6 October

For a full list of all trip photos, click here. For more on the technical specs behind these photos, click here. For the text entry that accompanies these photos, click here.

Part 3 of our crazy 24-hour roadtrip to Amsterdam. (Click here for part 1, or here for part 2.) This is the morning of the 6th, showing the front foyer of Hotel de Gerstekorrel, Damstraat - the steepest set of stairs in all of human history.

And here is our hotel from the outside - not too assuming, which I actually liked. (The front desk of the hotel is in a separate office, four doors down from the rooms.)

The inside of a Dutch grocery store, where we bought breakfast.

And us eating breakfast (next two photos), in Muntheim Plaza, one of many irregularly-shaped plazas that dot the city.

Next eleven photos: my morning in 'de Pijp,' one of the slacker residential neighborhoods recommended to me the night before by Jasper, Joris, and his buddies at the Rembrandt-Plaza bar where I randomly chose to drink. They were right, of course - the district is full of cafes (like this one, right next to Sarphatipark), used-record stores, bike shops, bookstores and the like.

Next two photos: Europa Centre, a futuristic but decaying shopping center I found on the edge of the city. Wish I had had the time to get out and explore the not-so-distant-future dystopia! Perfect for a low-budget student science-fiction film!

Panoramic shot! I do these on a regular basis in Chicago, as a matter of fact (that is, take a bunch of individual photos then stitch them together in Photoshop as a panorama), but had forgotten about it the whole first half of my trip to Germany. I finally remembered, and did this one as the first - a shot of the RAI suburban train station, and a profound example of just how seriously bikes are taken in Amsterdam. (Click on the photo or here for the full-sized [800-pixel] version; or here for a special page displaying just the panoramic shots I took during my trip.)

Next eleven photos: Just some random shots in and around Ricardo and Karin's home in Cochem, a three-story house they have all to themselves. Included are pictures of their main living room/bedroom, the guest room upstairs where I stayed, hallway, kitchen, bathroom, and front entrance.

Here and below: Ricardo and I out having a few drinks, blowing off a little steam, and talking about our crazy fucked-up lives. Viva la vacation.

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