A Year in Utrecht

Historically, Berlin has not been the easiest city to get out of, and it seems this holds true in modern times.  On the day of our departure, Guy and I spent the day pursuing the museums of "museum island", enjoying some art as well as various ancient historical objects. Usual museum suspects. I'll admit that my stamina was particularly low that day as the previous night had been our exploration of Berlin's famous techno scene. I spent much of the day fantasizing about chilling out on the train, and the comfy bed that awaited me at the other end of it. At around five, we managed our last long trek through (bitterly cold) Berlin, at long last reaching the pearly gates of the central station.  By the time we collapsed into our seats on the train, my feet were aching (thanks Dr. Marten) and I was ready to sit still for the six hour ride. Guy and I settled in to watch some Avatar: The Last Airbender (no judgement, it's a timeless classic), and I was feeling happy abou...

For the past several days, Guy and I have been traipsing about the city of Berlin, Germany. From Utrecht to Berlin it takes about six and a half hours by train to get there, assuming all goes smoothly. On the way there it was just that; smooth, easy, fun even.  Berlin was much different from what I was expecting pre-arrival. Having done very little research before our adventure, this is not terribly surprising. For one, the city is gigantic. It is about 554 square miles, compared to New York's 302, and LA's 501. However, even though it is nearly two times as large as the biggest apple, its population is less than half. This means that one of my first impressions of the city was that it feels very empty. Guy and I did a (very) significant amount of walking during our time there and it didn't seem to matter what location, nor what time of day it was, there were the same amount of people walking around. There was the same lack of bustle at 4am as there was at 4pm. Not to say t...

2023 came to a close last night, and let me just say, the Dutch really know how to welcome a new year.  In the weeks leading up to the new year, I'd been noticing a steady increase in the number of explosions heard during both dark hours and light, but I was decidedly unprepared for the culmination of festivities last night.  I'll preface this story with another one. Guy is visiting me for a few weeks, and yesterday we thought we'd go into Amsterdam and check out a few things. The plan was to go for one of the free walking tours, and then revisit and get a closer look at a few spots that piqued our interests. Well this plan was foiled, first by  a wrong train (my fault) and then by a desperate search for a bathroom (Guy's fault) which resulted in us missing first the 1 o'clock and then the 2 o'clock tours.  No matter though, in classic McFeeters-Krone fashion, we changed plans, rerouting for the Anne Frank museum. We were met there with the news that the museum ...