the town. Moose cows and calves are quite a common sight in our neighborhood but bulls like this one are rarely seen, at least by me. Looking at these images now I'm asking myself why I don't get up early more often to take photos when the lighting conditions are so nearly ideal.

Solstice Bull, December 21, 2008 10:23 am

I don't work that much in camera raw anymore seeing as what I do with most of my photos is post them in my blog, on the web. Larger image files are harder to download and slow things down significantly. The JPEG format sacrifices some image quality as a means of reducing file size. The JPEG format was, in fact, developed to make it easier to load and use high quality photographs on the Internet and with computer monitors. (Exactly the same rationale pertains to the MP3 format for music.) Consequently most of the images I have are stored in medium size JPEG format and take up between 3 and 5 MB each. Here are a couple more Homer photos to complete this story.

Ashfall from Mt. Redoubt fills the sky over Kachemak Bay

On the morning of April 4, 2009, Mt Redoubt was active, spewing smoke and ash into the air. There was ash falling, the sky was almost black and one could see lightning flashing now and again. The mountains across the bay from Homer took on this weird reddish hue that I captured in the image above.

Magnificent Kachemak Bay

I'm enjoying my last couple of days with Tuli and Harper. I'll be sad to leave them but I'm getting stoked about being back in Homer too. Spoke with Nut today on Skype. She has just now gotten back to our place in Chiang Mai after an extended visit with family in Bangkok and Betong. Her daughter Dui Dui presented her with a granddaughter, her first grandchild, back in March so she was off being a grandma while I was playing grandpa here in Eugene. We both enjoyed it.

An amazing material - D30

I have never written about motorcycle safety gear but I happened upon a very interesting product the other day at the local Cycle Gear shop here in Eugene and wanted to tell my motorcycling buddies about it. Rather than write an email to them I hit on the idea of posting it here where it might get wider circulation. The reason I think that is because my little discourse on Vespas has garnered an astounding 270 pageviews since I posted it back in March. (Another post, Maiden Voyage: Conclusion, about our first ride on the CBR250, got 300 hits!) I know I don't have that many dedicated followers out in cyberspace but apparently what I write about motorcycles and motorcycling gets read by more than my few I'm Outta Here faithfuls. Thanks are due to some other bloggers who have listed my blog as one they follow. No doubt some of their readers have decided to give my blog a look now and again. Anyway....

Last spring I bought some gear for the tour of the southwest on my VStrom; a Nolan N30 helmet, tough knuckle-armored biking gloves, waterproof armored riding boots. Seeing as I was heading into what I thought would be a hot, sunny desert climate and that in any case I'd soon be riding in tropical Thailand again, I bought a pair of open mesh cycling pants from Cycle Gear in Sacramento. Cycle Gear is a nationwide motorcycle accessories chain whose in-house brand is named Bilt. They offer a wide selection of fairly good quality gear at reasonable prices. The Bilt pants I purchased have conventional armor, that is to say plastic, knee protection and an external padded area on each hip to help prevent injury in the event of a fall. But I was never impressed with the sturdiness of those little buffer pads.

As I was stashing the pants in the closet before returning to the states I noticed they were fitted with two internal velcro-flapped pockets, one over each hip, that I had overlooked before. The pockets were empty but obviously designed to hold armor pads. Strange to have pockets with nothing in them, I thought.  But then, I only paid 100 bucks for them. What should I expect for that price? Once here in Eugene I decided to visit the local Cycle Gear shop in search of some genuine hip protection, ideally something made to fit those pockets. With the help of the friendly staff there I discovered D30. After a short and convincing demo in the store I ordered these hip pads and then did a little research. Here's the main d30 site.  And here is a Wikipedia article.

D30 pads, left one is in its velcro equipped holster - $25/pair

The orange, spongy pad is light, very flexible and soft to the touch. That is, until you hit it or try to poke something through it. Then it instantly stiffens to take on the consistency of hardwood or metal and becomes virtually impenetrable.

