Split Rail

I like the way the line seems to reproduce - peeling away from the center rail. I think this is our departure from Centraal Station in Amsterdam. It's much nicer without sound (or play your own music).

Travel Series

63 Blur. 20 X20. 2009.

Roman Underground. 16X20. 2009.

Milan Rising. 20 X20. 2009

I've been working on a series of Travel photos from the June trip to Europe. Above is a sampling of the images which I had printed at ookiimage. The obvious theme is travel, but more specifically the unexpected beauty of transportation and the constant movement associated with it. Plus, I couldn't overlook the food so there's a little of that in there as well.

Like a Bird

So yesterday, Saturday, we booked a tour to Neuschwanstein Castle. Our tour included a really nice coach bus to transport us to Füssen , Germany. The name Füssen translates to "foot" as the village literally sits at the foot of the alps, while the castle, Neuschwanstein, has served as inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyworld as well as an important location in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Part of the tour earlier in the day involved a bike ride around Swan Lake, offering spectacular views of the castle. What neither of us knew much of was the tandem para gliding trips they offered over the castle and alps. So my first move was to get Mike involved and excited so we could sort-of do it together. That didn't really go anywhere. Advice from others and the guides got me too involved not to do it, so I signed up to jump off the Alps. This has, so far, been the highlight of the trip. While the rest of the group carried on with the bike ride, I hurried to a shed to get ready for para gliding. It all happened so fast: I signed some paper, got on a cable car (almost freakier than the flight) and ended up standing on top of a mountain in a wind suit, helmet and some arm straps attached to the seat in which I rode in. There was a line up there- because of the beautiful weather everyone was rearing to go-so we waited patiently. Actually, I waited nervously. When our turn came around, the guide laid the chute out on the platform and set me in position. Now I was seriously nervous as I was facing a downward ramp that led to a cliff at the top of a mountain. Not much time passed before the guide came up behind me, clicked on to me, told me to run and POOF, the chute was aloft and we were in the air. HOLY SHIT, I thought. I had to manually push the seat under me while he was telling me to lean forward and adjust some straps...I though I was going to fall out of the sky. Minutes into the ordeal I was in shock wondering how it was possible...to be in that position, witnessing what I saw. It was absolutely amazing. The guide gently spun us toward the Alps, over the trees and just above the castle Mike & I had booked the trip for. Time stopped while I snapped photos and videos from my camera attempting to capture what it was like to be hanging in the sky. 20-25 minutes later, we made our way to the landing and dropped out of the air.

After that, I carried on with everyone in the group to the castle interior via the ravine hike(which was also beautiful) and the ravine bridge which offered even more spectacular views of the castle and the village of Füssen.

What a day.

Mike and I ended the day with a scrumptious dinner with a member from the tour and a big German beer afterwards. Yum.

Tour, Tour, Tourists

The company that we toured Paris with, New Europe Tours, is all over the place. In each city they over a Free Tour which is like a three hour-ish orientation of the place. Then they offer all sorts of other paid tours that they often try to snag you into. So here in Germany we meant to take the Free Tour but got to the pick-up spot at the meeting time. ( I didn't read the fine print.) The pick-up spot meets a half an hour earlier. No big deal though, the Free Tours run all day, every day. But we didn't have time to go to the other one as we had reservations with MIKE'S BIKE TOURS!

I guess David went on and on to Mike about Mike's Bike Tours. And I don't know if it was regarding the actual tour or the name. Either way, we can still say Mike rode a bike on the Mike's Bike tour. And it was worth it. It felt good to be off our feet and freely wheeling about the city. We learned a bit about the architecture and a bit about the early days of the Hitler Regime. We rode through the beautiful and large English Garden where our guide told us to be on the look for naked sun bathers, however all we saw was a very tan man they've coined "Robo-Cock" due the abundance of piercings in his genital area. Apparently he's always there in the park, same spot, nude waiting for the bike tours. He wasn't old or creepy, just very much enjoys the attention I guess.

In the middle of the park is the Chinese Beer Garden where we made a stop. Most tours stop for maybe one beer, but we got delayed while our guide went out looking for the 4 bikers that went astray. Two liters later we were back on our bikes and finished the tour soon after. Start to finish was about 5 hours.

Then, just around the corner from the bike shop was the grand Hofbräuhaus. Two english guys from the tour and ourselves went over for some beers and food. The four of us chatted along with some others at the table while we ate bread and drank bread. Literally, this is the place to bulk up.

We have two more tours lined up between today, Friday, and Sunday and we're even considering staying another day. Lots of stuff of interest for both of us here and the accommodations are very reasonable. As of today we actually have to share our spacious six-bunk room. First there was the young German that must have checked in over night (he wasn't there when we went to bed) and just this morning a middle-aged man in a suit showed up. He's been sleeping sitting up against the wall all morning (still in his suit). Hasn't said a word.

We'll find out.

Bye Bye City of Bikes

It's our last day in Amsterdam. The air is damp and its suppose to rain all day. We're not too thrilled about that. We head out of here at 8:30 on a train overnight to Munich.