Dios Mio Barcelona!

We had a really great five days in Barcelona. We walked 36 miles criss-crossing all over the city (according to my iPhone's pedometer). Our AirBnB was booked pretty last minute, so we ended up with a private bedroom/bathroom in a family apartment, and it worked out great. Our hosts were excellent. Their 18 month old daughter loved Bill, and they gave us lots of useful sightseeing tips. 

Our first evening, we took a good long look at the Sagrada Familia basilica while having drinks at a cafe across the street. La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece cathedral was started in 1882, but still isn't finished (estimated completion is 2026, in time for the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi's death). Bill had been here in 2004, but this was my first time seeing it and I have to say, as cathedrals go, I didn't love it. As our tour guide the next day said, though, "the outside will grow on you, but the inside doesn't have to". That was indeed my experience. The outside did grow on me once I knew more about the details and Gaudi's motivation (he was very inspired by nature). But the inside was really amazing. The giant columns look and feel like tree trunks that branch out to the ceiling. You feel like you're in a forest. And I don't know if we just got lucky with the beautiful sunshine that day, but the bright light allowed the stained glass to suffuse the cathedral with glowing colors. It was incredible. These pics don't do it justice. Hopefully we'll get to see it again someday when it's complete. Here is a link to a full set of picts from the Sagrada.

We took a train out of the city the next day to see a mountain monastery called Montserrat. What an incredible place. You can see why somebody thought it was a good place to feel close to God. We weren't able to hike around the mountain tops because it was raining, but we got a good feel for it by seeing the Virgin of Monserrat (a black Mary), and touring the abbey and museum. We took a funicular up and a cable car down from the mountain to get the full effect. That night, we got to see the famous "Magic Fountain" show in Barcelona. It's no Bellagio in Vegas, but it was a really nice water fountain show with colors, and tons of people came out for it. 

Little did we know that Saturday was Sant Jordi day (Saint George's day) in Catalonia, "the most romantic day of the year." It turned out to be a huge celebration, kind of similar to Valentine's except that everyone is out in the streets. Apparently, St. George slayed a dragon to save a princess, very romantic! There are rose vendors everywhere (a man must buy a single red rose for his lady so she can carry it around proudly all day), and book vendors everywhere (the ladies buy books for the men, and evidently HALF of the year's books are sold on that day!). We had a great time walking the full length of Las Ramblas with what felt like the entire city. Along the way, we saw a few more Gaudi-designed buildings, a statue of Columbus, and the waterfront.

Our last day in Barcelona, we headed up to Guell Park, which has great views of Barcelona.










Guell was a big supporter and financier of Gaudi's, so we saw more of Gaudi's work there as well. Then we headed back down to the Gothic Quarter and saw the Barcelona Cathedral and the Basilica of Santa Maria of del Mar. And then we managed to eat some paella. 

All in all, a fabulous visit to Barcelona. And the Spanish from all our trips down to Baja Mexico paid off and helped us navigate the city. Until next time, Adios!

Netherlands and Under-appreciated Engineering

Amsterdam is really lovely. I (Kenzi) just kept thinking how unintimidating it is. We never ran across any "bad" parts. The people are diverse and conscientious. The public transportation is amazing, and the city feels really clean (perhaps from the frequent rains). There are tulips and parks, and beautiful canals with bridges, and many OLD buildings. And so many bikes! Apparently, the Dutch have a reputation for being tolerant. Well, they tolerated a couple of bumbling American tourists graciously. Really, what more could you ask for in a city? 

We heard that Dutch people were the tallest in the world, but we had no idea they would be this tall!

We visited the:

• Anne Frank museum (humbling)
• Van Gogh museum (interesting)
• Royal Palace (how come we don't hear about the Dutch Royals like we hear about the British Royals?)
• Rembrandt house and museum (his sketches were really impressive)
• Canal boat ride (the Dutch are masterful water engineers)
• Dutch Resistance Museum (because every place in Europe was affected by WWII)
• Oude Kerk (old church, started in the 1300s, and now conveniently in the heart of the red light district)
• Molen van Sloten (a working windmill in Sloten)
• Keukenhof (TULIPS!!!!)
• Aalsmeer Flower Auction (check out the time lapse of the flower delivery)

Keukenhof had bazillions of tulips and a windmill too.

We took FAR too many photos of the beautiful flowers, so we'll just combine some here.

For our last day we rented a car to get out of the city. We saw the engineering feat called Maeslantkering (see Bill's engineering Afterword below), drove through Rotterdaam and The Hague, toured Kasteel de Haar (a restored castle that rich people used to party in), and visited a beach town called Zandvoort. 

Kasteel de Haar

We also visited at least four Albert Heijns (local grocery stores), and visited some multiple times, because if there's one thing the Judges CANNOT pass up in foreign countries, it's foreign grocery stores. We love wandering every single aisle, seeing what they have, how they package it, comparing it to what we have back home, using Google Translate to read food labels, and trying new things. We can and have entertained ourselves for hours in grocery stores. 

Bill looking for the perfect chocolate. 

Many of the buildings in Amsterdam appear to be leaning forward. Turns out they were built that way intentionally.  There's a hook/pulley at the top of each building so that people can move their furniture in through the windows rather than up the narrow spiral staircases. That way the furniture won't hit the building on the way up.

Buildings appear to lean forward a bit.This was taken from our canal boat ride.