Here's some folks from Gizmag.com "testing" some D30 armor

While I don't know how long the video links I've included below will be available (videos sometimes disappear quickly and without warning) short of testing the armor on yourself they are possibly the best intro to the properties of this amazing material.

Apparently D30 has found wide application as a lightweight and comfortable body armor for snowboarders, police and corrections personnel, even in cases for smartphones (naturally). The first link below is to a short YouTube video from the online motorcycle store "Go AZ Motorcycles" out of Scottsdale, Arizona.
Video: In store demo from GoAZ.com
I tried the demo with a hammer on my own hand and I can tell you, the D30 works as claimed. I felt force and pressure but nothing that would bruise or break a bone.

This next one isn't about the trademarked product "D30" in particular, at least as far as I know, but about an amazing combination of a polymer, polyethylene glycol, and silica that has found its way into body armor of all sorts. The claims are similar to the ones made for D30 and I'm assuming this the same product or a precursor. And it's cool. The video is also a bit longer but if you have any interest at all in body armor it's certainly worth the 9 minutes you'll spend watching it. Towards the end you'll see some fabric reinforced with liquid armor that repelled a sharp, steel tipped hunting arrow with  impunity.
Video: Liquid Armor.
Here are just a couple more:
On the properties of D30 before shaping into a pad: How does D30 work?
D30 was originally used as a protective layer in ski caps. Watch "Smack me on the head with a Shovel."
In one of the videos you can see entire sets of pads being offered to replace the ones that came with your old gear. That might be a good investment. I hope I never have the need to test these pads "in the field" but if I do, I bet they will help defend my tender parts against a bad case of road rash.

Now that I've spent a bit of time writing this, I'll probably learn that many of you already knew about D30. If so, the laugh's on me. Please consider leaving a comment if you got anything out of this....
^_^

Springtime in Eugene

I'm in Eugene visiting my son Tuli and grandson Harper. The weather here after the first few days has been almost perfect with sunny, blue skies and warm lilac-scented days. Everything's a-bloom here, unlike Homer where winter is still rearing its ugly head every few days to confound those with hopes of starting their gardening or other outdoor projects. It was a long hard winter up north, one of those that make me glad I've become a snowbird. I know if I were in Homer right now I'd be cursing the snow and the difficult hike to the little cabin up on the ridge at David and Jenny's where I spent the past three summers. That place was a wonderful summer hideout and I'll miss it a lot. However, I will not miss snowshoeing in and living without running water.

I've lucked out and found a terrific place to stay. I put out an APB by email to my Homer tennis friends asking if anyone knew of a place to rent or house sit.  Within hours I had a reply; the offer of a house to use for most of the summer. It's also up on the ridge north of Homer, near David & Jenny's, but a bit closer to town. And as a huge bonus it has satellite TV (think tennis and Wimbledon), broadband Internet (a major addiction satisfied), and running water. With that email the last of my concerns about the summer have been put to rest and I can be free to totally enjoy my time here in Eugene. Thanks to Betsy and Marsh who will be in Portland preparing for the arrival of two new grandchildren. My congrats and thanks also go to Lyric and Lyra for their most excellent timing ^_^.

"Boppa Dave" at Starbuck's with Tuli and Harper (above and below)

 I have some regrets about my life before I moved to Alaska but chief among them is that I wasn't around to watch and participate in my other grandchildren's lives. I have excuses. Who doesn't? I was working far away in Alaska, I had little time or money, I was single parenting part of the time, my kids are scattered all over the lower 48, etc. But those precious years are past and I missed them. Now that I'm retired and have some time to travel I'm determined that Harper won't grow up without knowing his weird, wandering grandpa from Alaska. That's by way of explaining why all the photos in this post have the little guy in them.

