Little internetty things that make my day:

1. Checking Flickr obsessivly in the morning (standard ritual) only to witness 4 of my friends uploading vacation pictures at the same time. It’s like a windfall of little presents for me to peek at.

2. Random emails from my family or friends I haven’t heard from in a long time, popping up throughout the day in my various email inboxes.

3. Finding a new website with an awesome design detail that makes my creative gears creak and stutter and slowly grind into full motion. It’s always a great feeling to be motivated. I really need to rehaul my own website. I’d like to make it one page, and showcase my images a bit more (larger format most likely.)

4. Bloglines. I’m terribly addicted to at least 40 different blogs and bloglines has saved me from going crazy (not to mention wasting time checking every site to see if they’ve been updated.) I know rss feeders have been around for quite some time, but bloglines is certainly my favorite. From the easy layout to the super nifty notifier sitting in the bottom right corner of my Firefox browser – its features are pretty awesome.

I’m sure there are more, but I think that’s enough geeking out for this morning.

Neues Rathaus

More images from Munich, Germany

Neues Rathaus

More images from Munich, Germany

Time flew by and I wished we didn’t have to leave Amsterdam so soon. Maya told me I will probably say this about everywhere we go this trip, and I believe that, but there is a new spot in my heart specifically carved out for Amsterdam.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, it was dark, rainy, and cold. We couldn’t find our hostel (it was only marked by a sign if you were going in one direction) but after going back and forth we finally found it. Here’s a shot of it during the next day.

During our first day in Amsterdam, we met up with Maya’s former college roommate, Marijn and went out siteseeing. We met at the entrance of Vondelpark, a popular and quite beautiful city park.

From there, we checked out Rijksmuseum and hit up a canal boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam.

One night, be it Thursday or Friday – I can’t remember, we went to Paradiso, a club. The club is located inside a former catholic church. OOoo such sinning! We danced and had Heineken (which for the most part is cheaper than soda and water!)

The next day, Vijay, Umang, Adam, Maya and I pulled ourselves out of bed and became POWER TOURISTS. We purchased our discounted tickets at the hostel and checked out the Van Gogh Museum, the Heineken Brewery, and Anne Frank’s House.

The next day we woke up bright and early to catch a shuttle to the airport – next stop, Munich, Germany!

More images from my trip to Amsterdam can be found here.