Hipsters and Clogs

Day 851, Clogs: My last full day in Philadelphia, I was fortunate enough to have some close friends come to see me from Baltimore, New York, and Princeton. We got to spend the afternoon and evening together. Some of us keep in touch nearly constantly, but there’s nothing like face to face catch-up over meals.

Day 531, Clogs: Nearly filled my memory card today. This image, taken atop the Museum Aan de Stroom, has led me to finally create a new tag: favorites, which I’ll now go back and retroactively add to a bunch of clear winners I’ve had before. Antwerp is worth a visit, to be sure.

Day 466, Clogs: Boarding an early morning ORD-ROC flight, I had fun getting tarmac photos. I got four, all of which I really liked for different reasons, but this one captured the sky’s color the most accurately. It reminds me of this post from the summer.

Day 360, Clogs: The North Sea, seen from Texel, which is an island ringed by a national park that’s pretty much just dunes. I’ve seen it described as “the Dutch Martha’s Vineyard”. The villages on it, each geographically distinct, varied from “quaint” to “southern Jersey Shore-ish”. We stayed in De Koog, which was sort of of the latter variety. That makes it sound trashy, but it’s not. Just that the souvenir shops and restaurants border on cheesy. Other than that, fantastic location. A Dutch person, upon my return, told me that Texel is considered inferior to the other islands of the North Sea, because it’s so close to the mainland, just a 20 minute ferry ride.

Day 273, Clogs: My labmate’s wedding reception/party was at a Nineteenth Century  fort, part of the New Water Line, near Utrecht. Cool building in a lovely location. Some of us got there by taking a train to Utrecht Centraal. From there, we took a bus which dropped us off at a stop next to some fields. Then we walked about a mile to the fort. This picture is from the back side of the fort, and I wanted to catch the contrail’s reflection in the water. 

Day 264, Clogs: A friend here mentioned that there were 16 hours of daylight today. This is what we get here along the 51st parallel. (Note: some latitude as Calgary.) Rochester, by contrast, had 15 hours today. I had dinner with some friends more or less on campus and watched the sky turn. 

Day 53, Clogs: This is the village of Sankt Goar am Rhein, Germany. It’s about 3 hours from Nijmegen by car. (If you know German geography, it’s an hour west of Frankfurt.)  I have at least five pictures like this from various viewpoints, including the hotel room balcony and the castle grounds, mostly varying in the amount of sunlight and the occlusion of townparts by that pesky tree. The hotel we stayed at is adjacent to Burg Rheinfels, a 13th Century castle. The church the wedding was at is again visible, this time poking out as the tallest structure in town. Across the Rhine River is Sankt Goarshausen, which appears to be very similar to Sankt Goar and it’s just a short ferry trip away.