eurotrip: theme of the week is orange.

six days of escorting thirty-three college students through rotterdam, amsterdam, utrecht, essen, köln, and hamburg (briefly) yields exhaustion, bus-lag. 

eleven hour overnight bus ride precludes piet blom's cubehouses, van nelle factory, koolhaas's kunsthal, heightened terrorist threat levels in all of europe (thanks for calling that one, america), actually getting to check into our hotel room, well-deserved thirty-minute hot shower, dinner of beef carpaccio, fried redfish with salad and a messload of potatoes. 

monday morning commuter hell, two tickets short (thank god for dustin), train to amsterdam, tram confusion, pretending to walk through the borneo / sporenburg development, best tomato soup ever at the hotel lloyd, actually walking through the borneo / sporenburg development. an afternoon of shoe shopping, looking for the bulldog, making a wrong turn and walking a literal complete circle around amsterdam, canal overload. 

utrecht is quaint: schröder house is smaller than expected, still amazing, de uithof university is massive than expected, calamari demands taco chasers, bought new emerald green suede oxfords that had been out of stock in two stores in amsterdam, dinner is best tomato soup ever (part two), steak in pepper sauce, walk through a park leads to midnight schawarma, best sleep in a while. 

unexpected indian food starts a cold day in ruhr valley industrial park, amazing circle couch in the red dot museum, coal factory remix, authentic germany food: ham with fried eggs and potatoes with sauerkraut, goulash soup, a shit-ton of bread, and mettwurst sausage. shots of whiskey on the steps of köln dom with dustin and students, accosted by gothic german teenyboppers peddling jello shots and crotchless thongs. what the hell.

a meditative morning at a rocket station in the middle of turnip fields, jumping fences, trespassing all over the siza pavilion, tadao ando's langen foundation is stoically beautiful, kilometer walk to insel hombroich, hiking through an de-landscaped sculpture garden, crazy brick pavilions, a minimalist lunch consists of bread and lard apparently. kolumba museum has some pretty spectacular wood, floating heads, too tired to give köln dom interior the attention it deserved. dinner is schnitzel and beer. beck's on the street, marking our territory, (pad)locks of love along the hohenzollernbrücke railroad bridge across the rhine, late-night mcdonald's hijinx, happy meal toys cost three euro in germany.

today was all bus. profuse napping throughout.