Three days into our Great American Adventure, we're all hanging in there: still jet-lagging a bit (parents worse than kids, fortunately) and fighting off a communal chest cold (which preceded our travel to America but which has, unfortunately, gained the upper hand over our jet-lagged bodies)... but otherwise having a pretty good time. Our first visit to the Eastern Shore of Virginia has been very enjoyable -- and to make it even more memorable, I've finally been able to get my camera (the Canon 350D) back into action with a fully functioning lens! So I figured I'd try to post random images from our travels to each different location that we get to visit this summer. The pictures in this post are my "top six" from Virginia.

More than anything else, the greatest joy of our time in this part of the country has been the opportunity for Elliot and Olivia to play with their cousins (Marci's brother and his wife have an eight-year-old girl, a five-year-old boy, and a three-year-old boy -- so you can imagine the fun). I've probably got about 60 to 80 different shots of "cousins playing together" alone! But the top picture is one of my personal favorites.

We've also gotten to take in some of the local scenery -- with one of the highlights being our trip to Jaxon's: a general store in a nearby town with the motto, "If we don't have it, then you don't need it" (apparently, we didn't actually need post cards from the Eastern Shore!). Without a doubt, though, there was an interesting collection of items in the store which really lent itself to feeling like being back in time, in the era of the good ol' American general store). While we were there, I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a snapshot of Elliot wearing an official uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. I also especially enjoyed the visit to the local drug store, where a wisened older gentleman advised me of the best way to beat my chest cold: a shot-glass full of cough expectorant with two glasses of water and a cup of black coffee (turns out his drug-store directives weren't so helpful for the chest cold but were highly effective in snapping me out of my jet-lagged stupor for my second day in America).

We also got to celebrate a six-way "cousins' birthday party" -- since we don't typically get to celebrate birthdays together. Good times... Good times...

Cor has also recently figured out how to wave! It's super-cute because he's especially proud of himself when he successfully executes a waving maneuver.

Roaming around outside in the gorgeous May weather has also been great fun. Marci's brother's family own a lovely home in the rural Eastern Shore landscape. Wheat fields come right up to the edge of the backyard -- quite a radical departure from the Amsterdam streetscape that we're used to.

We also got some lovely portraits along the Chesapeake Bay coast around sunset on Tuesday evening. The portraits turned out great, but my favorite was actually a candid shot of Marci laughing with Olivia and Cor on the beach.

So those are my top six. If you'd like you can see more images on the Family Pictures section of the website...

Next stop: Orlando, Florida.

We initiated Cor to what's become a bit of an annual tradition with our family -- riding out to Holland's Flower Region, to take a look at the colorful fields stretching out miles and miles in every direction.  For some reason, Dutch people do not seem to get too excited about all the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.  It's considered a silly tourist activity.  Very few make a point to visit the fields at this time of the year.  Surprisingly few have ever witnessed the flower fields of their homeland first-hand.  It's almost to the point that even an extended glance out of the train window is considered shameful gawking.

But our family is not Dutch. :-)

So each year, for the last four years, we've gone out with all the other tourists to take pictures in the flower fields.  It's one of the most unique and beautiful experiences in the Netherlands, if you ask me.

Prior to this year, however, we had always gone out in the late morning / early afternoon time frame, enjoying a picnic lunch somewhere and all that good stuff.  But this year, we decided to travel out in the evening hours -- partly to take advantage of the softer, more golden sunlight that falls across the landscapes at this time of day, and partly to adapt to Cor's nap schedule and the general logisitical challenges of now being a family of five.

Unfortunately, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam, as dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of tour buses and other vehicles poured out of the Keukenhof -- apparently at its closing time.  Keukenhof is like the Disneyworld of flowers -- highly hyped, highly visited (by people from all corners of the globe), and highly priced.  We've been there before, and enjoyed it... until we discovered that simply driving through the open fields is actually nicer (and a heck of a lot cheaper).  But I had forgotten how much hassle the traffic there can be -- especially if you go during the "rush hour" (which we haven't in the last three years, but unintentionally did this evening).  It was ridiculous.  The situation actually made me start to understand the Dutch perspective on the flower/tourist industry in that part of the country at that time of the year.