Here in Eugene, Max and Alice are part of Tuli's and my extended family. Both are old and dear Homer friends. Max is in school here and Alice moved down to be involved with Max's double lung transplant a few years ago. Alice is practically a second mom to Tuli and Max and Tuli have been best friends since they were 4 years old. Alice often took care of Tuli when I worked at the library in Homer. I remember picking him up after the late shift on Thursday nights, pizza night at Max and Lance's, where there was usually a slice left for me. Fond memories for which I'll always be grateful. We've all been getting together regularly for dinner since I got here. It's been great to spend so much time with people that are in almost every way part of my family. And now, with Harper on the scene, the whole thing is continuing except that now it's Aunt Alice and Uncle Max connecting with Tuli's boy. The cycle repeats itself ...

Harper with his Uncle Max and daddy -- Go Ducks!

With Aunt Alice at her home in Eugene

Harper in the Work Zone

 I guess that's all for now. I'm simply whiling away the days as the time comes for my trip north. I leave here on the 25th of May. Tuli's home from work with a case of strep throat so I'm doing my best to take care of him, sort of like the old days. I've been cooking his favorite foods and actually enjoying the extra time we're getting to spend together although this certainly ain't the best way to get it.

Family visit - East Coast

I began writing this while in Seattle after leaving there last September on my way west to Thailand. My arrival in SeaTac completed an 8 month long round the world circuit. It was the long way 'round and I doubt I'll ever do it again. Yet, even as I wrote that I thought of the fine time I had just had in Amsterdam. If I want to hang out there for a week, or a month, I'll need to do this very same trip again.

I spent some precious time with my mom, my brother Dale, sister Sandy and nephew Jason in Buffalo. It's always good to visit family -- we usually gather around the family photo collection and reminisce about the old days. My mom is the practically last one left  standing of many aunts, uncles and neighbors -- she's outlived my dad by 36 years and except for my Aunt Marion, dad's only sibling, they're all gone now. Our family was traditional in that we and our relatives always partied together; at picnics, graduations, weddings, holidays, and for vacations. There was always a barrel of beer on hand and tons of German style food -- beef on 'weck and German potato salad were perennial favorites. The photos bring back to us those times and beloved family members.
But only for a moment.

Mom will be 96 in November

The Buffalo contingent - April 22, 2012

With my brother Dale and sister Sandy

I also got together with some good college friends. Carm's wife Kim shot this photo of the four of us who graduated from the Industrial Chemistry program at Erie County Technical Institute (now Erie Community College) in 1963, almost 50 years ago. It's hard to believe all those years have passed. We're all retired now, our kids are grown and have kids of their own. Sheesh!

With Ron & Cheryl and Carmen at the Protocol Restaurant

I left Buffalo for a visit with my daughter Carin and her fast growing family. They live in North Carolina near Greensboro, in the town of Kernersville. My visit was brief because my youngest son, Tuli, had knee surgery scheduled for the 30th. Here we are at Smitty's, their favorite neighborhood restaurant, getting ready to have dinner. I high-fived Smitty on his decision to offer a tasty IPA on tap in addition to those tired old lagers he had last time I visited.

Carin, Kaiyah, Kellen, Jared and Walter at Smitty's for dinner

Kellen

Jared

Kaiyah

All the boys drive BMWs, while mom has a Honda van (naturally)
Kellen with dad's 2001 528i, Jared drives their new/used 1998 M3,
Walter poses with his BMW company car, a late model 328i (?)

After our dinner at Smitty's it was off to the airport for another all day, cross country jaunt. I arrived in Eugene yesterday evening and was delighted to see Tuli and my youngest grandson Harper waiting to fetch me. And I was delighted to be finished with airplanes and airports for a few weeks.

Next stop: Homer, Alaska.

