Exodus to Amsterdam Göteborg

Whew. That was a lot of photographs. All told, we took 889 pictures plus one 12 second long video of, of all things, a three-legged cat (that we affectionally named “Tripod”).

As promised, below are a bunch of photos of the second half of our Italian Adventure, spent in Rome. Our gorgeous little bed and breakfast was literally across the street from St. Peter’s Basilica, we could walk to the Coliseum in about 45 minutes, and we discovered a no-kill, volunteer run cat shelter in an unexcavated ruin in the middle of downtown. The Vatican Musem, Spanish Steps, the Sistine Chapel, Trevi Fountain, more granite/marble penises and breasts than I care to remember, the Pantheon, oodles of gorgeous Italian cathedrals, and maybe the most delicious red wine (tapped straight out of a cask, not out of a bottle) that I’ve ever had.

And yes, as one of the pictures attests, we were literally about 10 meters away from the Pope at one point. I’ve been papally blessed.

I wanna go back.

Hold on to your pants, there’s a lot of these.

italy, you big tourist anniversary, boobies, italy, jet lag, pasta, rome, the pope, travel, venice

Thanks to a properly-legalized form, a short taxi ride, and one HELL of a Fed-Ex bill, Mrs. Shannon Kosman and I are now, once again, legally married in the eyes of God, the Dutch Government, and our Facebook statuses.

(backstory here)

amsterdam boobies, living in sin, taxi

(There, THAT should be a sufficiently attention-grabbing title.)

Today was another walkabout day, and if I thought that Shannie put me through my paces on Sunday, I was mistaken. The problem we’ve had so far is that jet lag has been a killer. Getting used to the 8 hour time-zone shift has been difficult. We’ve been taking naps every afternoon and then finding ourselves both wide awake at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning. Our plan today was to be out all day, and not allow ourselves to be home to take naps at all until bedtime.

This plan involved us walkin, it would seem, through all of Christendom and back. We didn’t even get to every location on the agenda Shannie put together, and by the time we staggered back to the apartment to cook some dinner, we’d knocked well over 10 km out of ourselves.

Granted, there were some few extra kilometeres that weren’t factored into the original equation.

Fun game: decipher the map below to determine where the extra kilometers entered the schedule! First one to find a million wins!

Also, the aforementioned “Hooray for Boobies!” Yes, a good portion of our stroll took us right through the heart of the Red Light District. Now, Since Shannie and I strictly obeyed the “NO PHOTOS” sticker on every window, this’ll have to suffice, thanks to Google Image Search:

That’s basically what it is… girls behnd a street-level (secured) glass door, with a little intercom you can speak to them through. You talk to them, if they like you, they open the door. It’s all very businesslike (well, except for all of the exposed flesh and skimpy underwear), these girls are professionals (they’re unionized workers with full health benefits), and the only reason I know exactly how the entire process works is because I watched it happen right in front of me a good couple of dozen times over the course of a few blocks.  Let’s not kid around… legalized prostitution is a huge part of the economy here. Even the Lonely Planet tour guide book for Amsterdam has an entire chapter devoted to it (it has another chapter entirely devoted to the marijuana-serving “coffee shops,” but that’s for a future blog post).

Through the course of our day, we also managed to snap some architectural photos, some pictures of a huge Saint Bernard in someone’s living room, and drink wine in Rembrandt’s Corner, the little pub next to the Rembrandt Museum. Now that we’re home and supper has been consumed (pan-seared salmon with rice, garden salad, and white wine), we’re off to meet a couple co-workers for a nightcap. To the pub!

amsterdam, you big tourist boobies, jet lag, red light district, walking