The gods of Cameraland...

Okay, I'm not really sure what I have done to piss the gods of Cameraland off, but they sure are making my life not so easy right now... flash back to November, when I was in Hong Kong with my pal from work, Allison. We went to visit the world's largest "outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha" (you know, as opposed the the world's largest "outdoor, STANDING, bronze Buddha"). We had a great time there, and I got some amazing photos of both the Buddha and the countryside. We got on the bus to return to the city, which was kind of mass chaos. My camera was in my pocket as we got onto the bus... and not in my pocket as we got off the bus. I was upset, but what could I do? Allison was kind enough to burn me a copy of the pictures she had taken, so I didn't lose a ton, but it was still a big bummer since I had just bought the camera in February for my trip to Thailand!

Back to present day... As you can see from my website, I've been really enjoying the city and taking lots of pictures to document my time here. This Saturday, I decided to explore a small town in Holland called Delft. This is a pretty popular place among tourists, as it houses a factory that still produces "Delft Blue" pottery, as it has been for over 500 years. I drove there (using my handy new navigation device, who I have fondly named "Helga"), with no problems. Okay, I take that back. It was when I arrived in the city that my driving debacle began. Helga told me to turn left down this street... to be more specific, a one-way street, with a canal on the left side and houses on the right. "No problem", I'm thinking, as I confidently guide my sporty Jetta (Mariah, if you are curious) onto the cobblestone street. BIG PROBLEM, when I realized that a significant ways down the street, someone was moving out of their house. There was a huge moving van there, blocking the entire street, so I had to BACK OUT on this tiny little street, with the canal (oh, and no fence to prevent you from going INTO the canal, mind you!), in order to return from the intersection that I had come from. Holy smokes, was I scared. I broke into a sweat, but managed to back up about a kilometer without: 1. Going into the canal, 2. Going into a house, 3. Running over any of the crazy bicycles that were quickly skirting by my car the entire time or 4. Running over any of the many tourists, who, like myself, were there to get their fill of Delftware on Saturday. Confident and back on the road, I decide, hey, I'm proving my skills as a Dutch driver, I'm going to parallel park on the side of a canal! Remember how there are no fences or anything to prevent your car from going into the canal? Well, parking was a little scary to say the least! But, I did it, and there was no problem! I have a picture of the proximity of my car to the canal, but it's not here because... I need to finish my story!

So, car parked, I wipe my brow and begin to take in the sights, sounds and delicious smells of Delft. Almost immediately, I pass a bakery selling "appelflappen", which are basically like fried apple pastries. I bought one of those and a sandwich, and went to a small park to eat and observe. After gobbling down my delicious delicacy, I started to walk around. I took a few pictures of the "Old Church" (something interesting here - many cities have the "Old Church" and the "New Church" - still figuring out how they name which one what... those aren't the ONLY churches in the city, after all!). Anyways... I'm trying to get all artsy with my nice new digital camera (the one that I bought to replace my stolen camera), and, all of the sudden, the camera will not turn on!!! I was SO PISSED! I started to have some seriously irrational thoughts, such as "Well, if I can't have pictures for my scrapbook, then I need to go home and wait until I have a camera that works to come back". Seriously... still a bit on the emotional side. Well, I decided that there wasn't much I could do, so I just kept walking around. I went to the "Prinsenhof", which is where Prince William was shot in the 1500's. There was a lot of interesting Dutch Art in this building, including some that was a little disturbing. Evidently Delft was one of the pioneers of anatomical studies, so there was a whole room showing human dissection from the 1600's. Yikes!

After that eye-opener, I decided to buy a disposable camera, because I was really bummed to not be capturing all the beautiful things I was seeing. It's kind of POS, but, we'll see how the pictures turn out. I climbed all the way to the top of the New Church, and got to see some amazing views of the city, including the huge IKEA. :)

Finally, I made my way to the Delft Pottery Factory. Since I can't post any pictures just yet, here is the website: http://www.royaldelft.com/. The artisans there are making the pottery now just like they were in the 1500's. It was pretty amazing to get to watch their process. It's all done by hand. As with any place you go to, at the end is a store, where you can buy real Delftware. Um, if you are really rich. I had in my mind that I was going to buy a "tulip vase". They are typical in the Netherlands, and are basically a big vase with a bunch of little spouts to put individual tulips into. So... a SMALL one was 350 Euros! Which is about $500! I settled for a knock-off plate, and happily made my way back to Amsterdam. :)

So, that was my adventure into Delft-land. As for the camera, I e-mailed Canon about it, and, since the warantee is in the US, I have to have it serviced in the US. It's going to be disposable cameras for a while, it appears. I'm totally bummed out.

One thing that made me really happy this weekend, though, was my first "e-date" with Sean. We both have web-cams, and, since it's been really hard to chat with the 9 hour time difference, we arranged to have an e-date for my Sunday morning/his Saturday night. It was so good to see him! We chatted for 2 hours, which passed like it was 15 minutes. He's going to come to visit in May for our one year anniversary, which I'm really excited about!