Bicycling in Amsterdam - Windmill Tour

The De Riekermolen windmill with its "fantail" in clear view (see below)

As I keep saying, while in Amsterdam, biking is what I like to do best.  Well, and a little beer drinking at the Gollem Bar after the rides. Consequently, yesterday I did the Park Tour and today with an eye toward finding a goal for a second day's ride I decided to visit a few windmills. Even though I had pretty much already done this in 2009, windmills are pretty awesome and continue to fascinate me. I was under the mistaken impression that there were only a few of those famous Dutch windmills left. However, while I was planning a route I discovered a Google Earth KML file that conveniently place-marked many of them — from it I learned there are hundreds scattered around the country. I edited it and then converted it to a format my GPS can read and downloaded it to my trusty Garmin 60Cx. I constructed a circular route that would take me to see some that were within riding distance of my hotel. By the way, bike rental outfits are everywhere and the shop keepers are eager to please. I paid 21 euro for a two day deal.
(Note added May 6, 2012: In retrospect,  as I look more closely at a map of the surrounding area I observe that my hotel is very close to the North Sea, only about 20 miles, that I really should have done a ride over there -- all the more reason to go back.)

The weather at 9 am was cold and windy with heavily overcast skies. After a few minutes in that wind I began to think I'd better head back to my hotel room for warmer clothes. I was again wearing a polypro hat and cotton gloves along with my old wind-proof jacket and long johns under my shorts but I had this nice wool shirt in my bag that I wanted. I talked myself into going on and after a half hour or so I was feeling fine. All you need is a bit of activity to stay warm and biking easily provides that. And I will admit to enjoying the feel of the crisp spring air after all those months in tropical Thailand.

De Otter

De 1200 Roe windmill and a typical Amsterdam bike path

My bike and I visiting Sloterpark

De 1100 Roe windmill

Built in 1757, the De 1100 Roe (as well as the others I've shown) is an example of a smock mill, a type called a grondzeiler ("ground sailer") by the Dutch, since the sails almost reach the ground. Notice also the "fantail", the small windmill set at a right angle to the sails, at the back. (You can see it more clearly in the top photo of De Riekermolen.) This device helps rotate the turret or cap of the mill so as to keep the sails facing into the wind. The long white poles are attached to the cap and help to turn it and possibly to brace the structure against the wind. This mill is set in a lovely spot and was actually turning when I was there. Quite impressive.

De Dikkert

Molen van Sloten

I rode about the same distance on this tour as yesterday's, about 28 miles. It was a fine ride. I stopped for lunch at the eponymously named Klein Kalfje, a lovely little restaurant near De Riekermolen on the Amstel River, and had some crispy deep fried chicken over salad greens with wasabi dressing. About 14 euro. The place was crowded and even though the temperature was still cool by any standard many of the outdoor tables were occupied by hardy Dutch folk. The weather doesn't keep them from going out hiking or biking whenever the opportunity presents itself.
As for me, I ate indoors ^_^

Here's the route I took.


View Amsterdam 2012 - Windmill Tour in a larger map

Tomorrow I'll  leave Amsterdam to hop over the Atlantic to Buffalo. I'll enjoy visiting family for the next few weeks but I'll miss Amsterdam. This is a city I could certainly enjoy living in for a month or two. Maybe someday I will ....

Bicycling in Amsterdam - Park Tour

I love biking in Amsterdam. The city is totally set up for bikes and bikers. There are separate paths, actually an entire alternate road network with its own dedicated traffic controls, running alongside virtually every street and road in the entire city. And here in the Netherlands, where drivers are never surly or in a rush and always obey the rules, you feel that drivers of motor vehicles sincerely respect you as someone having the same rights to use the roads as they do. They give you plenty of space and will even politely wait if you happen to be in an intersection when you shouldn't be.

Saturday dawned cold and cloudy. It made me less than excited to jump on a bicycle right away so I did my computer chores, edited my blog, visited Facebook and did some exploring on Google Earth to put together some sort of tour of the city that I would then follow with my GPS. I had brought along the handlebar mount from my CBR because last time I was here I carried the GPS in my pocket -- not handy at all. My tendency was to pull it out and while driving one-handed to check for directions. The handlebar mount would make following my route easier and safer.