Engineering Afterword by Bill

The Dutch are engineering on a massive scale to keep their feet dry

So, I wanted to point out that my dearest wife literally napped while I went through the small museum for the Maeslantkerring part of the massive Deltaworks project to keep Holland safe from floods. Kenzi did however manage to stay engaged through our tour of a functioning windmill. These two stops on our tour of Holland exemplify the ability of man to make the odds against the elements better through ingenuity.

The Dutch started reclaiming land from the sea in the 1600s by using windmills, they each produced the power of 20-30 horses and were able to pump water up and out of low lying areas. Environmental considerations aside, these windmills were the first glimmers of the industrial revolution which today means most us are no longer engaged in farming, no longer dying of horrible diseases before we're 30 and we're all walking around with a little box in our pocket that can tell us minute by minute what the Kardashians are up to. Here it is 400 years later and the Dutch are still 'milling' about below sea level and they haven't stopped working to improve their lot in life. Many examples of advances in engineering aren't very impressive to look at, denser and denser transistors on a chip don't really impress, but the Maeslantkering is a physically stunning, visible from space, example of engineering making lives better.

Day after day engineers are hard at work doing this same thing, making lives safer, more productive and enjoyable for everyone. They do get a paycheck for this but a little credit every now and then is worth while and hence this afterword. (Disclaimer, I do like to call myself an engineer.) 

Orange and Blue, Van Gogh Knew

A while back I (Bill) watched this video and was intrigued at how our emotions can be manipulated by colors and that filmmakers particularly concentrate on orange and blue. This week when I was browsing through the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam they made a big deal of how he used orange and blue in a halo around his head in this particular self portrait. This wasn't his own intuition but was his reaction and attempt to apply to the latest science on colors and physiological reactions to them, even still it's impressive that he was on to this in 1887.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our time in Amsterdam so far.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers. This is a print, although we did see the real thing which was fantastic for me.

Just outside of The Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum is the most visited in Amsterdam, huge building, with this fabulous garden just outside. The archway behind us is actually a passageway that might as well be a superhighway for bikes. Yes, it's absolutely true, all types and kinds use bikes to get everywhere, Kenzi saw a woman riding a bike while talking on a cell phone AND crying, they are a very talented folk.

Neat bit of sculpture that you can very physically interact with

A bit further on there was a massive set of letter spelling out "Iamsterdam." I climbed up between the "r"and "e" and would rate it a 5.3 on the YDS.

Stedelijk Museum, Modern Art or Plumbing?

The Stedelijk Museum of modern art is right next to the Van Gogh museum physically and metaphorically, as Van Gogh has a huge influence on 20th century art. Looks like a bathtub to me... 

The reason we chose Amsterdam in the first place: tulip season

So Mid April is peak season for tulips and they actually have a tulip festival in April where planters with tulips are all over the city, it really is wonderful.

Colors everywhere, lots of colorful food even

This is for 2 people! And you thought the Smart Car was small!

Typical houses on the canal front in Amsterdam.

Atlas showing strain under the weight of the world

Anne Frank, radiant despite the weight of knowing the hatred that was just beyond the windows. 

The Anne Frank house was humbling in a profound way. Here is a girl that at 13 encountered more adversity than I will in my lifetime.

Judges Leave the Nest

We are unemployed. We are homeless. You might think that since our lives have been dramatically simplified, we'd be relaxing, sleeping in, watching movies, and generally vegging out. And yet, we haven't. We've been surprisingly busy the last few weeks. What have we been up to? We moved out of our condo, and got the new tenants moved in. We moved 90% of our stuff to the hangar where our plane lives, and the other 10% to Jadyn (sister) and Ryan's house in Murrieta, CA. We've been doing projects around their house to try to earn our keep. We've been rubbing Jadyn's belly and talking to our in-utero nephew, Blake. We've been babysitting (well, teenage-sitting) for family in San Diego. Bill's been doing some kitesurfing at Tourmaline (check the link for some awesome drone footage of him kitesurfing). And we've been working through the details of getting my trachea resection surgery scheduled at Massachusetts General in Boston. 

I (Kenzi) have a troublesome trachea. The condition is called Idiopathic Subglottal Stenosis. It's very rare, occurs mostly in women, and the experts don't really know what causes it. Basically, my trachea likes to narrow which causes me breathing difficulties. At its worst, in 2010 when I was diagnosed, my trachea was narrowed down to 5mm wide.  A normal woman's trachea is 12-14mm wide. I'm definitely one of those people who would be dead if I lived a hundred or more years ago. For the last six years, I have regularly gone to UCSD in Hillcrest for balloon dilations of my trachea. When my doc heard about our round the world trip, she decided we need to get this fixed once and for all by the best of the best doctors in Boston. This news was a bit of a bummer at first because we'll lose at least two months of travel time for surgery recovery. But we are thinking that it will work out in the long run. We're hoping to do a lot of hiking (some at high altitude) on our trip, and hopefully this surgery will mean we can do so without any worrying about breathing trouble. 

Finally, yesterday, with the news that my surgery has been scheduled the first week of May, we were able to book our travel plans. And today we woke up at 2:45a.m. to fly from San Diego to Minneapolis, and then on to Amsterdam. Our world travels have FINALLY started. This is us at 5:00a.m. this morning. 

We'll be in Europe for 2.5 weeks before we head to Boston. The tulips are blooming in Holland so it seemed like a good place to start. We have the first week loosely planned, but after that, we'll be traveling on the fly. So stick with us and we'll show you some world travels through the Judges' eyes. 

Final note: I just feel I need some props for packing so lightly for several weeks abroad. This is good practice because we'll likely be backpacking later this year. Please get used to seeing us wear the same clothes every day.