I obviously have some apologies to make to those of you following my blog (if there are any of you left). I found it to be harder and harder to get myself to write something, as it seems completely contrary to my internal commitment to live in the moment and… Okay, that’s a load of crap; really I’ve just been lazy and have had other things going on.

So to get back into the swing of things, I’m just going to give a brief update of the places I’ve been since my last post. This is going to be fast, so bear with me on this one and I’ll try to make future posts a little less surface.

My trip to Madrid seems like an incredibly long time ago. We saw the sights, went to a couple of bars, ate paella, and just walked around a lot. The city seemed big, young, and pretty energetic, and I’ve heard that its citizens sleep less than any other city in Europe. Seems about right.

A few weeks after that, my program took us to Normandy to see the beaches of the Allied landing, the American cemetery, and the D-Day museum in Caen. It was cold and overcast, which was appropriate for the WWII themed weekend, and pretty eerie seeing the rows of white crosses and standing on the sand where the Allied soldiers disembarked. In the end, though, most of us just ended up skipping stones or walking on the edge of the tide, which felt weirdly appropriate for inexplicable reasons.

Two weeks after that, a couple of friends and I went to Amsterdam for an extended weekend. We all crammed into a hotel room and spent the weekend wandering around the city, checking out the canals and trying to avoid the rain. The red light district there was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Red fluorescent lights illuminating street-level windows, red neon signs, and red reflectors lining the canals give the area a literal red glow, while prostitutes behind said windows sit on stools or stand and tap the glass or close the curtain when they have a customer. I’m probably adding more meaning to this than most guys would, but it felt wrong being there, walking down the canal checking out the women in the windows as if they were tourist attractions. But it was fascinating at the same time, seeing this whole scene which is usually so hidden in most places being openly displayed to pedestrians. I had a great time, for more reasons than I can mention here (just kidding, Mom), and loved the canals and museums and pancakes that the city had to offer.

So since I have more pictures and words than I thought I wanted to include, I’m going to talk about my spring break in my next post. Which is already written, so you definitely won’t have to wait another month to read it. Not that you were worried. Whoever this “you” is that I’m talking to. I’m going to stop.