I decided to do another park tour, sort of like I did when I was here last. Amsterdam is a city just full of wonderful public parks. There are parks and green spaces scattered about in every part of the city. And after the sun finally came out on such a gray morning, people followed suit.

Vondelpark (N52.35925 E4.87226)

Climbing tree - Vondelpark

Two girls - Vondelpark

Spring is here!

Big hair meeting - Vondelpark

Boat racing at the Bos (N52.32580 E4.83550)

Here's the tour on Google Maps. Clicking on the link below the map will open a larger version in Google Maps.



View Amsterdam 2012 - Park Tour in a larger map

I covered about 30 miles on this tour and almost the same distance on Sunday when I decided to take a windmill tour. That's next  ....

Thailand to Amsterdam

I left Thailand yesterday and after a long but very comfortable flight, I've landed in chilly, overcast Amsterdam. It's spring here and things are greening up nicely but after 7 months in the tropics my blood's gotten thin and I'm cold. My hands and feet are cold despite the fact that I'm indoors and wearing both a wool shirt and a polar fleece jacket as I write.  

Yes I said very comfortable. Somehow by the strangest quirk of fate, I got to sit in Dynasty Class on my China Airlines flight from Bangkok. Dynasty Class must be CAL's name for its business class seating because it was wide open spaces up there. You could move around, stretch out.

Here's a comparison I put together (thanks to SeatGuru!) from diagrams of both compartments in the 747-400 I flew. When I first checked my boarding pass I moaned -- how did I end up in a window seat? I was going to be terribly cramped and would need to crawl over two people to get out to stretch my legs or pee. I didn't pick a window seat when I bought the tickets, that's for sure. I would never willingly choose a window seat. But my boarding pass said clearly on it, Seat 10A. But  what a pleasant surprise awaited me there, upstairs in the Upper Deck penthouse. Not only were the seats super sized but 10A was an exit row seat that gave me probably 8 feet of legroom. Plus, it was a recliner. Almost as good as my old Lazyboy at home! How I got that seat is a mystery to me. So be it. I was glad to have it.

Upper deck left, Economy section right
China Airlines Boeing 747-400

I got off the plane feeling fresh and relaxed. My bag was one of the first ones out of the chute so I grabbed it and headed for the ticket counter to buy a ticket to Amsterdam Centraal. I plunked down a 5 euro note and got 70 cents change.  That's  $5 and a half bucks for a short ride into town on a packed commuter train. Another 2.70 euro got me to my hotel. I had picked this one online because at it was relatively cheap and near the Leidseplein and Vondelpark, two beautiful places I recalled from the last time I was here. Then again, it's plain that I should have paid more attention to the comments in those reviews I read. The Europa-92 was not perfect.  But it did have some good features.

Here are two views of the garden at the back of the Hotel Europa 92:

While the garden is pretty my room here is the smallest I've ever had. I'm jammed into a space not much larger than the tent I had at Maasai Mara except the ceiling is higher and it has a full private bath, something not many hotels here offer unless you're willing to spend over $100 a night. However, the room was spotless, the hosts friendly and accommodating. Amsterdam's a beautiful city and I love being here but everything is insanely expensive compared to Thailand.

The room wasn't ready when I first arrived so I ducked out for a quick lunch. I had a BLT because I love them and you just cannot get a good BLT in Thailand.The damn thing cost almost $10, which gave me sticker shock after being in Thailand so long. On the way back from lunch I stopped at one of Amsterdam's many bike shops to set up a rental. I'll be spend my time biking around both full days I'm here. Biking in this town is wonderful -- the streets and parks are crowded with bikers, polite, rule following bikers, polar opposites to the crazies you run into elsewhere.

Oh, and I noticed this sign in the window of a nearby Thai restaurant. Almost $15 bucks for a bowl of tom yum? I don't think so....

I think I'll pass on this soup "special"