We weren't able to get nearly as many photos as we have in previous years -- mostly due to the traffic thing, but also due to the family-of-five logistics thing.  But still, out of the pictures that we did get to take, there were a few keepers (as you can see from this post).  And all in all, we had a good time together.

Next time, we'll just have to remember to pack our tourist repellent. 

Amsterdam is not a city of superlatives. Oh, I'm sure the folks at the VVV or the "I amsterdam" campaign could work up some statistics that would show how Amsterdam is the biggest or best at something. But the fact of the matter is that Amsterdam is not an inherrently "grand" city. Beautiful? Yes. Interesting? Absolutely. But let's face it: Amsterdam is not a city built to impress.

The city's "illustrious antiquity" is not self-evident -- as it so clearly is
in Rome, or Athens, or Beijing. Rather, the oldest buildings in the city date
back to the end of the Middle Ages (though there aren't many that even go back this far). There is very little in the way of massive monuments -- like you'd find in Paris, or Washington, or Moscow -- celebrating the city's or the society's greatness. The tallest structures in Amsterdam are stubby office buildings and hotels, very practical and proper, and if you were to look down from the top of one of these "tall" buildings, you would see a very sporadically sprawled, mismatched, happenstance arrangement of architecture spanning the last five centuries. The labyrinthine avenues worming through the city -- cutting thin channels through buildings stacked four, five, or six stories tall, just about everywhere -- are certainly fascinating and intriguing... But they are not impressive.

Consider this:  Commission any ten people to buy you "the quintessential" postcard representing the city of Amsterdam, and I'd be surprised if you got more than two or three that were depicting the same scene.

As any true Amsterdammer knows, the strength of the city lies in its incomparable ordinariness in the midst of its incredible diversity. By looking at a collection of scattered samples of items that more-or-less fall within the same category, one gets a better idea of the city. Taking fifty portraits, if you will, to get a single impression of Amsterdam.  But even then, the impressions of the city are never complete. They are constantly evolving. Stereotypes and clichés and slogans must be brushed back like the dust and cobwebs of a forgotten attic -- and then, only then, by way of glimpses stolen through the chinks and cracks and hidden crannies of honest everyday acquaintance can one begin to know Amsterdam. Not completely -- never with truly divine omniscience -- but more intimately, and increasingly more meaningfully.

In order to see Amsterdam through the eyes and ears of Amsterdammers, one needs to examine the images and stories of the city, uncluttered, stripped of any presumed glamour and grandiosity. But because Amsterdam is a mystical and spiritual city, we cannot help but be awed and impressed. The everyday gives way to the ethereal. And the small slivers of humanity, grasped and glimpsed through the tiniest of ever-moving spaces, illuminate the true greatness of Amsterdam and the presence of God in the city.

What a magnificent spring evening to go to the park!  I'm still missing my nice camera (the lens is still in the shop), but with a pristine blue sky like that and the golden light of a setting sun -- just about any camera takes beautiful pictures.  Especially with such beautiful subject material to shoot!

Can you guess who just got a new pretend sword?  Elliot invested €3.50 of his allowance money, and I'd say he's already gotten a good return on his investment, for all the fun he's had pretending to be Peter, High King of Narnia (we just recently loaned the film from a friend, so he's even singing the movie's theme music as he acts out his glorious battle charges and coronation scenes).

I'm lost.  Like a ship without a wheel, a touch without a feel -- I can't believe it's real.

I've been missing my camera (my Canon 350D) this week.  The camera is still here with me, actually, but the lens is at the shop -- and thus, the camera is useless... We've still got our old Olympus point-and-shoot, so I really shouldn't complain, but I just feel like such a tourist now, taking pictures around town with the little camera.

I've really been enjoying the process of developing my skills in photography over the last six months or so.  Perhaps you haven't noticed this for yourself, but my pictures are often used as blog post when I don't have enough time to write something more complete.  And since I haven't been shooting as much over the last couple of weeks, I haven't been blogging as much over the last couple of weeks.  I'm lost...

Like Elliot, in the picture on the left, trying to figure out if he's standing on the Bredeweg or the Linnaeuskade in Amsterdam's Watergraafsmeer region.

I just ran across this picture, which was taken almost two months ago, and it made me smile... and I haven't posted anything for a couple of days... so I figured I'd share it with you.