Tag Archives: europe

A Weekend in Amsterdam

Welcome to Amsterdam!  I took the Thalys train from Paris.  It was a quick, beautiful ride and there was free WiFi on the train, which I used to video chat with my parents as the weather outside went from nice and sunny to gloomy to torrential rain.

canals of Amsterdam

I went with my cousin, Tanguy from Paris and we stayed with other cousins in Amsterdam.  The weekend consisted of a lot of eating (obviously), catching up, hanging out with great aunts and uncles and exploring the weird and wonderful shops of the city.  I probably had pickled herring about 8 times, which works out to about 2-3 times a day.  We also visited the poffertjes stand a few times.  Poffertjes are like little mini pancakes slathered in butter and powdered sugar.  They are pronounced poferchers and they are incredible.  I love the language because it sounds like an alien language.  Luckily, almost everyone I needed to talk to spoke English perfectly.

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The Arsenale at the Biennale and the 4th day

The 4th day in Venice begins with sleeping in. Oh man oh man, another long day of art. So much art. The Arsenale is the old munitions depot of Venice. It’s basically a few huge buildings with loads and loads of art in them. On the way there we saw an awesome mobile fried fish kitchen on a boat. Hmmmm. Awesome. Pictures below.

So, the Arsenale: smashed mirrors, African villages, bread and bread, mechanical moons, cool benches, neon with mirrors (always cool), bird-feeder-chandeliers and much much more.  My favorite installation was a video piece made by two Catalan  filmmakers, David Bestue and Marc Vives which I found a pasted in below.  Enjoy.

We met our old friend Max, his wife and his new baby girl Margarita for drinks (Margarita did not drink) and then returned to Birraria for a late dinner.  Makin’ zucchini flowers for breakfast!